Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, AI NEWS—Fifth Circuit sanctions attorney for using AI to draft a reply brief without independently verifying accuracy, (Feb 23, 2026)

By Brandi O. Brown, J.D.

“The hallucination problem has no end in sight, as AI’s tendency to fabricate results arises from the training and structures of AI programs.”

Last week, in a sharply worded opinion, the Fifth Circuit issued a sanctions decision regarding “an issue that has become central to the ongoing discussions of the relationship between law and technology: the use of artificial intelligence (‘AI’) in the drafting of legal documents.” The decision stems from actions taken by an attorney who, during the course of an appeal, filed a reply brief that contained multiple inaccurate and even fabricated case quotes, as well as inaccurate citations, and legal propositions that did not exist.

The court recounted the growing phenomenon of AI “hallucinations,” noting that modern tools can produce text that sounds authoritative but is untethered from reality. “The hallucination problem has no end in sight, as AI’s tendency to fabricate results arises from the training and structures of AI programs.” The court emphasized that lawyers may use AI, but only if they independently ensure every legal statement is true. That obligation, they said, is not new: longstanding rules—like Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 46 and the court’s inherent power—already require accuracy, diligence, and honesty.

Court previously declined to adopt AI rule. Indeed, the court noted that it had in Spring 2024, following a seminal case from the Southern District of New York (Mata v. Avianca) and other reports of AI hallucinations in court filings, appointed a three-judge AI Subcommittee to study the issue. The Subcommittee developed a proposed rule that would have required counsel and pro se litigants to certify either: (a) that no generative AI program was used to prepare any submitted document; or (b) if an AI program was used, that a human checked the AI-generated text for accuracy. Notice of Proposed Amendment to 5th Cir. R. 32.3 (Jan. 4, 2024). The court published the proposed rule on its website and asked for public comment. Many of the comments received reasoned that such a rule was unnecessary because existing rules such as Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 and Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 46(b)(1)(B) already impose an obligation on counsel to submit accurate information to courts. The Subcommittee recommended to the court that it decline to adopt the proposed rule, and the court followed that recommendation.

No plausible explanations. In this case, the attorney fell short on all fronts. The court determined she used AI to draft a substantial portion of her brief, failed to verify any of it, and then attempted to blame publicly available versions and summaries of cases, rather than disclose her use of AI. She did not provide any of the paraphrased summaries she claimed to have relied upon. “We have put tremendous effort into attempting to find where these summaries could be located and have been unable to find them,” the court noted.

Even when pressed, she provided the court with no credible explanation for the fabricated law or misstatements of fact. For example, “when asked about inaccurate assertions of record facts,” the court noted, she “provided no explanation of how ‘publicly available sources’ could have caused record facts to be inaccurate.” She did not admit to the use of AI in her initial show-cause response, and when asked directly, she did not explain the steps she had taken to verify the factual assertions in her brief. Her lack of candor was an apparent factor in the court’s decision. Indeed, the court noted that the attorney had been previously sanctioned in federal court for lack of candor.

Sanctioned. Finding her conduct “unbecoming a member of the bar,” the Fifth Circuit ordered the attorney to pay $2,500 in sanctions to the court within 30 days.

The case is Fletcher v. Experian Information Solutions, Inc., No. 25-20086.

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