K&L Gates and Ellis George pay $31,100 over AI-made citations

In an insurance lawsuit against State Farm, a lawyer at Ellis George used AI tools to draft an outline for a brief. Lawyers at K&L Gates put it into the filing without checking it. About nine of the brief's 27 citations were wrong, and at least two cited authorities did not exist. Several quotes credited to court rulings were made up. When the special master flagged two bad citations, the lawyers refiled with only those two removed. Retired Magistrate Judge Michael Wilner, acting as special master, struck the brief and barred further discovery on the issue it argued. He ordered the two firms to pay the defense $31,100. He wrote that the AI research had "affirmatively misled me."