Leiske v. Kidd

What the court wrote

Verbatim from the court's document (public domain). Ellipses mark omitted text; nothing is paraphrased.

GenAI offers a powerful tool to streamline legal practice and assist in advocacy. Using GenAI in preparing court filings is “not inherently problematic”—provided the attorney (or litigant) carefully verifies the accuracy of the output. Here, counsel acknowledges that the GenAI output was not verified before the Answering Brief was filed.

The submission of hallucinated legal propositions raises an inference of a Rule 11(b) violation, requiring counsel to show cause why sanctions should not issue. A fictitious citation is not “existing law.” The duty of candor to the court, and the obligation to conduct a reasonable inquiry under Rule 11, are nondelegable. Counsel cannot discharge those obligations by relying on a paralegal, much less on an artificial intelligence program.

Here, the concerns raised by the initial filing were compounded by counsel’s response after the errors were identified. In correcting the Answering Brief, counsel merely deleted quotation marks while preserving the fabricated legal synthesis. Additionally, counsel’s assertion that parties should meet and confer before alerting the court to GenAI errors misstates the purpose of that requirement. The meet-and-confer requirement is designed to facilitate the resolution of disputes among parties. There is nothing to negotiate or compromise when an attorney submits false citations to a tribunal, and opposing counsel is justified in bringing such misrepresentations directly to the court’s attention.

Authorities cited in the passage: Court of Chancery Rule 11(b) · An v. Archblock, Inc., 2025 WL 1024661 (Del. Ch. Apr. 5, 2025) · Lexos Media IP LLC v. Overstock.com, Inc., 2026 WL 265581 (D. Kan. Feb. 2, 2026) · Johnson v. Dunn, 792 F. Supp. 3d 1241 (N.D. Ala. 2025) · Mata v. Avianca, Inc., 678 F. Supp. 3d 443 (S.D.N.Y. 2023)