The 14-page motion looked like any standard court filing in a civil lawsuit. Filed in April in San Diego Superior Court, attorneys defending a local company were making a routine request for a judge to authorize additional expert witnesses in a vehicle collision injury case.

But on the sixth page of the motion, the attorneys cited legal authority from a case that does not exist — it was hallucinated by artificial intelligence.

RELATED: Stanford AI expert’s credibility shattered by fake, AI-created sources: judge

A San Diego judge wrote in October that she was “deeply troubled” by the conduct of the company’s civil defense attorneys. She found they had filed multiple documents containing AI hallucinations, including citations to non-existent cases, fake quotes from real cases and inaccurate citations to real but irrelevant legal authorities.

That is one of at least two known San Diego cases that are part of a troubling trend of attorneys abusing or misusing AI, especially generative AI, a powerful technology that can at times fabricate information with no basis in reality.

But even as legal watchdog groups have documented hundreds of AI hallucination cases in the U.S. and around the world, legal experts and attorneys say those cases are rare, arguing that AI is an important tool being put to good use throughout the legal profession, helping lawyers research case law, analyze evidence, draft contracts and complete any number of rote tasks.

“We can’t just ignore generative AI, we have to become experts in the use so that we can avoid issues … where hallucinated case law gets into final documents,” Bryan McWhorter, a patent attorney and partner at the firm Knobbe Martens, said in an interview. “But I think when leveraged correctly, generative AI is frankly a power tool. It’s going to allow me to produce higher-quality work product in less time and deliver that value to clients.”

RELATED: California issues historic fine over lawyer’s ChatGPT fabrications

McWhorter recently argued that AI cannot now and likely never will be able to replace human legal analysis. That’s a view shared by James Cooper, a professor at California Western School of Law in downtown San Diego and co-author of the book “A Short & Happy Guide to Artificial Intelligence for Lawyers.”

“It complements all our skill sets,” Cooper said. “(But) there still needs to be a human in the loop.”

Cooper said there will always be subtlety in fact-finding and questioning people “that robots don’t understand … AI tools can’t fully engage with the nuance of humankind.”

Even so, Cooper is concerned that the use of AI in the legal field may be advancing too rapidly, and he hopes attorneys and firms are implementing safeguards that lawmakers and regulators have not.

“We’re at a juncture now where the technology is far outpacing our ability to regulate it, both as a legal profession but also in the real world, in a non-legal context,” Cooper said. “… We don’t know yet where to put the guardrails.”

‘Risks are no different’

As the use of AI has exploded in recent years, legal organizations have grappled with what sort of guidelines and policies to put in place to ensure that attorneys who use the technology do so ethically and responsibly. That can look different for a patent lawyer such as McWhorter and attorneys who litigate criminal and civil cases before judges, though the basic principles are largely the same.

“Broadly speaking, (the) risks are no different than we’ve always had in the industry, which is we must produce work that is 100% accurate and maintains all of our ethical obligations regarding client confidentiality,” McWhorter said.

For courtroom litigators, a federal judge in New York helped set the standard for the use of the technology in June 2023 while presiding over a case in which attorneys filed documents containing AI hallucinations. He wrote that there is “nothing inherently improper about using a reliable artificial intelligence tool for assistance,” but also noted that existing rules required that attorneys ensure the accuracy of every filing.

RELATED: Chatbot dreams generate AI nightmares for Bay Area lawyers

That has been the theme of most court opinions and bar association guidelines issued since then.

“Simply stated, no brief, pleading, motion, or any other paper filed in any court should contain any citations — whether provided by generative AI or any other source — that the attorney responsible for submitting the pleading has not personally read and verified,” wrote a panel of judges from California’s Second Appellate District.

The judges said the September opinion was the first by a California court to address “the generation of fake legal authority by AI sources” and should double as a warning for all attorneys in the state.

The American Bar Association and California State Bar have issued similar guidelines that AI cannot replace the judgment of trained lawyers and that attorneys should not become overly reliant on the technology.

Cooper, McWhorter and organizations such as the ABA all agree that there is a long list of legitimate uses of AI technology in the law. Much of it is geared toward helping summarize and analyze large data sets, while other tools can help be a middle step in crafting writing.

“The best analogy is we are creating the bones of the strategy, generative AI is adding the first-pass flesh onto those bones and then we’re going back and sculpting it into the final creation,” McWhorter said. “It’s really an intermediary in the process; it’s neither a beginning nor an end.”

‘Erodes trust in the legal profession’

Thus far, the most obvious and visible risk that has emerged in the use of AI in legal work is that of hallucinations. Several watchdog groups have been tracking cases in which court filings have contained AI hallucinations.

While the databases show that many such instances involve pro se litigants, or non-attorneys representing themselves, hundreds of licensed attorneys have also been sanctioned, reprimanded or otherwise caught submitting filings containing AI hallucinations, according to one such database compiled by attorney and researcher Damien Charlotin. His database only tracks cases in which a court has explicitly found or implied that a party relied on hallucinated content.

Charlotin’s database includes three cases in which U.S. judges were found to have written orders or opinions containing AI hallucinations. Meanwhile, the New York Times recently reported that a district attorney in Northern California has been accused of filing briefs containing mistakes typical of AI, one of the first known cases involving suspicions of prosecutorial misuse of the technology.

So far in San Diego, there are two known cases involving court documents containing AI hallucinations.

On Oct. 2, a panel of judges from the California Court of Appeals’ 4th Appellate District sanctioned longtime San Diego criminal defense attorney George Siddell, finding that he violated the Rules of Professional Conduct. They ordered him to pay $1,500 as part of the sanction.

A member of the California State Bar since 1971, Siddell admitted to filing a motion in a client’s criminal appeal that contained a citation to a case that doesn’t exist, a fake quote from a real case and two citations to cases that did not address the issues for which they were cited, according to a published appellate opinion. Siddell declined to comment for this story.

The judges wrote that Siddell’s conduct, when compared to similar conduct by attorneys in civil matters, was “particularly disturbing because it involves the rights of a criminal defendant, who is entitled to due process … and representation by competent counsel.”

The next day, San Diego Superior Court Judge Carolyn Caietti ruled that two attorneys from Tyson & Mendes, a national firm headquartered in San Diego, had filed multiple documents containing AI hallucinations in the case defending the local company in the auto injury lawsuit.

A Tyson & Mendes partner wrote in a declaration prior to the ruling that he took responsibility for the mistakes, though he blamed the errors on a younger associate attorney who he said “neglected to confirm the accuracy of certain case citations.”

In her own declaration, the associate attorney took responsibility and wrote that she was fired from the firm “as a direct result of my actions and conduct in this case.”

In a statement provided by Tyson & Mendes, the firm said in part: “As the Court in this case noted, we accept responsibility for our obligation to present the highest quality work product to the Court. We affirm this responsibility, even and especially in the face of technological transformation.”

The firm also added a lengthy explanation about how it is endeavoring to be a leader in the use of AI in the legal industry.

“As the practice of law continues to evolve through new challenges, opportunities, and technologies, we must also continue to hold ourselves accountable through introspection and transparency,” the firm said in its statement. “Tyson & Mendes remains steadfast in our commitment to our clients, our industry, and our profession to leverage the transformative power of AI and new technologies with keen professional and ethical judgment, ongoing education, and agility.”

Caietti did not ultimately sanction either attorney, though her decision was based on procedural issues rather than their conduct.

“Notwithstanding the denial on procedural grounds, the Court is deeply troubled by the conduct of Defense counsel,” Caietti wrote. “… All of this conduct is contrary to the rules of professional responsibility and is the type of conduct that erodes trust in the legal profession … This is hopefully an experience that will never be repeated by the attorneys involved in this matter, let alone others in the profession.”

Client confidentiality

Since AI learns from the data fed to it by its users, attorneys must also take care that confidential client information is not used to train AI models and that it does not inadvertently become public.

For patent attorneys such as McWhorter, those risks revolve around business interests and market competition. Other areas of the law — Cooper mentioned due process and evidentiary issues, as examples — could implicate constitutional rights and protections.

Cooper said that unless and until there are stronger regulations, it will be up to each attorney and law firm to understand the AI technology they use and mitigate any potential risks and harms.

‘Effectively and ethically’

Newer attorneys especially run the risk of becoming over-reliant on AI tools without first building a foundational knowledge of how to practice the law, Cooper said.

At California Western School of Law, the use of AI is a balancing act. The faculty is navigating how best to ensure that students don’t abuse AI technology in their coursework while also teaching them how practicing attorneys are using it.

“We’re trying to make sure that we prepare our students to be able to enter the workforce, enter the profession, and use it effectively and ethically,” said Liam Vavasour, vice dean for academic affairs.

Vavasour said students are not allowed to use ChatGPT or other generative AI tools for writing assignments unless given explicit permission to do so, and even then the use is typically limited to idea-generation or editing and must be disclosed.

Vavasour said that from his understanding, practicing attorneys and judges are using AI in a variety of ways, “so we’re trying to make sure that our students know how to use it effectively and some of the pitfalls to avoid.”

McWhorter supervises younger associates at his firm and believes fears about them being over-reliant on AI are overblown.

“Because the value of generative AI is not in legal strategy, (young attorneys) will develop the ability to provide legal strategy the same as anyone else,” McWhorter said.

Source link


Attorneys and law firms can elevate their online presence with professionally written content from SEO Content Writing Services monthly plan. Our team of experienced writers specializes in crafting blog posts, articles, and written content that accurately reflect the expertise and knowledge of our clients in the legal field. With a keen eye for detail and a thorough understanding of legal terminology, we provide high-quality writing that helps our clients stand out from their competition and engage with their target audience. Trust SEO Content Writing Services for one time article writing or monthly written content to handle all of your written content needs and showcase your law firm's expertise.
If you need written content, blog posts, or articles professionally written for your website, we can help. Go HERE to find out more.
or email us here: myseowritingservices@gmail.com
To find out more about our article writing or blog post services, fill out the form, thank you.

Name *

First

Last

Business Name

Email *

What type of articles are you intertested in?

Submit

The post Attorneys balance use of powerful AI tools with risks — including legal hallucinations – The Mercury News appeared first on Attorney Legal Counsel.

The 14-page motion looked like any standard court filing in a civil lawsuit. Filed in April in San Diego Superior Court, attorneys defending a local company were making a routine request for a judge to authorize additional expert witnesses in a vehicle collision injury case.

But on the sixth page of the motion, the attorneys cited legal authority from a case that does not exist — it was hallucinated by artificial intelligence.

RELATED: Stanford AI expert’s credibility shattered by fake, AI-created sources: judge

A San Diego judge wrote in October that she was “deeply troubled” by the conduct of the company’s civil defense attorneys. She found they had filed multiple documents containing AI hallucinations, including citations to non-existent cases, fake quotes from real cases and inaccurate citations to real but irrelevant legal authorities.

That is one of at least two known San Diego cases that are part of a troubling trend of attorneys abusing or misusing AI, especially generative AI, a powerful technology that can at times fabricate information with no basis in reality.

But even as legal watchdog groups have documented hundreds of AI hallucination cases in the U.S. and around the world, legal experts and attorneys say those cases are rare, arguing that AI is an important tool being put to good use throughout the legal profession, helping lawyers research case law, analyze evidence, draft contracts and complete any number of rote tasks.

“We can’t just ignore generative AI, we have to become experts in the use so that we can avoid issues … where hallucinated case law gets into final documents,” Bryan McWhorter, a patent attorney and partner at the firm Knobbe Martens, said in an interview. “But I think when leveraged correctly, generative AI is frankly a power tool. It’s going to allow me to produce higher-quality work product in less time and deliver that value to clients.”

RELATED: California issues historic fine over lawyer’s ChatGPT fabrications

McWhorter recently argued that AI cannot now and likely never will be able to replace human legal analysis. That’s a view shared by James Cooper, a professor at California Western School of Law in downtown San Diego and co-author of the book “A Short & Happy Guide to Artificial Intelligence for Lawyers.”

“It complements all our skill sets,” Cooper said. “(But) there still needs to be a human in the loop.”

Cooper said there will always be subtlety in fact-finding and questioning people “that robots don’t understand … AI tools can’t fully engage with the nuance of humankind.”

Even so, Cooper is concerned that the use of AI in the legal field may be advancing too rapidly, and he hopes attorneys and firms are implementing safeguards that lawmakers and regulators have not.

“We’re at a juncture now where the technology is far outpacing our ability to regulate it, both as a legal profession but also in the real world, in a non-legal context,” Cooper said. “… We don’t know yet where to put the guardrails.”

‘Risks are no different’

As the use of AI has exploded in recent years, legal organizations have grappled with what sort of guidelines and policies to put in place to ensure that attorneys who use the technology do so ethically and responsibly. That can look different for a patent lawyer such as McWhorter and attorneys who litigate criminal and civil cases before judges, though the basic principles are largely the same.

“Broadly speaking, (the) risks are no different than we’ve always had in the industry, which is we must produce work that is 100% accurate and maintains all of our ethical obligations regarding client confidentiality,” McWhorter said.

For courtroom litigators, a federal judge in New York helped set the standard for the use of the technology in June 2023 while presiding over a case in which attorneys filed documents containing AI hallucinations. He wrote that there is “nothing inherently improper about using a reliable artificial intelligence tool for assistance,” but also noted that existing rules required that attorneys ensure the accuracy of every filing.

RELATED: Chatbot dreams generate AI nightmares for Bay Area lawyers

That has been the theme of most court opinions and bar association guidelines issued since then.

“Simply stated, no brief, pleading, motion, or any other paper filed in any court should contain any citations — whether provided by generative AI or any other source — that the attorney responsible for submitting the pleading has not personally read and verified,” wrote a panel of judges from California’s Second Appellate District.

The judges said the September opinion was the first by a California court to address “the generation of fake legal authority by AI sources” and should double as a warning for all attorneys in the state.

The American Bar Association and California State Bar have issued similar guidelines that AI cannot replace the judgment of trained lawyers and that attorneys should not become overly reliant on the technology.

Cooper, McWhorter and organizations such as the ABA all agree that there is a long list of legitimate uses of AI technology in the law. Much of it is geared toward helping summarize and analyze large data sets, while other tools can help be a middle step in crafting writing.

“The best analogy is we are creating the bones of the strategy, generative AI is adding the first-pass flesh onto those bones and then we’re going back and sculpting it into the final creation,” McWhorter said. “It’s really an intermediary in the process; it’s neither a beginning nor an end.”

‘Erodes trust in the legal profession’

Thus far, the most obvious and visible risk that has emerged in the use of AI in legal work is that of hallucinations. Several watchdog groups have been tracking cases in which court filings have contained AI hallucinations.

While the databases show that many such instances involve pro se litigants, or non-attorneys representing themselves, hundreds of licensed attorneys have also been sanctioned, reprimanded or otherwise caught submitting filings containing AI hallucinations, according to one such database compiled by attorney and researcher Damien Charlotin. His database only tracks cases in which a court has explicitly found or implied that a party relied on hallucinated content.

Charlotin’s database includes three cases in which U.S. judges were found to have written orders or opinions containing AI hallucinations. Meanwhile, the New York Times recently reported that a district attorney in Northern California has been accused of filing briefs containing mistakes typical of AI, one of the first known cases involving suspicions of prosecutorial misuse of the technology.

So far in San Diego, there are two known cases involving court documents containing AI hallucinations.

On Oct. 2, a panel of judges from the California Court of Appeals’ 4th Appellate District sanctioned longtime San Diego criminal defense attorney George Siddell, finding that he violated the Rules of Professional Conduct. They ordered him to pay $1,500 as part of the sanction.

A member of the California State Bar since 1971, Siddell admitted to filing a motion in a client’s criminal appeal that contained a citation to a case that doesn’t exist, a fake quote from a real case and two citations to cases that did not address the issues for which they were cited, according to a published appellate opinion. Siddell declined to comment for this story.

The judges wrote that Siddell’s conduct, when compared to similar conduct by attorneys in civil matters, was “particularly disturbing because it involves the rights of a criminal defendant, who is entitled to due process … and representation by competent counsel.”

The next day, San Diego Superior Court Judge Carolyn Caietti ruled that two attorneys from Tyson & Mendes, a national firm headquartered in San Diego, had filed multiple documents containing AI hallucinations in the case defending the local company in the auto injury lawsuit.

A Tyson & Mendes partner wrote in a declaration prior to the ruling that he took responsibility for the mistakes, though he blamed the errors on a younger associate attorney who he said “neglected to confirm the accuracy of certain case citations.”

In her own declaration, the associate attorney took responsibility and wrote that she was fired from the firm “as a direct result of my actions and conduct in this case.”

In a statement provided by Tyson & Mendes, the firm said in part: “As the Court in this case noted, we accept responsibility for our obligation to present the highest quality work product to the Court. We affirm this responsibility, even and especially in the face of technological transformation.”

The firm also added a lengthy explanation about how it is endeavoring to be a leader in the use of AI in the legal industry.

“As the practice of law continues to evolve through new challenges, opportunities, and technologies, we must also continue to hold ourselves accountable through introspection and transparency,” the firm said in its statement. “Tyson & Mendes remains steadfast in our commitment to our clients, our industry, and our profession to leverage the transformative power of AI and new technologies with keen professional and ethical judgment, ongoing education, and agility.”

Caietti did not ultimately sanction either attorney, though her decision was based on procedural issues rather than their conduct.

“Notwithstanding the denial on procedural grounds, the Court is deeply troubled by the conduct of Defense counsel,” Caietti wrote. “… All of this conduct is contrary to the rules of professional responsibility and is the type of conduct that erodes trust in the legal profession … This is hopefully an experience that will never be repeated by the attorneys involved in this matter, let alone others in the profession.”

Client confidentiality

Since AI learns from the data fed to it by its users, attorneys must also take care that confidential client information is not used to train AI models and that it does not inadvertently become public.

For patent attorneys such as McWhorter, those risks revolve around business interests and market competition. Other areas of the law — Cooper mentioned due process and evidentiary issues, as examples — could implicate constitutional rights and protections.

Cooper said that unless and until there are stronger regulations, it will be up to each attorney and law firm to understand the AI technology they use and mitigate any potential risks and harms.

‘Effectively and ethically’

Newer attorneys especially run the risk of becoming over-reliant on AI tools without first building a foundational knowledge of how to practice the law, Cooper said.

At California Western School of Law, the use of AI is a balancing act. The faculty is navigating how best to ensure that students don’t abuse AI technology in their coursework while also teaching them how practicing attorneys are using it.

“We’re trying to make sure that we prepare our students to be able to enter the workforce, enter the profession, and use it effectively and ethically,” said Liam Vavasour, vice dean for academic affairs.

Vavasour said students are not allowed to use ChatGPT or other generative AI tools for writing assignments unless given explicit permission to do so, and even then the use is typically limited to idea-generation or editing and must be disclosed.

Vavasour said that from his understanding, practicing attorneys and judges are using AI in a variety of ways, “so we’re trying to make sure that our students know how to use it effectively and some of the pitfalls to avoid.”

McWhorter supervises younger associates at his firm and believes fears about them being over-reliant on AI are overblown.

“Because the value of generative AI is not in legal strategy, (young attorneys) will develop the ability to provide legal strategy the same as anyone else,” McWhorter said.

Source link


Attorneys and law firms can elevate their online presence with professionally written content from SEO Content Writing Services monthly plan. Our team of experienced writers specializes in crafting blog posts, articles, and written content that accurately reflect the expertise and knowledge of our clients in the legal field. With a keen eye for detail and a thorough understanding of legal terminology, we provide high-quality writing that helps our clients stand out from their competition and engage with their target audience. Trust SEO Content Writing Services for one time article writing or monthly written content to handle all of your written content needs and showcase your law firm's expertise.
If you need written content, blog posts, or articles professionally written for your website, we can help. Go HERE to find out more.
or email us here: myseowritingservices@gmail.com
To find out more about our article writing or blog post services, fill out the form, thank you.

Name *

First

Last

Business Name

Email *

What type of articles are you intertested in?

Submit

The post Attorneys balance use of powerful AI tools with risks — including legal hallucinations – The Mercury News appeared first on Attorney Legal Counsel.

The 14-page motion looked like any standard court filing in a civil lawsuit. Filed in April in San Diego Superior Court, attorneys defending a local company were making a routine request for a judge to authorize additional expert witnesses in a vehicle collision injury case.

But on the sixth page of the motion, the attorneys cited legal authority from a case that does not exist — it was hallucinated by artificial intelligence.

RELATED: Stanford AI expert’s credibility shattered by fake, AI-created sources: judge

A San Diego judge wrote in October that she was “deeply troubled” by the conduct of the company’s civil defense attorneys. She found they had filed multiple documents containing AI hallucinations, including citations to non-existent cases, fake quotes from real cases and inaccurate citations to real but irrelevant legal authorities.

That is one of at least two known San Diego cases that are part of a troubling trend of attorneys abusing or misusing AI, especially generative AI, a powerful technology that can at times fabricate information with no basis in reality.

But even as legal watchdog groups have documented hundreds of AI hallucination cases in the U.S. and around the world, legal experts and attorneys say those cases are rare, arguing that AI is an important tool being put to good use throughout the legal profession, helping lawyers research case law, analyze evidence, draft contracts and complete any number of rote tasks.

“We can’t just ignore generative AI, we have to become experts in the use so that we can avoid issues … where hallucinated case law gets into final documents,” Bryan McWhorter, a patent attorney and partner at the firm Knobbe Martens, said in an interview. “But I think when leveraged correctly, generative AI is frankly a power tool. It’s going to allow me to produce higher-quality work product in less time and deliver that value to clients.”

RELATED: California issues historic fine over lawyer’s ChatGPT fabrications

McWhorter recently argued that AI cannot now and likely never will be able to replace human legal analysis. That’s a view shared by James Cooper, a professor at California Western School of Law in downtown San Diego and co-author of the book “A Short & Happy Guide to Artificial Intelligence for Lawyers.”

“It complements all our skill sets,” Cooper said. “(But) there still needs to be a human in the loop.”

Cooper said there will always be subtlety in fact-finding and questioning people “that robots don’t understand … AI tools can’t fully engage with the nuance of humankind.”

Even so, Cooper is concerned that the use of AI in the legal field may be advancing too rapidly, and he hopes attorneys and firms are implementing safeguards that lawmakers and regulators have not.

“We’re at a juncture now where the technology is far outpacing our ability to regulate it, both as a legal profession but also in the real world, in a non-legal context,” Cooper said. “… We don’t know yet where to put the guardrails.”

‘Risks are no different’

As the use of AI has exploded in recent years, legal organizations have grappled with what sort of guidelines and policies to put in place to ensure that attorneys who use the technology do so ethically and responsibly. That can look different for a patent lawyer such as McWhorter and attorneys who litigate criminal and civil cases before judges, though the basic principles are largely the same.

“Broadly speaking, (the) risks are no different than we’ve always had in the industry, which is we must produce work that is 100% accurate and maintains all of our ethical obligations regarding client confidentiality,” McWhorter said.

For courtroom litigators, a federal judge in New York helped set the standard for the use of the technology in June 2023 while presiding over a case in which attorneys filed documents containing AI hallucinations. He wrote that there is “nothing inherently improper about using a reliable artificial intelligence tool for assistance,” but also noted that existing rules required that attorneys ensure the accuracy of every filing.

RELATED: Chatbot dreams generate AI nightmares for Bay Area lawyers

That has been the theme of most court opinions and bar association guidelines issued since then.

“Simply stated, no brief, pleading, motion, or any other paper filed in any court should contain any citations — whether provided by generative AI or any other source — that the attorney responsible for submitting the pleading has not personally read and verified,” wrote a panel of judges from California’s Second Appellate District.

The judges said the September opinion was the first by a California court to address “the generation of fake legal authority by AI sources” and should double as a warning for all attorneys in the state.

The American Bar Association and California State Bar have issued similar guidelines that AI cannot replace the judgment of trained lawyers and that attorneys should not become overly reliant on the technology.

Cooper, McWhorter and organizations such as the ABA all agree that there is a long list of legitimate uses of AI technology in the law. Much of it is geared toward helping summarize and analyze large data sets, while other tools can help be a middle step in crafting writing.

“The best analogy is we are creating the bones of the strategy, generative AI is adding the first-pass flesh onto those bones and then we’re going back and sculpting it into the final creation,” McWhorter said. “It’s really an intermediary in the process; it’s neither a beginning nor an end.”

‘Erodes trust in the legal profession’

Thus far, the most obvious and visible risk that has emerged in the use of AI in legal work is that of hallucinations. Several watchdog groups have been tracking cases in which court filings have contained AI hallucinations.

While the databases show that many such instances involve pro se litigants, or non-attorneys representing themselves, hundreds of licensed attorneys have also been sanctioned, reprimanded or otherwise caught submitting filings containing AI hallucinations, according to one such database compiled by attorney and researcher Damien Charlotin. His database only tracks cases in which a court has explicitly found or implied that a party relied on hallucinated content.

Charlotin’s database includes three cases in which U.S. judges were found to have written orders or opinions containing AI hallucinations. Meanwhile, the New York Times recently reported that a district attorney in Northern California has been accused of filing briefs containing mistakes typical of AI, one of the first known cases involving suspicions of prosecutorial misuse of the technology.

So far in San Diego, there are two known cases involving court documents containing AI hallucinations.

On Oct. 2, a panel of judges from the California Court of Appeals’ 4th Appellate District sanctioned longtime San Diego criminal defense attorney George Siddell, finding that he violated the Rules of Professional Conduct. They ordered him to pay $1,500 as part of the sanction.

A member of the California State Bar since 1971, Siddell admitted to filing a motion in a client’s criminal appeal that contained a citation to a case that doesn’t exist, a fake quote from a real case and two citations to cases that did not address the issues for which they were cited, according to a published appellate opinion. Siddell declined to comment for this story.

The judges wrote that Siddell’s conduct, when compared to similar conduct by attorneys in civil matters, was “particularly disturbing because it involves the rights of a criminal defendant, who is entitled to due process … and representation by competent counsel.”

The next day, San Diego Superior Court Judge Carolyn Caietti ruled that two attorneys from Tyson & Mendes, a national firm headquartered in San Diego, had filed multiple documents containing AI hallucinations in the case defending the local company in the auto injury lawsuit.

A Tyson & Mendes partner wrote in a declaration prior to the ruling that he took responsibility for the mistakes, though he blamed the errors on a younger associate attorney who he said “neglected to confirm the accuracy of certain case citations.”

In her own declaration, the associate attorney took responsibility and wrote that she was fired from the firm “as a direct result of my actions and conduct in this case.”

In a statement provided by Tyson & Mendes, the firm said in part: “As the Court in this case noted, we accept responsibility for our obligation to present the highest quality work product to the Court. We affirm this responsibility, even and especially in the face of technological transformation.”

The firm also added a lengthy explanation about how it is endeavoring to be a leader in the use of AI in the legal industry.

“As the practice of law continues to evolve through new challenges, opportunities, and technologies, we must also continue to hold ourselves accountable through introspection and transparency,” the firm said in its statement. “Tyson & Mendes remains steadfast in our commitment to our clients, our industry, and our profession to leverage the transformative power of AI and new technologies with keen professional and ethical judgment, ongoing education, and agility.”

Caietti did not ultimately sanction either attorney, though her decision was based on procedural issues rather than their conduct.

“Notwithstanding the denial on procedural grounds, the Court is deeply troubled by the conduct of Defense counsel,” Caietti wrote. “… All of this conduct is contrary to the rules of professional responsibility and is the type of conduct that erodes trust in the legal profession … This is hopefully an experience that will never be repeated by the attorneys involved in this matter, let alone others in the profession.”

Client confidentiality

Since AI learns from the data fed to it by its users, attorneys must also take care that confidential client information is not used to train AI models and that it does not inadvertently become public.

For patent attorneys such as McWhorter, those risks revolve around business interests and market competition. Other areas of the law — Cooper mentioned due process and evidentiary issues, as examples — could implicate constitutional rights and protections.

Cooper said that unless and until there are stronger regulations, it will be up to each attorney and law firm to understand the AI technology they use and mitigate any potential risks and harms.

‘Effectively and ethically’

Newer attorneys especially run the risk of becoming over-reliant on AI tools without first building a foundational knowledge of how to practice the law, Cooper said.

At California Western School of Law, the use of AI is a balancing act. The faculty is navigating how best to ensure that students don’t abuse AI technology in their coursework while also teaching them how practicing attorneys are using it.

“We’re trying to make sure that we prepare our students to be able to enter the workforce, enter the profession, and use it effectively and ethically,” said Liam Vavasour, vice dean for academic affairs.

Vavasour said students are not allowed to use ChatGPT or other generative AI tools for writing assignments unless given explicit permission to do so, and even then the use is typically limited to idea-generation or editing and must be disclosed.

Vavasour said that from his understanding, practicing attorneys and judges are using AI in a variety of ways, “so we’re trying to make sure that our students know how to use it effectively and some of the pitfalls to avoid.”

McWhorter supervises younger associates at his firm and believes fears about them being over-reliant on AI are overblown.

“Because the value of generative AI is not in legal strategy, (young attorneys) will develop the ability to provide legal strategy the same as anyone else,” McWhorter said.

Source link


Attorneys and law firms can elevate their online presence with professionally written content from SEO Content Writing Services monthly plan. Our team of experienced writers specializes in crafting blog posts, articles, and written content that accurately reflect the expertise and knowledge of our clients in the legal field. With a keen eye for detail and a thorough understanding of legal terminology, we provide high-quality writing that helps our clients stand out from their competition and engage with their target audience. Trust SEO Content Writing Services for one time article writing or monthly written content to handle all of your written content needs and showcase your law firm's expertise.
If you need written content, blog posts, or articles professionally written for your website, we can help. Go HERE to find out more.
or email us here: myseowritingservices@gmail.com
To find out more about our article writing or blog post services, fill out the form, thank you.

Name *

First

Last

Business Name

Email *

What type of articles are you intertested in?

Submit

The post Attorneys balance use of powerful AI tools with risks — including legal hallucinations – The Mercury News appeared first on Attorney Legal Counsel.

WILMINGTON, Del. — Attorneys for Fox Corp. asked a Delaware judge Friday to dismiss a shareholder lawsuit seeking to hold current and former company officials personally liable for the financial fallout stemming from Fox News reports regarding alleged vote rigging in the 2020 election.

Five New York City public employee pension funds, along with Oregon’s public employee retirement fund, allege that former chairman Rupert Murdoch and other Fox Corp. leaders deliberately turned a blind eye to liability risks posed by reporting false claims of vote rigging by election technology companies Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic USA.

Smartmatic is suing Fox News for defamation in New York, alleging damages of $2.7 billion. It recently settled a lawsuit in the District of Columbia against One America News Network, another conservative outlet, over reports of vote fraud.

Dominion also filed several defamation lawsuits against those who spread conspiracy theories blaming its election equipment for Donald Trump’s loss in 2020. Last year, Fox News settled a defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion in Delaware for $787 million.

The shareholder plaintiffs also allege that Fox corporate leaders ignored “red flags” about liability arising from a 2017 report suggesting that Seth Rich, a Democratic National Committee staffer, may have been killed because he had leaked Democratic party emails to Wikileaks during the 2016 presidential campaign. Rich, 27, was shot in 2016 in Washington, D.C., in what authorities have said was an attempted robbery.

Fox News retracted the Seth Rich story a week after its initial broadcast, but Rich’s parents sued the network for falsely portraying their son as a criminal and traitor. Fox News settled the lawsuit in 2020 for “millions of dollars,” shortly before program hosts Lou Dobbs and Sean Hannity were to be deposed, according to the shareholder lawsuit.

Joel Friedlander, an attorney for the institutional shareholders, argued that Fox officials waited until the company’s reporting about Rich became a national scandal before addressing the issue. Similarly, according to the shareholders, corporate officials, including Rupert Murdoch and his son, CEO Lachlan Murdoch, allowed Fox News to continue broadcasting false narratives about the 2020 election, despite internal communications suggesting that they knew there was no evidence to support the conspiracy theories.

“The Murdochs could have minimized future monetary exposure, but they chose not to,” Friedlander said. Instead, he argued, they engaged in “bad-faith decision making” with other defendants in a profit-driven effort to retain viewers and remain in Trump’s good graces.

“Decisions were made at the highest level to promote pro-Trump conspiracy theories without editorial control,” Friedlander said.

Defense attorneys argue that the case should be dismissed because the plaintiffs filed their lawsuit without first demanding that the Fox Corp. board take action, as required under Delaware law. They say the plaintiffs also failed to demonstrate that a pre-suit demand on the Fox board would have been futile because at least half of the directors face a substantial likelihood of liability or are not independent of someone who does.

Beyond the “demand futility” issue, defense attorneys also argue that allegations that Fox officials breached their fiduciary duties fail to meet the pleading standards under Delaware and therefore should be dismissed.

Defense attorney William Savitt argued, for example, that neither the Rich settlement, which he described as “immaterial,” nor the allegedly defamatory statements about Dominion and Smartmatic constitute red flags putting directors on notice about the risk of defamation liability. Nor do they demonstrate that directors acted in bad faith or that Fox “utterly failed” to implement and monitor a system to report and mitigate legal risks, including defamation liability risk, according to the defendants.

Savitt noted that the Rich article was promptly retracted, and that the settlement included no admission of liability. The Dominion and Smartmatic statements, meanwhile, gave rise themselves to the currently liability issues and therefore can not serve as red flags about future liability risks, according to the defendants.

“A ‘red flag’ must be what the term commonly implies — warning of a risk of a liability-causing event that allows the directors to take action to avert the event, not notice that a liability-causing event has already occurred,” defense attorneys wrote in their motion to dismiss.

Defense attorneys also say there are no factual allegations to support claims that Fox officials condoned illegal conduct in pursuit of corporate profits, or that they deliberately ignored their oversight responsibilities. They note that a “bad outcome” is not sufficient to demonstrate “bad faith.”

Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster is expected to rule within 90 days.

Source link


Attorneys and law firms can elevate their online presence with professionally written content from SEO Content Writing Services monthly plan. Our team of experienced writers specializes in crafting blog posts, articles, and written content that accurately reflect the expertise and knowledge of our clients in the legal field. With a keen eye for detail and a thorough understanding of legal terminology, we provide high-quality writing that helps our clients stand out from their competition and engage with their target audience. Trust SEO Content Writing Services for one time article writing or monthly written content to handle all of your written content needs and showcase your law firm's expertise.
If you need written content, blog posts, or articles professionally written for your website, we can help. Go HERE to find out more.
or email us here: myseowritingservices@gmail.com
To find out more about our article writing or blog post services, fill out the form, thank you.

Name *

First

Last

Business Name

Email *

What type of articles are you intertested in?

Submit

The post Fox attorneys seek to dismiss shareholder lawsuit over reporting of vote rigging allegations in 2020 appeared first on Attorney Legal Counsel.

Anti-trust case started

The California attorney General has gone and thrown the book at the fruity cargo cult Apple for playing monopoly.

They reckon cracking down on Mobs’ Mob ‘s alleged market hogging is gonna be a win for consumers and up-and-comers alike. The Golden State’s legal eagles say they have been toiling away for yonks to build this case, and they’re ready to duke it out in court for what could be a three-year slog.

The Yanks are accusing Mobs’ Mob of cornering the market on not just any old smartphones, but the fancy ones – you know, the kind made with the shiny bits and bobs that cost an arm and a leg. They say Mobs’ Mob ‘s got a stranglehold on over 70 per cent of this ‘performance smartphone’ racket in the States.

But Mobs’ Mob ‘s not having any of it. It is telling everyone who’ll listen that the whole world’s their marketplace, not just Uncle Sam’s backyard, and they’re only have absolute control of about 20 per cent of the global pie.

Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar is one of several lawmakers who have increased focus and pressure on Big Tech companies in recent years. On Thursday, Klobuchar said she views the DOJ suit against Apple as a key part of Washington’s effort to rein in the tech industry:

She’s all for this legal tussle, hoping it’ll open the doors to more competition and less of Mobs’ Mob ‘s iron-fisted rule over the app world.

And get this – some former top dog at the DOJ’s antitrust division’s calling the lawsuit ‘damning’, with Mobs’ Mob ‘s secret messages showing they’re not playing nice with others on purpose.

Former Antitrust Assistant attorney General Bill Baer said the lawsuit “seems thorough, well written and focused.”

“Damning for Apple are the internal communications suggesting anticompetitive intent by limiting interoperability with messaging in order to lock folks into Apple products — for themselves and their families.”

During Thursday’s press conference, attorney General Merrick Garland referenced a 2013 internal communication in which a senior Apple executive acknowledged that improving how Apple works with third-party messaging platforms would “simply serve to remove [an] obstacle to iPhone families giving their kids Android phones.”

He referenced a 2022 event at which Apple CEO Tim Cook was confronted about Android-to-iPhone messaging compatibility. Cook responded with the recommendation to “buy your mom an iPhone” to resolve the issue.

On a call with reporters Thursday, Apple representatives dismissed those internal messages as old and taken out of context, vowing to provide full context in litigation.

But it ain’t all cheers and confetti. Some the Tame Apple Press is fretting that if Mobs’ Mob ‘s forced to let other app stores and unvetted apps into their walled garden, it could muck up the whole user experience.

If the suit sticks, it could shake up everything from what Mobs’ Mob charges developers to how your iPhone chats with Androids. It might even mean you won’t need to sell a kidney to afford their gear anymore.

attorney-general-takes-it-on”>Source link


Attorneys and law firms can elevate their online presence with professionally written content from SEO Content Writing Services monthly plan. Our team of experienced writers specializes in crafting blog posts, articles, and written content that accurately reflect the expertise and knowledge of our clients in the legal field. With a keen eye for detail and a thorough understanding of legal terminology, we provide high-quality writing that helps our clients stand out from their competition and engage with their target audience. Trust SEO Content Writing Services for one time article writing or monthly written content to handle all of your written content needs and showcase your law firm's expertise.
If you need written content, blog posts, or articles professionally written for your website, we can help. Go HERE to find out more.
or email us here: myseowritingservices@gmail.com
To find out more about our article writing or blog post services, fill out the form, thank you.

Name *

First

Last

Business Name

Email *

What type of articles are you intertested in?

Submit

The post Apple pickled as California Attorney General takes it on appeared first on Attorney Legal Counsel.

All local private attorneys may be assigned to represent indigent clients as soon as next Friday, whether they like it or not.

In a letter sent to the Scott County Bar Association late this week, Seventh District Judge Henry Latham said the court will begin assigning private attorneys in Scott County to defend people who cannot afford an attorney as soon as March 17.

“If there is not a significant increase in the number of contract attorneys by March 17th, the Court will have no choice but to appoint all licensed attorneys to cases to meet the need of the indigent defense in this district the following week,” Latham said in the letter.

The county uses full-time State Public Defenders and other attorneys under contract with the county to represent the indigent and to meet the demand. The private-practice attorneys would be required to represent indigent defendants on a case-by-case basis.

People are also reading…

Latham’s decision comes after he put out a call for contract attorneys in October of 2022. He sent the letter to all attorneys in the Seventh District Bar Association, detailing how the State Public Defender notified all the judges in the district that the Davenport Public Defender’s office would represent defendants only in the most serious felony and misdemeanor cases.

According to the judge, public defenders in Davenport can handle Class A and B felonies, but there are not enough of them to represent defendants in lower-class C and D felonies. Making the matter worse is a lack of contract attorneys in Scott County, which are private attorneys who are paid by the State Public Defender.

The reactions to Latham’s letter have been mixed.

Eric Tindal, a contract attorney who handles some cases in Scott County, said he understands the need for Latham’s letter. Local private attorney Eric Puryear said he will not accept contract work, because he finds it “morally offensive.”

Both attorneys agreed the state faces a number of intertwined issues when trying to find representation for poor clients and must take a hard look at how much contract attorneys are paid.

Eric Tindal is part of the firm Keegan, Tindal & Jaeger, which has offices in Iowa City and Davenport. He is a contract attorney who in 2022 represented indigent clients in four judicial districts and approximately 25 counties, including Scott.

“I was not surprised to get Judge Latham’s letter,” Tindal said. “Indigent defense is a national crisis.”

He offered some numbers for perspective.

“There are 370 attorneys on the contract list in Iowa,” Tindal said. “Now exclude the contract attorneys in Des Moines and in the Johnson County and Linn County corridor, and you have 311 attorneys for the rest of the state.

“Last year there were right about 47,000 claims. That means, basically, the number of bills attorneys sent to the state for services — (were) sent to the State Public Defender’s Office by less than 400 attorneys.”

That’s 127 services-for-clients claims per contract attorney in the state.

“There is an incredible strain on the public defense system in Iowa,” Tindal said. “And the situation in Scott County is one of the worst in the state.”

Because of that strain, he understands the need for Latham’s decision and added “the reasons for a lack of contract attorneys in Scott County are complex.”

“It goes beyond not having enough attorneys,” Tindal said. “Historically, the Scott County attorney‘s office has been difficult to deal with in terms of the discovery process — being able to easily see video evidence is just an example.”

He said “progress has been made” on that issue.

“The other issue has been that Scott County’s scheduling and procedural system has not been conducive to attracting out-of-county attorneys to work on cases in that county,” he said. “It has simply been hard to see clients and work with the prosecutors.”

He again stressed “the situation has been improving.”

“The County attorney‘s office has definitely been making progress,” Tindal said. “Everyone is pulling in the right direction.”

There are three things that can be done in Scott County to improve the prospects of luring contract attorneys, he said.

“One, make processing discovery easier for the defense attorneys,” he said. “Two, make reasonable plea offers and make them earlier in the process. And three, it would be nice if the County attorney picked up the phone and talked with defense lawyers.”

Back in late December, Tindal sent a letter to Susan Larson Christensen, the Chief Justice of the Iowa Supreme Court, outlining the complex issues threatening indigent defense in Iowa.

He touched on the issue of what contract attorneys are paid.

“There is no dispute: the hourly rate must be increased. There is no need to belabor this point. Briefly, however, we will note how important it is to put the rate issue into context … in 1979 the rate was $40 per hour, which was an increase from the pre-1978 rate of $25.00 per hour,” Tindal wrote. “The hourly rate has increased some over time, but it has come nowhere close to the rate necessary to maintain a business. By most calculations, $40.00 is worth approximately $145.00 today.

“To state the obvious, Iowa’s court appointed rates for contract attorneys requires us to operate at or near an operational loss.”

Contract attorneys representing clients charged with Class C and D felonies are paid $68 an hour. Those representing Class B felonies make $73 an hour, and attorneys handling Class A felony cases are paid $78 an hour.

Several former contract attorneys who worked for the the Iowa State Public Defender pointed out contract attorneys in Illinois make much more — at least $126 an hour — while attorneys contracted through the Federal Defenders program make $150 an hour.

According to a number of private attorneys in Davenport, hourly rates for most legal work start at $225 an hour. Most divorce cases land in the $350- to $400-an-hour range, and criminal defense can run even higher.

Private attorney Puryear said it is his opinion that the pay rate for contract attorneys in Iowa is so low because of basic “structural deficiencies” in the state’s public defense system.

“It’s a choice,” Puryear said. “State’s attorney‘s offices are budgeted much more than the Public Defender’s office. The police budgets of most cities are enormous.

“We have a system in Iowa where a person who makes, say, $15 an hour gets accused of a crime and has to bail out of jail. That alone will wipe out most bank accounts. And then you have to try and pay for an attorney. The system is set up to keep people in that system and puts them at a huge disadvantage.”

Tindal said he didn’t have hard numbers, but estimated upwards of 90% of the people arrested in Iowa qualify for a public defender.

“If Iowa cared about getting people good criminal defenders, they would pay for it,” Puryear said. “The pay rate sends a clear message to the clients of public defenders about just how important their rights are.”

‘This is akin to slavery’

Latham’s letter expressed frustration with the private attorneys in Scott County and the Seventh Judicial District.

“I am completely disappointed at the lack of response that the Court has received from the bar. To date there has been only one attorney who has contacted the Public Defender to become a contract attorney,” he wrote.

Puryear said he has no intention to volunteer for what he calls a “purposely broken system.”

“Here in my office, two attorneys have devoted about 100 hours so far in 2023 to representing people who cannot afford legal help,” he said. “But I’m not going to be compelled to support a purposely defective system.

“The state gives huge amounts of taxpayer money to those who investigate, arrest, prosecute, and jail citizens, and at the same time purposefully deprives those citizens of the means to have a fair defense.”

Puryear added: “The state doesn’t pay public defenders or contract attorneys enough, creating a shortage of defense attorneys for indigent clients. Then Judge Latham asks all of us to support this system by working for the state at rates way below what we would normally be paid. It’s ridiculous.”

It is “ironic,” he said, that the state wants attorneys to volunteer to serve as contract attorneys.

“Judges certainly don’t volunteer their time to help with cases,” he said. “Do prosecutors donate their time to help clients? Police officers aren’t asked to volunteer time to do their jobs.

“Why are defense attorneys asked to do this? This is a big problem. I’m not exaggerating when I say this akin to slavery. Slavery is compelling people to work against their will. That’s what this is.”

Puryear said he is much more interested in hearing how the state is going to fix what he calls “the system.”

That system is headed up by Jeff Wright. He is the director of Iowa’s State Public Defenders Office and reports directly to Gov. Kim Reynolds.

Under Wright’s office, 200 employees in 10 local Public Defender Offices and the Appellate Defender’s Office provide representation for poor and low-income people in all of Iowa’s 99 counties.

According to Wright, the Public Defender’s office in Davenport has a staff of eight, but three of them are not attorneys. The office is down three attorneys, and the state’s job board shows a listing for at least one — public defender fellow — open.

It pays between $55,000 and $85,000 per year.

“Maybe we can look at bail set so high people can’t afford an attorney,” Puryear said. “And look at the number of Public Defenders there are in the state and what they are paid.

“I’m tired of seeing the responsibility for the broken public defenders system placed on private attorneys. It’s not acceptable.”

Be the first to know

Get local news delivered to your inbox!

Source link


Attorneys and law firms can elevate their online presence with professionally written content from SEO Content Writing Services monthly plan. Our team of experienced writers specializes in crafting blog posts, articles, and written content that accurately reflect the expertise and knowledge of our clients in the legal field. With a keen eye for detail and a thorough understanding of legal terminology, we provide high-quality writing that helps our clients stand out from their competition and engage with their target audience. Trust SEO Content Writing Services for one time article writing or monthly written content to handle all of your written content needs and showcase your law firm's expertise.
If you need written content, blog posts, or articles professionally written for your website, we can help. Go HERE to find out more.
or email us here: myseowritingservices@gmail.com
To find out more about our article writing or blog post services, fill out the form, thank you.

Name *

First

Last

Business Name

Email *

What type of articles are you intertested in?

Submit

The post No volunteers, so local attorneys may be required to represent the poor appeared first on Attorney Legal Counsel.

A group of attorneys general from 45 U.S. states and Washington, D.C., demanded Monday that social media app TikTok produce materials as part of an investigation into its effect on young users’ mental health.

“We know that social media is taking a devastating toll on young people’s mental health and well-being, and through our investigation we are getting a clearer sense of TikTok’s role,” California attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement.

The investigation began last year when eight states, including California, Massachusetts and Tennessee, launched a bipartisan probe of TikTok, focusing on whether the popular video-sharing app is endangering young people and violating state consumer protection laws.

On Monday, Tennessee attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti asked a Tennessee court to order TikTok to produce subpoenaed materials sought by the investigation. Attorneys general from across the United States filed a brief in support of the motion to compel TikTok to hand over the information.

The Tennessee court petition alleges that TikTok has failed to preserve potentially relevant evidence in the investigation, including internal employee chat messages.

It says TikTok has shared some internal messages in response to its request but said the company has rendered them “unrecognizable and nearly incomprehensible.”

TikTok has not commented on the case.

“We need to know more about the company’s business practices so we can keep our kids safe,” North Carolina attorney General Josh Stein said in a statement Monday.

California’s Department of Justice said in a statement that heavy use of social media is “strongly associated with self-harm, depression, and low self-esteem in teens — and every additional hour young people spend on social media is associated with an increased severity of the symptoms of depression.”

The latest court challenge comes as TikTok, owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance, faces security concerns. The United States, Canada and the European Union have all banned the use of the app on government-issued devices.

Like other social media apps, TikTok has also received criticism that it is not doing enough to protect younger users from inappropriate content.

Last week, TikTok said it was developing a tool that would allow parents to block certain content on the app. The company also said parents will now be able to set time limits on the app for their teens, depending on the day of the week.

Some information in this report came from Reuters.

Source link


Attorneys and law firms can elevate their online presence with professionally written content from SEO Content Writing Services monthly plan. Our team of experienced writers specializes in crafting blog posts, articles, and written content that accurately reflect the expertise and knowledge of our clients in the legal field. With a keen eye for detail and a thorough understanding of legal terminology, we provide high-quality writing that helps our clients stand out from their competition and engage with their target audience. Trust SEO Content Writing Services for one time article writing or monthly written content to handle all of your written content needs and showcase your law firm's expertise.
If you need written content, blog posts, or articles professionally written for your website, we can help. Go HERE to find out more.
or email us here: myseowritingservices@gmail.com
To find out more about our article writing or blog post services, fill out the form, thank you.

Name *

First

Last

Business Name

Email *

What type of articles are you intertested in?

Submit

The post Attorneys General in 45 US States Demand TikTok Hand Over Information appeared first on Attorney Legal Counsel.

PITTSBURGH (AP) — The Justice Department has been scrutinizing a controversial artificial intelligence tool used by a Pittsburgh-area child protective services agency following concerns that it could result in discrimination against families with disabilities, The Associated Press has learned.

The interest from federal civil rights attorneys comes after an AP investigation revealed potential bias and transparency issues about the opaque algorithm that is designed to assess a family’s risk level when they are reported for child welfare concerns in Allegheny County.

Several civil rights complaints were filed in the fall about the Allegheny Family Screening Tool, which is used to help social workers decide which families to investigate, AP has learned.

Two sources said that attorneys in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division cited the AP investigation when urging them to submit formal complaints detailing their concerns about how the algorithm could harden bias against people with disabilities, including families with mental health issues.

A third person told AP that the same group of federal civil rights attorneys also spoke with them in November as part of a broad conversation about how algorithmic tools could potentially exacerbate disparities, including for people with disabilities. That conversation explored the design and construction of Allegheny’s influential algorithm, though the full scope of the Justice Department’s interest is unknown.

Political Cartoons

All three sources spoke to AP on the condition of anonymity, saying the Justice Department asked them not to discuss the confidential conversations, and two said they also feared professional retaliation.

Wyn Hornbuckle, a Justice Department spokesman, declined to comment.

Algorithms use pools of information to turn data points into predictions, whether that’s for online shopping, identifying crime hot spots or hiring workers. Many child welfare agencies in the U.S. are considering adopting such tools as part of their work with children and families.

Though there’s been widespread debate over the moral consequences of using artificial intelligence in child protective services, the Justice Department’s interest in the pioneering Allegheny algorithm marks a significant turn toward possible legal implications.

Supporters see algorithms as a promising way to make a strained child protective services system both more thorough and efficient, saying child welfare officials should use all tools at their disposal to make sure children aren’t maltreated. But critics worry that including data points collected largely from people who are poor can automate discrimination against families based on race, income, disabilities or other external characteristics.

Robin Frank, a veteran family law attorney in Pittsburgh and vocal critic of the Allegheny algorithm, said she also filed a complaint with the Justice Department in October on behalf of a client with an intellectual disability who is fighting to get his daughter back from foster care. The AP obtained a copy of the complaint, which raised concerns about how the Allegheny Family Screening Tool assesses a family’s risk.

“I think it’s important for people to be aware of what their rights are and to the extent that we don’t have a lot of information when there seemingly are valid questions about the algorithm, it’s important to have some oversight,” Frank said.

Mark Bertolet, spokesman for the Allegheny County Department of Human Services, said by email that the agency had not heard from the Justice Department and declined interview requests.

“We are not aware of any concerns about the inclusion of these variables from research groups’ past evaluation or community feedback on the (Allegheny Family Screening Tool),” the county said, describing previous studies and outreach regarding the tool.

Allegheny County said its algorithm has used data points tied to disabilities in children, parents and other members of local households because they can help predict the risk that a child will be removed from their home after a maltreatment report. The county added that it has updated its algorithm several times and has sometimes removed disabilities-related data points.

The Allegheny Family Screening Tool was specifically designed to predict the risk that a child will be placed in foster care in the two years after the family is investigated. It has used a trove of detailed personal data collected from child welfare history, as well as birth, Medicaid, substance abuse, mental health, jail and probation records, among other government data sets. When the algorithm calculates a risk score of 1 to 20, the higher the number, the greater the risk. The risk score alone doesn’t determine what happens in the case.

The AP first revealed racial bias and transparency concerns in a story last April that focused on the Allegheny tool and how its statistical calculations help social workers decide which families should be investigated for neglect – a nuanced term that can include everything from inadequate housing to poor hygiene, but is a different category from physical or sexual abuse, which is investigated separately in Pennsylvania and is not subject to the algorithm.

A child welfare investigation can result in vulnerable families receiving more support and services, but it can also lead to the removal of children for foster care and ultimately, the termination of parental rights.

The county has said that hotline workers determine what happens with a family’s case and can always override the tool’s recommendations. It has also underscored that the tool is only applied to the beginning of a family’s potential involvement with the child welfare process. A different social worker who later conducts the investigations, as well as families and their attorneys, aren’t allowed to know the scores.

Allegheny’s algorithm, in use since 2016, has at times drawn from data related to Supplemental Security Income, a Social Security Administration program that provides monthly payments to adults and children with a disability; as well as diagnoses for mental, behavioral and neurodevelopmental disorders, including schizophrenia or mood disorders, AP found.

The county said that when the disabilities data is included, it “is predictive of the outcomes” and “it should come as no surprise that parents with disabilities … may also have a need for additional supports and services.” The county added that there are other risk assessment programs that use data about mental health and other conditions that may affect a parent’s ability to care for a child.

The AP obtained records showing hundreds of specific variables that are used to calculate the risk scores for families who are reported to child protective services, including the public data that powers the Allegheny algorithm and similar tools deployed in child welfare systems elsewhere in the U.S.

The AP’s analysis of Allegheny’s algorithm and those inspired by it in Los Angeles County, California, Douglas County, Colorado, and in Oregon reveals a range of controversial data points that have measured people with low incomes and other disadvantaged demographics, at times measuring families on race, zip code, disabilities and their use of public welfare benefits.

The Justice Department has shown a broad interest in investigating algorithms in recent years, said Christy Lopez, a Georgetown University law professor who previously led some of the Justice Department’s civil rights division litigation and investigations.

In a keynote about a year ago, Assistant attorney General Kristen Clarke warned that AI technologies had “serious implications for the rights of people with disabilities,” and her division more recently issued guidance to employers saying using AI tools in hiring could violate the Americans with Disabilities Act.

“They are doing their jobs as civil rights investigators to get to the bottom of what’s going on,” Lopez said of the Justice Department scrutiny of Allegheny’s tool. “It appears to me that this is a priority for the division, investigating the extent to which algorithms are perpetuating discriminatory practices.”

Traci LaLiberte, a University of Minnesota expert on child welfare and disabilities, said the Justice Department’s inquiry stood out to her, as federal authorities have largely deferred to local child welfare agencies.

“The Department of Justice is pretty far afield from child welfare,” LaLiberte said. “It really has to rise to the level of pretty significant concern to dedicate time and get involved.”

Emily Putnam-Hornstein and Rhema Vaithianathan, the two developers of Allegheny’s algorithm and other tools like it, deferred to Allegheny County’s answers about the algorithm’s inner workings. They said in an email that they were unaware of any Justice Department scrutiny relating to the algorithm.

Researchers and community members have long raised concerns that some of the data powering child welfare algorithms may heighten historical biases against marginalized people within children protective services. That includes parents with disabilities, a community that is a protected class under federal civil rights law.

The Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability, which can include a wide spectrum of conditions, from diabetes, cancer and hearing loss to intellectual disabilities and mental and behavioral health diagnosis like ADHD, depression and schizophrenia.

LaLiberte has published research detailing how parents with disabilities are disproportionately affected by the child welfare system. She challenged the idea of using data points related to disabilities in any algorithm because, she said, that assesses characteristics people can’t change, rather than their behavior.

“If it isn’t part of the behavior, then having it in the (algorithm) biases it,” LaLiberte said.

Burke reported from San Francisco.

Follow Sally Ho and Garance Burke on Twitter at @_sallyho and @garanceburke. Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org or https://www.ap.org/tips/

Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source link


Attorneys and law firms can elevate their online presence with professionally written content from SEO Content Writing Services monthly plan. Our team of experienced writers specializes in crafting blog posts, articles, and written content that accurately reflect the expertise and knowledge of our clients in the legal field. With a keen eye for detail and a thorough understanding of legal terminology, we provide high-quality writing that helps our clients stand out from their competition and engage with their target audience. Trust SEO Content Writing Services for one time article writing or monthly written content to handle all of your written content needs and showcase your law firm's expertise.
If you need written content, blog posts, or articles professionally written for your website, we can help. Go HERE to find out more.
or email us here: myseowritingservices@gmail.com
To find out more about our article writing or blog post services, fill out the form, thank you.

Name *

First

Last

Business Name

Email *

What type of articles are you intertested in?

Submit

The post Child Welfare Algorithm Faces Justice Department Scrutiny appeared first on Attorney Legal Counsel.