A judge sentenced a lawyer from Colorado, to one year and one day in jail after he allegedly used case law he found on ChatGPT, to draft a motion in a May civil dispute.
A Colorado attorney who used an AI chatbot to prepare a legal document has been suspended for a year.
Zachariah Crabill, the Colorado attorney was sentenced to one year and one day in jail by a judge after he reportedly used case law he discovered on ChatGPT, an AI platform, to draft a motion in a May civil dispute. Fowllowing while, the AI platform generated false and imaginary cases that caused subsequent issues.
It is alleged that after filing the motion, Crabill neglected to notify the court and the judge about the existence of the false instances. Additionally, Crabill did not back down from the motion either.
In a ruling, it was mentioned that when the judge questioned Crabill about potential errors, Crabill blamed a legal intern for the faults. He then explained in an affidavit he filed six days after the hearing that he did in fact use the platform to craft the motion.
The presiding judge pointed out that Crabill had broken a number of the Rules of Professional Conduct established by the Colorado Bar Association. The judge clarified that the remaining year's suspension will be waived if he successfully completes a 90-day suspension and the two years of probation that follow.
