Incident Tracker / United States (state)
In the Matter of Janelle Melissa Lewis, an attorney and counselor-at-law
·Supreme Court of New York, Appellate Division, First Department·US-STATESuspensionprovisional
On 2026-05-14, in In the Matter of Janelle Melissa Lewis, an attorney and counselor-at-law, New York's First Department suspended the attorney for three months and imposed a $1,500 sanction for filing an AI-hallucinated judicial-order draft. Counsel filed a brief using numerous nonexistent or hallucinated authorities.
- Court
- Supreme Court of New York, Appellate Division, First Department
- Date
- 2026-05-14
- Who used the AI
- Lawyer
- AI tool
- ChatGPT
- Conduct
- The disciplinary decision described an underlying filing drafted with ChatGPT or similar AI that contained numerous nonexistent authorities. The court imposed a suspension.
- Outcome
- Suspension
- Penalty
- No monetary penalty recorded
- Regulatory outcome
- No separate regulatory disposition recorded
- Status
- Provisional — written by the court-decisions pipeline, awaiting the editor
- Last checked
- 2026-09-07
Primary sources for this incident
Related regulation records for this incident
No related regulation record has been linked to this incident yet.
Similar incidents on the record
- State ex rel. Oklahoma Bar Association v. Reeves, 2026 OK 372026-05-27 · Supreme Court of Oklahoma · WarningThe Oklahoma Supreme Court publicly reprimanded attorney Matthew Reeves under reciprocal-discipline rules after he admitted using ChatGPT to fabricate five citations in federal filings in Johnson v. Dunn — conduct alrea…
- State v. Coleman, 2026-Ohio-965 (Ohio Ct. App., 11th Dist.)2026-03-20 · Ohio Court of Appeals, Eleventh Appellate District · SanctionsAn Ohio appellate court imposed a $2,000 sanction on a criminal-appeal attorney, credited in full by his earlier settlement payment. It also removed him as counsel, struck his reopening application and referred him to d…
- Mezu v. Mezu (Md. App. Ct. 2025), No. 361 Sept. Term 20252025-10-29 · Appellate Court of Maryland · Regulatory referralMaryland's intermediate appellate court referred an attorney to the state Attorney Grievance Commission after his client's brief cited multiple fictitious ChatGPT-generated cases and he conceded he routinely did not rea…
- Robert Dastou v. Kathryn Holmes, No. 2381CV02212 (Mass. Super. Ct.)2025-07-16 · Massachusetts Superior Court · SanctionsA Massachusetts Superior Court sanctioned a defense attorney who used ChatGPT to 'format' filings, producing motions in limine and jury instructions riddled with hallucinated cases, a fake quotation, and a fictitious le…
Cite this record
SafeLegalAI Global Legal AI Incident Tracker, “In the Matter of Janelle Melissa Lewis, an attorney and counselor-at-law”, safelegalai.com/tracker/in-the-matter-of-janelle-melissa-lewis-an-attorney-and-counselor-at-law (accessed 2026-10-07). Data: CC BY 4.0.