Michael Cohen Lawyer's Citing of Fictional Case Raises ChatGPT Suspicions

A lawyer for Michael Cohen, the one time fixer and attorney for Donald Trump, has been accused of citing non-existent court cases in legal filings after using artificial intelligence program ChatGPT for research.

David M. Schwartz, who is representing Cohen as he seeks to end his supervised release early after he was jailed for lying to Congress, is alleged to have included three fake rulings in November which showed there was precedent for U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit making such a move.

However, in a written response, New York U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman said that it appears that "none of these cases exist." Furman told Schwartz that he must provide copies of the three cited decisions to the court by December 19, or face sanctions.

Experts have now accused Schwartz of using AI to research cases while noting something similar occurred earlier this year involving a lawyer representing a man who was suing the airline Avianca.

One such expert, Joe Patrice, senior editor at Above the Law with degrees in economics and political science from the University of Oregon and a J.D. from the NYU School of Law, wrote in a column for the site that Schwartz's filings in Cohen's case has "all the hallmarks of a hallucinating AI search using an off-the-rack product like ChatGPT instead of one specifically tailored to provide legal results."

Reporter Matthew Russell Lee posted on X, formerly Twitter, that "it seems Michael Cohen's lawyer or his AI cited non-existent cases" in his bid to end supervised release.

Cohen and Schwartz have been contacted for comment via email.

Furman did not specifically accuse Schwartz of using ChatGPT in his legal filings, but noted there is precedent to impose sanctions against lawyers found "citing non-existent cases to the Court" while referencing the lawsuit involving Avianca where the AI tool was used.

In May, lawyer Steven Schwartz, no relation, was forced to apologize after he was found to have used ChatGPT for research and ended up citing three court non-existent court decisions to back up his client's arguments. The suit involved Roberto Mata suing Avianca over claims he was injured when a metal serving cart hit his knee during August 2019 flight from El Salvador to New York.

Schwartz then submitted a brief which detailed several other examples where similar suits have been filed after the airline attempted to have the case thrown out. Three of the cited cases—Martinez v. Delta Air Lines, Zicherman v. Korean Air Lines and Varghese v. China Southern Airlines—were falsely attributed by ChatGPT and not real court decisions, reported The New York Times.

In a subsequent affidavit, Schwartz said that he had never used ChatGPT before so was "unaware of the possibility that its content could be false" telling Judge Kevin Castel that he "deeply regrets" using the AI tool.

Schwartz was later sanctioned and ordered to pay a $5,000 fine, along with fellow attorney Peter LoDuca.

"Many harms flow from the submission of fake opinions. The opposing party wastes time and money in exposing the deception," Castel wrote in a June opinion. "The opposing party wastes time and money in exposing the deception. The Court's time is taken from other important endeavors. The client may be deprived of arguments based on authentic judicial precedents."

In 2018, Cohen was sentenced to three years, most if which he spent in home confinement, after he pleaded guilty to federal tax crimes, lying to Congress and to campaign finance violations in relation to hush money payments paid to adult film actress Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal to keep alleged affairs between them and Trump a secret ahead of the 2016 election.

Cohen was told he must remain under three years of supervised release after his custodial sentence ended.