Ethics in Brief: Oh, When Will They Ever Learn: Attorneys’ Continued Unverified Use of AI Garners Sanctions and Ethics Violations

By Charles Berwanger

Peter, Paul, and Mary had it right when they sang the soulful song: Where Have All the Flowers Gone – mankind simply does not learn from history.

For the last at least three years judicial opinions numbering upwards of several hundred, and continuing to increase, have sanctioned attorneys for using AI without performing citation checks resulting in citations of nonexistent decisions, quotation of language not appearing in existing decisions, and misrepresentations of the appeal record resulting in judicial frustration with the competence of counsel, the waste of resources, and the jeopardizing of the rights of clients.

This article discusses three of those recent decisions. They are appellate decisions issued by California Court of Appeal which are now seeing in appellate briefs the same use of AI hallucinated citations that generated many trial court sanctions orders.

Foundational to the discussion, are the Rules of Professional Ethics which the appellate tribunals found to be violated resulting in the ordered sanctions and also the sending of the resulting orders to the State Bar.

A common thread to those decisions is the underlying concept that “the fundamental rule of ethics – that of common honesty – without which the profession is worse than valueless in the place it holds in the administration of justice.” (Alkow v. State Bar “(1952) 38 Cal. 2d 257, 264.) The resulting sanctions are premised on Rule 3.1 which directs that (a) a lawyer shall not: (1) bring or continue an action, conduct a defense, assert a position in litigation, or take an appeal, without probable cause and for the purpose of harassing or maliciously injuring a person….”   They are also premised on Business and Professions Code section 6068 which mandates that “it is the duty of an attorney to do all the following:… (d) To employ, for the purpose of maintaining the causes confided to him or her those means only as are consistent with truth, and never to seek to mislead the judge or any judicial officer by an artifice or false statement of fact or law.”

Shayan v. Shakib, filed December 1, 2025, was certified for publication by the Court Appeal of the State of California, Second Appellate District, Division One, B337559, B339376. Appellant’s attorney, Fahim Farivar, filed a brief containing numerous fabricated quotations – that is, language falsely attributed to published decisions. In addition to the several violations of the Rules of Professional Conduct the court also discussed the applicability of Rules of Court, rule 8.204 requiring all assertions of law in a brief to be supported by citation to legal authority; and Code of Civil Procedure section 128.7 requiring “legal contentions” in a brief to be “warranted by existing law or by nonfrivolous argument for the extension, modification, or reversal of existing law or the establishment of new law.” Relying on fabricated legal authority is sanctionable and rendered the appeal frivolous.

The court rejected counsel’s contention that he reviewed the cases cited. That is because the court rules require counsel to present accurate, truthful representations of the facts and law to the court. This was not done. Counsel’s attempt to blame staff also was rejected. Finally, counsel’s assertion of innocence was rejected by the court concluding that under the facts an inference could properly be drawn that counsel knowingly and unreasonably violated the rules. The result: counsel was sanctioned $7500 based on counsel’s failure to accept responsibility for his conduct; was directed to file a corrected brief; and the court clerk was directed to serve a copy of the order on the State Bar.

In People v. Alverez (2025) 114 Cal. App. 5th, 1115 attorney LeRoy George Siddel, in representing defendant cited several decisions, one of which did not exist; and the others did not address issues for which they were cited. Counsel admitted to violating his professional duty by including a hallucinated citation and misrepresenting the law provided in another opinion. The court expressed special concern about the fact that the representation of a criminal defendant must be competent, and counsel’s performance did not satisfy this requirement. “Thus, criminal defense attorneys must make every effort to confirm the legal citations they supply exist and accurately reflect the law for which they are cited. That did not happen here.” (People v. Alvarez, supra, 114 Cal. App. 5th at 1119.) Counsel withdrew from the representation; the court imposed a sanction of $1500 to reimburse the court for a small portion of the time and resources expended on this issue; and the court clerk was directed to notify the State Bar of the sanction.

In Noland v. Land of the Free, L. P. (2025) 114 Cal. App. 5th, 426 the court described what turned an unremarkable appeal into a remarkable appeal based on “nearly all of the legal quotations in plaintiff’s opening brief, and many of the quotations in plaintiff’s reply brief, being fabricated. The court noted that the generation of fake legal authority by AI sources has been widely commented on by federal and out – of – state courts and reported by many media sources. The court discussing AI hallucinations appearing in briefs quoted various sources for the propositions that hallucinations are an issue that is becoming all too common”; “the number and regularity with which courts have been faced with hallucinations in court filings continues to rise”; and a recent article suggests that the problem of AI hallucinations is getting worse, not better, noting that OpenAI’s models hallucinate 30 to 50% of the time. It is a fundamental duty of attorneys to read the legal authorities they cite in appellate briefs. Finally, because counsel had expressed remorse for his actions, the court imposed a conservative sanction of $10,000; and directed the court clerk to provide the State Bar with a copy of the opinion.

The foregoing is a cautionary tale that AI may have its uses, but competent counsel must know what the limitations are and abide by them. In that regard, the State Bar released “Practical Guidance for the Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence in the Practice of Law in November 2023. Any user of AI should not only be familiar with such guidance but also local court rules which are being developed and promulgated to guide counsel in the use of AI.