Judge finds lawyers may have used AI to source bogus citations

A law firm faces a possible investigation by the Legal Practice Council (LPC) for allegedly using Google and artificial intelligence (AI) in court proceedings to source what were non-existent legal citations.

Pietermaritzburg-based Surendra Singh & Associates has also been ordered to pay the costs of two court hearings in September last year during which high court Judge Elsje-Marié Bezuidenhout interrogated its court documents and references to case law.

After hearing submissions and conducting her own research, the judge concluded that “while the real source of the authorities quoted remain unknown” it was likely the firm had relied on AI technology, which was “irresponsible and downright unprofessional”.

The law firm was representing controversial KwaZulu-Natal politician Philani Godfrey Mavundla. Mavundla was elected mayor of Umvoti last year but later suspended, a decision he claims was taken at an “unlawful meeting” of the council.

While Mavundla secured an interim interdict against the Umvoti local municipality, Bezuidenhout later discharged the interdict and rescinded the order.

Mavundla then applied for leave to appeal her ruling. In that application his lawyers cited various “case authorities” to support their submissions that the judge had been wrong in law in some of her findings.

Bezuidenhout dismissed the application for leave to appeal and directed that her judgment be sent to the LPC for possible further action.

In her judgment refusing leave to appeal, which was handed down on January 8, Bezuidenhout said Mavundla’s counsel, S Pillay (who was briefed by the law firm) had, in written submissions and argument, referred to several cases.

Bezuidenhout said that initially one in particular had concerned her. She could find no such case in any of the official law reports. She asked two law researchers at the court to peruse the notice of appeal and to provide her with information of all the cited cases.

‘Serious concerns’

“Of the nine cases referred to and cited, only two could be found to exist, albeit that the citation of one was incorrect,” the judge said. “I had serious concerns,” she added.

Pillay responded that she had been provided with the references by an “articled clerk” and that she had not had sight of the cases as she was “overbooked” and under a lot of pressure.

It then came to light that the notice of appeal had been drafted by the clerk, and Bezuidenhout directed that the clerk come to court to explain herself.

“I asked her [the clerk] if she had by any chance used an artificial intelligence application such as ChatGPT but she denied having done so,” Bezuidenhout said.

The judge said she then stood the matter down twice to enable Mavundla’s attorneys to go to the court library and retrieve the cases.

When Singh appeared before her again on September 25, he indicated that as an “elderly practitioner” (which the judge said she took to possibly meaning technologically challenged), he had some difficulty in obtaining the cases, but had tried his best to do so using Google.

He complained that this clerk had been put under “uncalled for duress” by having to appear in court.

In her judgment, Bezuidenhout described all the cases offered by the attorneys, noting that many did not exist, some had incorrect citations and those that did exist had no bearing on the case.

She said Singh had suggested that the advocate for the respondent (the MEC for department of co-operative governance & traditional affairs) was equally to blame because he hadn’t checked the citations either.

Bezuidenhout said she had “serious doubts” about the correctness and truthfulness of the clerk’s contention that she found the citations in law journals and that raised questions about her future legal career.

“An inordinate amount of legal and judicial resources were spent to find the authorities referred to in court,” she said.

A “brief experiment” of putting just two of the citations into ChatGPT had immediately illustrated the unreliability of it as a source of information and legal research, Bezuidenhout said.

Had Pillay checked the authorities before coming to court she would have denounced any reliance on the cases.

Bezuidenhout dismissed the application for leave to appeal and directed that her judgment be sent to the LPC for possible further action.

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