A lawyer in Canada has been suspended for six months after presenting fake authorities produced by AI and repeatedly denying she was responsible.
The Law Society Tribunal ordered that Toronto sole practitioner Mary Hyun-Sook Lee be stopped from practice after failing to act with honour or integrity over her use of ChatGPT to draft a court document.
The tribunal was careful to say the suspension could have been more severe but for the specific facts of this case which had already had serious consequences for Lee.
While the sanction was issued in a different jurisdiction, the reasoning and factors behind the decision will be pored over carefully by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, which is handling a number of cases where fake cases have been cited based on AI searches.
Last year an Australian solicitor found to have produced cases created by AI was allowed to stay in practice but under supervision for two years.
In the Lee case, the issue was more serious because of attempts by the lawyer of 30 years to escape blame for AI hallucinations.
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The tribunal outlined that Lee, who was acting pro bono for a client in family law proceedings, had served a statement with four citations and hyperlinks to cases. One argued the opposite point to the one she was trying to make and three did not exist at all.
Asked by the judge in the case if she had used ChatGPT to write the statement, she flatly denied it. In a subsequent letter she said that her staff had used generative AI for preliminary legal research and she had failed to independently verify the case law citations they had produced.
Lee then attended a case conference and advised the judge that a law student had prepared the document using ChatGPT, adding she had been shocked to be informed.
It was only when the Law Society of Ontario began an investigation that Lee admitted she did not employ any associate or law student and had prepared the document herself when she was pressed for time. She also explained that she did not understand how AI worked and did not even know about hallucinations until questioned by the judge. She was, therefore, taken aback, embarrassed, and did not know how to respond appropriately.
Lee and the Law Society agreed a six-month suspension but the tribunal considered whether the penalty should be more severe. It concluded that her remorse was genuine and the lapses out of character. Lee had also received attention from the press with adverse reputational consequences and is facing contempt of court proceedings, to be held later this year.
