Furious Judge Cancels Entire Trial After Finding Out Lawyers on Both Sides Used AI

Lawyers just can’t stop being caught using AI chatbots, polluting their filings with hallucinated citations that infuriate judges when they’re caught. Even prestigious law firms are being humiliated, with some perpetrators getting slapped with fines and facing discipline from the Bar.

In a particularly egregious reminder of just how widespread the problem has become, a United States district judge in Mississippi found out that lawyers from both sides of a recent case had used AI. As 404 Media reports, Northern District of Mississippi judge Sharion Aycock berated everybody involved in a sanctions order, ultimately fining them, canceling the trial, and barring half of them from appearing in the district’s court for two years.

“This case presents the Court with an unusual scenario — attorneys for both litigants engaged in similar sanctionable conduct,” she wrote. “This court is yet again ‘burdened with addressing AI hallucinations court filings.'”

Lawyer Rob Freund first spotted the gaffe, calling it a “comedy of AI errors,” in a tweet.

The case involved four lawyers total, who were fighting over unpaid legal fees. Two of them represented plaintiff and lawyer Tom Withers, while the other two represented the city of Aberdeen, Mississippi. Withers brought a “single breach of contract claim against the city,” per Aycock.

But the court quickly determined that filings from both parties “contained hallucinatory citations.”

In a January 20 hearing, a lawyer representing Withers named Kathryn Williams “admitted to using an AI tool to conduct legal research,” while another lawyer representing the city, Kathleen Wilson, “admitted to using generative AI to draft her response filing,” according to Aycock.

“Neither of them verified the legal authority output by AI before filing their briefs,” she wrote, adding that “each of the attorneys expressed embarrassment and apologized to the Court.”

Wiliams and Wilson have since been ordered to pay fines ranging from $1,000 to $3,500. Both were barred from appearing before any case in the local Northern District of Mississippi for two years. All four lawyers involved were disqualified from participating in the case any further.

Worse yet, Aycock revealed that Wilson had attempted to argue that she was “unaware that AI could produce hallucinated cases and explained that she did not even know what a hallucinated case was.”

“The Court finds that explanation to be insufficient and incredulous,” the judge wrote.

Williams also attempted to absolve herself, arguing that the “in-house” AI research tool she used wasn’t supposed to hallucinate cases either, an excuse that didn’t sit much better with the judge, either.

In short, it’s a particularly glaring reminder how often lawyers are resorting to use AI, resulting in chaos in the courtroom. According to a 2025 report, hallucinations remain pervasive in filings — easily avoidable errors that are bogging down legal proceedings and eroding trust.

More on lawyers and AI: Prestigious Wall Street Law Firm Humiliated When Its AI Use Is Discovered in Court

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