{"id":647980,"date":"2026-05-17T04:33:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T04:33:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/647980\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T04:33:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T04:33:13","slug":"lawyers-apologize-for-fake-ai-quotes-in-trump-mass-layoffs-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/647980\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawyers Apologize for Fake AI Quotes in Trump Mass Layoffs Case"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three lawyers representing an ex-Homeland Security official apologized to a California federal judge after one of the attorneys used Anthropic\u2019s AI platform Claude Console to write a motion that included \u201cphantom\u201d quotations.<\/p>\n

The incident\u2014which came in a sprawling lawsuit over the Trump administration\u2019s mass layoffs<\/a> within the federal government\u2014adds to a growing list of attorney misuse of artificial intelligence in legal practice, with some facing sanctions<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Partner Jason Greaves of Binnall Law Group PLLC told<\/a> Judge Susan Illston of the US District Court for the Northern District of California on Friday that he used Claude to draft a motion to quash a subpoena because of \u201ctight time constraints.\u201d<\/p>\n

The court was seeking to depose Joseph Guy, former deputy chief of staff at DHS under Kristi Noem, over layoffs at the Federal Emergency Management Agency<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Greaves, who filed the May 6 motion, told Illston in a declaration that he sent the AI-drafted document to an associate for fact-checking. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhile I reviewed the cited cases generally to confirm their applicability, as well as many other cases that I reviewed, I did not double check the quotations and obviously did not read the cited cases carefully,\u201d Greaves wrote. \u201cWhile the cases cited may have generally supported our position, I acknowledge the inexcusable error of allowing the inclusion of phantom quotations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Greaves said this was the first time he had used an AI platform to create a draft a brief.<\/p>\n

Founding partner Jesse Binnall and partner Lindsay McKasson, who is part of Guy\u2019s legal team, also filed declarations apologizing to the court. <\/p>\n

Binnall said the firm has established AI use policies and will implement additional training on verifying documents and citations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe understand the gravity of what occurred, and we share the Court\u2019s concern,\u201d Binnall wrote. \u201cThe obligation to submit accurate, verified citations is not merely a technical rule\u2014it is a fundamental duty that every attorney owes to every court. We failed that duty in this instance, and we are committed to ensuring it does not happen again. Ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Binnall Law didn\u2019t immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

The case is AFGE v. Trump<\/a>, N.D. Cal., No. 3:25-cv-03698, 5\/15\/26.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three lawyers representing an ex-Homeland Security official apologized to a California federal judge after one of the attorneys…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":647981,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,181,507,279504,128745,49712,74],"class_list":["post-647980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-depositions","tag-mass-layoffs","tag-subpoenas","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=647980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647980\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/647981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=647980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=647980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=647980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}