New Mexico Supreme Court Holds Lawyer in Contempt Over ChatGPT Brief With Fabricated Testimony
New Mexico’s top court held a lawyer in contempt for filing a ChatGPT-generated brief with fabricated testimony and referred him to a disciplinary board.
In a Wednesday order, the court said Aarons “admitted to the Court that he did not verify the factual claims and legal authority in his AI-generated brief before signing it and filing it with the Court, and that he did not inform his client of this failure or that the brief in chief contained multiple factual and legal misrepresentations.” The finding placed the lawyer in direct contempt, according to the report.
Aarons has been a criminal defense lawyer in New Mexico for more than 40 years. He was hired by family members of a defendant to appeal a murder conviction. His now-former client, Oscar Renee Sandoval, was sentenced to life in prison in February 2025 after being convicted of killing Shiereen Al-Jibury, his partner and the mother of his children.
The Supreme Court’s order referred the matter to a disciplinary board, meaning further proceedings will follow. The court’s conclusion focused on Aarons’s failure to verify the AI-generated brief and his failure to tell his client about the errors, Ars Technica reported.