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ARTICLE · 15 MAY 2025

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Fake Legal Authorities – AI Hallucination Or Professional Negligence?

Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner
Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner
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Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner

Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner

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In the recent Canadian case of Ko v Li (2025 ONSC 2766) , the lawyer involved faced contempt of court sanctions for submitting and relying on cases that did not exist.

GlobalTechnology

Summary

Artificial intelligence ("AI") has the potential to make significant changes to various aspects of the practice of law. It is possible that many lawyers will incorporate AI in doing legal work, one way or the other and to some degree or other, in the foreseeable future.

However, while AI is a powerful tool at lawyers' disposal, work generated by AI can contain errors, and AI has the potential to "hallucinate", i.e. make up false information or something that does not in fact exist.

In two recent court cases in Canada and the UK, the lawyers submitted to the courts case authorities that did not exist, leading the other side's lawyers and the court to suspect that those cases had been (mis-)generated by the use of AI.

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