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N.B. lawyer admits to misuse of AI for court brief, fined $10,000
This was Law Society of New Brunswick's first complaint about AI use
From the ZheroTax article collection
A New Brunswick lawyer has been sanctioned for misusing generative artificial intelligence in a brief he submitted to the New Brunswick provincial court last year.
Denis Sawyer appeared Thursday before a panel of the New Brunswick Law Society's discipline committee, where he did not contest the complaint of professional misconduct.
Sawyer will have to pay a $10,000 fine and $2,000 in costs to the law society.
The case is the first of its kind for the law society.
Sawyer was charged with submitting fictitious citations to the provincial court and using AI in an incompetent manner.
The notice of complaint that included the charges said all 12 citations in a brief Sawyer submitted on April 29, 2025, were “fictitious.”
After first being informed by opposing counsel of the mistake he made, Sawyer removed 10 citations and resubmitted the brief with two still remaining.
He said it’s a “million-dollar question” why he resubmitted the brief with two of the citations left in the brief.
No details about the provincial case, including where it happened, were provided at the hearing.
Complaint about lawyer's alleged improper AI use a first for N.B., law society says
Sawyer, a lawyer with Miramichi-based Murphy's Law, also accepted punishment for the misconduct, which was laid out by Destiny Grant, the law society’s counsel.
In addition to the financial penalties, he will have to take four and a half hours of professional development courses about AI use, which are to be paid for by him.
Sawyer will also have to review all documents he has before the court, which he said he has already done.
Grant said the punishment is a “significant penalty.” Sawyer had nothing to add after Grant made the law society’s case.
But Donald Hammond, Darren Blois and Chantal Thibodeau, who were sitting on the discipline committee, had questions for Sawyer about how he made the mistake.
Sawyer said he probably used either Claude or Chat GPT, which are two popular AI platforms, and likely copy and pasted material without reviewing it.
He said it was not his intention to mislead the court, and his mistake did not have an impact on his client.
Grant told the committee there was no evidence Sawyer was dishonest.
Use of AI software by lawyers isn't prohibited, but they're expected to review what's produced. Grant said the issue in Sawyer's case was that he did not review the AI content.
Because of the complaint, Sawyer hasn’t been able to use AI in his practice since April 16, but he is now allowed to use it again.