The lawyer had a back injury and was short on time. Submissions were due in an immigration case, where he was representing someone in an appeal against a decision by the minister. He had heard about the use of artificial intelligence in legal work and logged into ChatGPT, inserting some words relevant to the case to prepare a summary of cases. He thought the summary read well so he incorporated the details and references into the submissions without checking the details.
Then, about two weeks later, the immigration minister’s outline of submissions highlighted 17 cases cited in the applicant’s documents that did not exist.
