Share on LinkedInShare on LinkedIn

ARTICLE · 19 MAY 2025

The Perils Of Using AI (As Learned By Lawyers Representing Anthropic)

Boies Schiller Flexner LLP
Boies Schiller Flexner LLP
Contributor
Boies Schiller Flexner LLP

Boies Schiller Flexner LLP

Boies Schiller Flexner is a firm of internationally recognized trial lawyers, crisis managers, and...

View firm profile
Explore more from Boies Schiller Flexner LLP

Anthropic is one of the world's leading AI companies through its LLM Claude. Latham & Watkins is one of the world's leading law firms. Mix them together, and you end up with today's latest cautionary tale of over-reliance on AI by lawyers.

United StatesTechnology
David L.  Simons
David L. Simons

Anthropic is one of the world's leading AI companies through its LLM Claude. Latham & Watkins is one of the world's leading law firms. Mix them together, and you end up with today's latest cautionary tale of over-reliance on AI by lawyers. While representing Anthropic in one of many pending cases challenging AI companies' use of copyrighted materials, Latham apparently relied on Claude to create citations for a report submitted by its expert. Unfortunately, Claude hallucinated the citations, leading Latham and the expert to cite a nonexistent academic article. After the music publishers suing Anthropic noticed the invented citation, Latham was forced to cop to the error, submitting a declaration stating that while there was a real report their expert relied upon, Claude created a fake citation rather than providing an accurate one. Oops!

As AI continues to proliferate, I will repeat my mantra of "don't trust and definitely verify" every output it produces. With my BSF colleagues, I am litigating several cases against other AI companies, and you can be sure we will check every citation to make sure Llama or ChatGPT aren't trying to pull a fast one.

1626448.jpg

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.

See more popular content from