How to Check an AI-Drafted Brief for Fake Citations Before You File

Why This Matters Now

In Mata v. Avianca, Inc. (S.D.N.Y. 2023), lawyers filed a brief citing cases that ChatGPT had made up. When the court could not find them, the lawyers were sanctioned and ordered to pay a $5,000 penalty. Courts have since sanctioned lawyers in other cases for the same failure, and some judges now require a certification about AI use in filings.

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11(b)(2) certifies that the legal contentions in a filing are warranted by existing law. That certification does not change because a tool wrote the first draft.

A Cite-Check Workflow That Catches AI Errors

Treat every authority in an AI-drafted document as unverified until a person has read it:

• Pull every case, statute and rule from an authoritative source, such as Westlaw, Lexis, an official reporter or the court's own website. If it cannot be found, it does not go in the brief.
• Read the cited page. Confirm the case says what the brief says it says, not just that it exists.
• Check every quotation word for word against the source.
• Check subsequent history and negative treatment, so you are not relying on overruled or reversed law.
• Verify the reporter, volume, page, pin cite, court and year. AI tools often get a real case's details slightly wrong.
• Record what was checked, by whom and when, and keep the report in the file.

Common AI Citation Errors

The last two are the easiest to miss, because the case exists and looks right at a glance.

• A case that does not exist, with a realistic name and citation.
• A real case cited for a proposition it does not support.
• A quotation that appears nowhere in the opinion.
• The right case with the wrong year, volume or court.
• Authority that has since been reversed or overruled.

Keep Using AI, With a Second Reader

The answer is not to stop using AI. ABA Formal Opinion 512 permits it, provided lawyers understand the tools, protect client information and supervise the output. The practical safeguard is a second reader, a person who did not draft the brief, who checks every authority before filing.

That is the work our cite-checking service does overnight: every authority pulled and read, fabricated or misdescribed citations flagged, quotations checked, history noted and a written report for your file.