{"id":391402,"date":"2026-04-22T02:25:23","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T02:25:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/391402\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T02:25:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T02:25:23","slug":"an-ai-screw-up-by-sullivan-cromwell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/391402\/","title":{"rendered":"An AI Screw-Up By… Sullivan & Cromwell?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Outside the New York headquarters of Sullivan & Cromwell (photo by David Lat).<\/p>\n

Tonight brings huge news out of Sullivan & Cromwell. We can now add S&C, truly one of the world\u2019s most prestigious<\/a> and profitable<\/a> firms, to the AI \u201cHall of Shame\u201d: the list of law firms that have submitted court filings containing AI-generated \u201challucinations.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Saturday, April 18, Andrew Dietderich, founder and co-head of SullCrom\u2019s global restructuring group, sent a letter<\/a> to Chief Judge Martin Glenn of U.S. Bankruptcy Court (S.D.N.Y.). In his missive, Dietderich apologized profusely for a motion filed by S&C in a bankruptcy case that contained \u201cinaccurate citations and other errors,\u201d which he helpfully listed for Chief Judge Glenn in a three-page attachment (because there were that many\u2014the three pages were single-spaced).<\/p>\n

As you\u2019d expect, this AI screw-up by S&C has been covered by, well, everyone\u2014including Above the Law<\/a>, Bloomberg Law<\/a>, Business Insider<\/a>, Law360<\/a>, and Reuters<\/a>. I don\u2019t have much to add to the copious coverage; I\u2019ll just point out two ironies.<\/p>\n

First, as noted by Joe Patrice of Above the Law, Sullivan & Cromwell is the law firm that\u2026 advises OpenAI on the \u201csafe and ethical deployment\u201d of artificial intelligence (a representation S&C touts on its website<\/a>). Physician, heal thyself?<\/p>\n

Second, as Dietderich explained in his letter to Chief Judge Glenn, the AI errors were called to his attention by\u2026 Boies Schiller Flexner. Why is it ironic that BSF, one of the nation\u2019s leading litigation firms, caught these mistakes? Because until now, Boies Schiller was the reigning champion of \u201cElite Law Firms Guilty of AI Fails.\u201d<\/a> (In addition to the AI snafu chronicled in that story, which took place last year, BSF subsequently failed to catch<\/a> AI-generated errors in a filing by co-counsel in a different case.)<\/p>\n

When I covered BSF\u2019s AI error last year, I gave props to then-partner John Kucera: he \u201cfully and freely admitted the errors, and he didn\u2019t throw any colleagues under the bus.\u201d I\u2019ll say the same here about Andy Dietderich. He\u2019s a senior partner at S&C, having joined the firm almost 30 years ago; he leads its restructuring practice, which he founded; and he\u2019s a giant of the bankruptcy bar, Chambers Band 1<\/a>. Nobody was paying him $2,500 an hour to do legal research; this screw-up was clearly the handiwork of an associate (or perhaps I should say former associate). But Dietderich signed the letter solo, and he didn\u2019t point the finger at anyone else.<\/p>\n

So that\u2019s my compliment for S&C. Here\u2019s my criticism: considering how much time has passed since the earliest AI errors\u2014Avianca-gate<\/a> took place three years ago next month\u2014mistakes are less and less excusable (to the extent that they ever were). After all, as noted<\/a> by Joe Patrice, there are tech tools out there\u2014some of them powered by AI (a third irony?)\u2014that are designed to catch AI hallucinations. Patrice gave a shoutout to RealityCheck by BriefCatch<\/a> (and as a board member of BriefCatch, I feel it\u2019s my fiduciary duty to include shameless plugs for the company whenever I can).<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll conclude my complaints about S&C here\u2014because people in glass houses shouldn\u2019t throw stones. As some of you might recall, earlier this year I had an AI oopsie of my own (see the update to my SCOTUS tariffs ruling write-up<\/a>). I\u2019ll simply repeat my two signature quips, urging you to extend grace when it comes to AI fails:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes\u2026 for an AI screw-up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe next time you hear about an epic AI fail, instead of (or at least after) laughing your ass off, perhaps have the humility to say this to yourself: \u2018There but for the grace of God go (A)I.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Or, if you prefer, here are some bon mots from Claude, which it generated after I fed it my two sayings and asked for more along the same lines:<\/p>\n

\u201cAn AI making things up with total confidence isn\u2019t a bug. It\u2019s a mirror.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAn AI confidently gives wrong answers. A human confidently gives wrong answers. One of them gets a performance review.\u201d (And only one of them gets fired from a $225,000-a-year job.)<\/p>\n

\u201cGarbage in, garbage out\u2014but now the garbage speaks in complete sentences and cites its sources.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not bad, eh? As I keep telling my husband Zach, who views AI with deep skepticism, it\u2019s actually great\u2014as long as you use it responsibly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Outside the New York headquarters of Sullivan & Cromwell (photo by David Lat). Tonight brings huge news out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":391403,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[365,363,364,111,139,69,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-391402","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-new-zealand","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/391403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}