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Appeals court warns about ‘AI slop’ in filings, weighs punishing lawyer
Florida court orders lawyer to explain 'gibberish' in filings. Judges say filings cited no fake cases but lacked professional judgment. Lawyer has 10 days to respond to possible sanctions.
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A Florida appeals court has ordered an attorney to explain why she should not be sanctioned after finding that her filings bore hallmarks of generative artificial intelligence output that the panel of judges called “AI slop.”
In its ruling, opens new tab on Wednesday, the West Palm Beach-based 4th District Court of Appeal said it would consider referring family-law attorney Jaclyn Soroka to the state bar for disciplinary proceedings for submitting filings that it said contained "fdasrivolous, scattershot arguments.”
The three-judge panel did not say Soroka’s filings contained errors or made-up material stemming from AI "hallucinations." Instead, they said the submissions ran afoul of an attorney’s duty to show independent professional judgment.
“An AI supercomputer would struggle to find meaning in some of the prose used in this case,” Judge Robert Gross wrote. “Counsel’s arguments need to be comprehensible to human readers — the courts, opposing counsel, and the litigants.”
Soroka declined an interview request, but told Reuters that she takes the judges’ ruling seriously and will respond to it in court. She would not comment on whether or how she used AI in preparing her filings.
State and federal judges have increasingly sanctioned lawyers over their use of AI programs that have led to made-up case citations and misstatements of the law. The Florida court's ruling focused instead on “slop,” which the court described as lengthy and unfocused filings that contain “gibberish.”
Lawyers generally are not prohibited from using AI but are ethically bound to ensure the accuracy of court submissions.
The Florida appeals court issued its order in a dissolution of marriage dispute. Soroka represents the wife and was challenging lower court rulings, including the denial of her bid to disqualify a lower court judge.
The court's order directed Soroka to respond to the panel in 10 days about why she should not be sanctioned.
Gross, joined by Judges Spencer Levine and Caroline Shepherd, said Soroka’s submissions “resemble what we typically see from vexatious pro se litigants. The filings appear designed to cause delay.”
The judges said they suspected Soroka’s filings contained "AI-generated components" and distinguished the submissions from those in other cases that have featured hallucinations and errors stemming from AI programs.
“Abusive AI filing threatens the orderly administration of justice,” Gross wrote. “Courts must require more from attorneys and not tolerate abusive practice fueled by AI.”
The panel said ultimately it does not matter whether “this was AI-generated, AI-assisted, or something else” because attorneys must stand behind any court filings they submit.