A Rich fine would tie AI-assisted briefing to legal consequences

On September 24, in Clark v. Social Security, Commissioner of, the court ordered Rich to show cause why she should not be sanctioned, including with a fine, for factitious citations in a plaintiff’s brief. CourtListener RECAP dockets reports that the brief used generative artificial intelligence and that Rich’s response said she had used AI in preparing it. The docket does not report a final sanction. The event is therefore a show-cause order over a defective filing, not yet an order imposing a penalty.

The order advances the proposition that AI does not eliminate the consequences of bad legal work because the alleged defect remains attached to the filed brief, while the use of AI supplies no apparent exemption from the court’s response. CourtListener: AI and sanctions (opinions) describes Douglas v. Deutsche Bank National Trust Co. as a cautionary tale about misuse of AI and its consequences for attorneys. CourtListener: AI and sanctions (opinions) also reports that R. M. v. Mohr affirmed a trial court order in a matter involving fabricated material associated with artificial intelligence. Those matters point in the same direction as Clark: a system can help produce legal work, but the filing still faces ordinary judicial scrutiny and potential consequences.

What Clark proves is narrower than a general judgment about AI-assisted law. It establishes that a court treated factitious citations in an AI-assisted brief as serious enough to require an explanation and to place a fine among the possible sanctions. It does not establish that Rich will be fined, that every AI-assisted filing contains fabricated citations, or that every use of AI produces bad legal work. It also says nothing by itself about a firm’s broader operating model. The stronger reading would require a final order imposing a consequence and connecting that consequence to the defective citations after the show-cause process. Until then, the order establishes exposure to accountability, not its final measure. Cervantes v. Bianco supplies the same limited signal: CourtListener: AI and privilege (opinions) reports that the court disapproved improper use of AI tools that apparently contributed to the conduct at issue. That is a judicial response to a particular use, not a ruling that AI itself removes professional responsibility.

The next fact to watch is the court’s order resolving Rich’s show-cause response. A sanction or fine tied to the factitious citations would confirm that AI-assisted preparation does not displace the consequences of defective legal work. An order declining to sanction her would not make the citations sound; it would show only that this particular show-cause process ended without that penalty. The decisive observable fact is the final disposition in Clark v. Social Security, Commissioner of, not the presence of AI in the brief alone.