Anti-Israel Student Activists Use Bogus AI-Generated Cases in Lawsuit Against Columbia, Barnard
“There was no intent to mislead the Court, and undersigned counsel accepts responsibility for the miscitations.”
This was not smart and the judge was not amused.
The College Fix reports:
Pro-Palestinian student activists use bogus A.I.-generated cases in lawsuit against Columbia, Barnard
Five pro-Palestinian student activists who sued Barnard College and Columbia University over their suspensions stemming from a protest last year were admonished by a judge for using faux A.I.-generated court cases to support their arguments.
The students’ suit, brought last December, was dismissed on “procedural grounds” early last month due to their lawyer allegedly missing a verification deadline.
But New York Supreme Court Judge Lyle Frank also warned the plaintiffs and their lawyer, Sami El Cherif, against using A.I. “in the courtroom,” the Columbia Spectator reports.
In his initial court petition, El Cherif cited a pair of bogus cases, Matter of McCormack v. LaHood and Matter of Ortiz v. Coughlin, which then were flagged by lawyers representing Barnard and Columbia (for example, irrelevant paternity matters were cited in the latter case).
El Sherif subsequently “withdrew the citations and wrote an apology letter to the court,” and apologized again in person during oral arguments.
“Petitioners sincerely regret these errors,” El Cherif wrote. “There was no intent to mislead the Court, and undersigned counsel accepts responsibility for the miscitations.”
Judge Frank said disciplining El Cherif “would not be necessary,” but in part of his ruling titled “A Caution on AI Hallucinations” he wrote “Given the recent explosive reach of AI in the legal field, it is incumbent on every party communicating with a court, but especially incumbent on attorneys, to ensure that any output generated by AI is verified and accurate.”
The 2025 pro-Palestinian protest that began this whole imbroglio involved an occupation of Columbia’s Butler Library by mask- and keffiyeh-wearing students, during which 78 ended up being arrested. The activists hung banners “renaming” the library “Basel Al-Araj Popular University.”
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Comments
Given the amount of publicity surrounding the use of bogus AI citations in court pleadings, it is inconceivable* that lawyers are still not verifying those citations. Any lawyer who allows bogus AI citations to be presented needs to be sanctioned in some way. A simple apology is no longer sufficient.
* Yes, it means what I think it means.
Any court case in which “Palestine” is central is based on a hallucination from the word go.
No discipline for the incompetent who tried to fool the court because … why exactly?
New Yawk court.
A surgeon who uses napkins picked up at Krogers in the OR would be subject to sanctions by the State Medical Board. Similarly, a lawyer who uses AI generated cases in a brief should be making a visit in front of the Bar Association. Normally I would expect the client to sue for malpractice here, but then, this is a client who knew from the get go that their case required this level of malpractice.
The lawyer should be disbarred and investigated for defrauding the court.
A judge scolding a lawyer is a form of sanction and it is significant.
But this goes very far beyond the normal courtroom misbehavior and should result in the lawyer never being permitted to practice again.
Freedom of speech has never meant freedom to lie to and mislead the court. This isn’t the case of “You the judge saw the facts this way I saw them this way” or “My client asserted this the other side asserted that and you found”
This is intentional fraud by a lawyer.
There are easy ways to verify cases thanks to very hard work to make cases as available for viewing as possible, the lawyers behavior is unfortgiveable.
El Cherif trying to get noticed for a position in the DSA or DNC.
“No intent to mislead the court…”. Famous last words….using fake court cases is the same as using plagiarized work (Claudine Gay, anyone?) or completely phony stories (Stephen Glass, anyone?), or faking minority credentials (Rachel Dolezal, Fauxcahontas Warren, Sasheen Littlefeather, among others).