It took only seconds for the judges on a New York appeals court to realize that the man addressing them from a video screen — a person about to present an argument in a lawsuit — not only had no law degree, but didn’t exist at all. The latest bizarre chapter in the awkward arrival of artificial intelligence in the legal world unfolded March 26 under the stained-glass dome of New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division’s First Judicial Department, where a panel of judges was set to hear from Jerome Dewald, a plaintiff in an employment dispute. On the video screen appeared a smiling, youthful-looking man with a sculpted hairdo, button-down shirt and sweater. Justice Sallie Manzanet-Daniels was not having it, as she quickly recognized that the counsel for the case was AI-generated. It turns out that Dewald had no attorney, so he created an AI-generated one, thinking the judges wouldn’t notice. Daniel Shin, Professor and Assistant Director of Research at William & Mary Law School, said he wasn’t surprised to learn of Dewald’s introduction of a fake person to argue his case. “From my perspective, it was inevitable,” he said. Shin pointed out that it was unlikely a lawyer would do such a thing because of court rules and the chance of being disbarred. As for Dewald’s case, it is still pending before the appeals court.
