The AI legal drafting tool 'First Draft' generated a court filing containing fabricated case citations, fake legal precedents, and nonexistent court opinions — complete with realistic-sounding case names, docket numbers, and judicial quotes that looked authentic but were entirely invented by the model. The tool was trained on Texas law but used for Mississippi filings, which the lawyer later admitted was inappropriate.
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The AI fabricated nonexistent case citations. This was not a simple typo — the AI generated realistic-looking legal references with proper formatting, case names, and docket numbers that were completely invented. In Withers v. City of Aberdeen (Northern District of Mississippi, June 2026), AI-hallucinated case citations appeared in filings from BOTH sides of the case — a remarkable failure of legal AI safeguards. The federal judge removed ALL four lawyers from the case. Both pro hac vice attorneys were banned from appearing in that district for two years and fined. Local counsel were referred for disciplinary action. The judge ruled that the lawyers had failed to review AI-generated citations before submitting them to the court. What makes this case particularly striking: one lawyer admitted using a tool trained on Texas law (not Mississippi) and acknowledged knowing it was inappropriate. The opposing counsel had a documented pattern of filing hallucinated citations — this was not a first offense. A third lawyer used a tool called 'First Draft' which fabricated entire cases from scratch. Courts nationwide are now adopting pre-screening tools like 'Learned Hand' to detect AI hallucinations in filings before they reach the courtroom. This case sends a clear signal: judges will not accept 'the AI made me do it' as a defense for filing fabricated legal authorities. Source: Clio (legal practice management), June 23, 2026; Above the Law coverage of Withers v. City of Aberdeen, N.D. Miss. 2026.
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