Amy G. Gore, Senior Attorney

   As of October 2025, OpenAI's ChatGPT had approximately 800 million weekly active users. Jennifer Sor, Sam Altman Touts ChatGPT's 800 Million Weekly Users, Double All Its Main Competitors Combined, Business Insider (Oct. 8, 2025). Many of those users are attorneys and law firms.

   With the use of this new technology comes the need to regulate how attorneys may and may not integrate that technology into a routine legal practice. Unsupervised use of artificial intelligence (“AI”) in legal matters implicates an attorney’s ethical duty of competence when not verified. Use of generalized AI and input of confidential client information run the risk of unauthorized disclosure to other users. See generally ABA Comm. on Ethics & Professional Responsibility, Formal Opinion 512.

Brett R. Turner—Senior Attorney

    For every rule there is an exception, and for every exception there is a party who tries to stretch the exception far beyond its intended parameters. This principle is demonstrated by a recent California case involving the most basic discovery procedure recognized by American law: the humble deposition.

   Traditionally, depositions have been taken in person. In the age of the internet, however, it is not uncommon for a deposition to be taken online. Such an online deposition was scheduled in Agnone v. Agnone, 111 Cal. App. 5th 758, 333 Cal. Rptr. 3d 119 (2025).

   One of the most basic rules of deposition law is that the witness cannot be coached by counsel as to the best way to answer the question. The answer must come from the witness, not from counsel. See, e.g., Tucker v. Pac. Bell Mobile Servs., 186 Cal. App. 4th 1548, 115 Cal. Rptr. 3d 9 (2010).

Lee Dunham—Senior Attorney

     In Chitlik v. Secretary of Health and Human Services, No. 2025-1804, __ F.4th __, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 24000, 2026 WL 2288200 (Fed. Cir. Aug. 10, 2026), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decided a case that may expand the universe of situations in which equitable tolling is an appealing argument for plaintiffs who missed a deadline. In Chitlik, the court addressed whether equitable tolling could excuse the late filing of a petition under the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), a federal no-fault system established to compensate individuals who suffer certain vaccine-related injuries. In its decision, the court held that the special master and court of federal claims had applied an improperly demanding standard of diligence and failed to conduct the required case-specific inquiry.

ATTORNEY AND CLIENT:  Enough Is Enough: Florida Supreme Court Amends Rules to Combat AI Misuse

Jason Holder—Senior Attorney

     Much like their sister jurisdictions, Florida’s courts have seen an alarming increase in the citation of nonexistent caselaw stemming from the use of generative artificial intelligence by both attorneys and pro se litigants. See, e.g., Goya v. Hayashida, 418 So. 3d 652, 655 (Fla. 4th DCA 2025) (Party’s brief cites cases “for the proposition that a party claiming inherited property must provide documents of transfer or other formal proof of inheritance. These cases do not exist, and no cases stand for that proposition or various other contentions in her brief.”); Russell v. Mells, 426 So. 3d 913, 921 (Fla. 2d DCA 2025) (holding that attorney “fundamentally abdicated” duty to the court and client by submitting a filing without verifying that the three cases cited said what was claimed and referring the matter to the Florida Bar “to proceed as it deems appropriate”); Hessert v. Hessert, No. 6D2026-0121, 2026 Fla. App. LEXIS 2188, at *1-2 (6th DCA Mar. 20, 2026) (“[T]he petition filed by Petitioner cites to thirteen cases. Only four of the cited cases both exist and are cited for legal propositions that the cited cases actually represent. Five of the cited cases do not exist. Four of the cited cases are cited for legal propositions that the cited cases do not actually represent.”); Young v. AP, No. 25-CA-352, 2025 Fla. Cir. LEXIS 2476, at *30-32 (Aug. 29, 2025) (hallucinated cases found in motion for leave to amend); Rodriguez v. Baylis, No. 2025-CA-004973-O, 2025 Fla. Cir. LEXIS 2738, at *3-4 (Sept. 10, 2025) (pro se plaintiff appeared to have included artificial intelligence research and an AI platform hallucinated case that did not exist, but concluding that party “made an honest and genuine mistake as a pro se or self-represented litigant without the resources of a licensed attorney lacking any malice or bad faith”). As explained by one judge, “[c]hatbots are going to get better, and that's going to make these problems worse. The question now must be how to address them on the front end.” Gouveia v. Meridian Fin. Invs., LLC, No. 4D2025-0843, 2026 Fla. App. LEXIS 2306, at *8, 15 Fla. L. Weekly D 600 (4th DCA Mar. 25, 2026) (Lott, J., concurring).

Charlene Hicks—Senior Attorney

     “During the first 100 days of the second Trump administration, district courts issued approximately 25 universal injunctions.” Trump v. CASA, Inc., 606 U.S. 831, 840, 145 S. Ct. 2540, 2550 (2025). A universal injunction refers to the controversial practice wherein a single federal district court judge enters an injunction that takes effect throughout the nation. Not surprisingly, this practice induced chaos. “By the end of the Biden administration, we had reached ‘a state of affairs where almost every major presidential act [was] immediately frozen by a federal district court.’” Id.

Brett Turner—Co-President

     Much attention has been paid in recent months to the misuse of artificial intelligence (“AI”) software by attorneys. But what about the use of AI software by judges?

Becky Schanz—Senior Attorney

    As recently noted by Judge Jed Rakoff, “[g]enerative artificial intelligence presents a new frontier in the ongoing dialogue between technology and the law.” United States v. Heppner, 25 Cr. 503 (JSR), 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 32697, at *14 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 17, 2026). Courts are just beginning to wrestle with the use of artificial intelligence (“AI”), but a few recent cases address whether privilege applies to AI use.

Paul Ferrer—Senior Attorney

     The common law is, by definition, judge-made law. See, e.g., Ballentine’s Law Dictionary (3d ed. 2010) (defining “common law” as “[t]hose principles, usages and rules of action . . . which do not rest for their authority upon any express or positive statute or other written declaration, but upon statements of principles found in the decisions of the courts”). The Supreme Court of Virginia has long expressed that “[o]ne of the great virtues of the common law is its dynamic nature that makes it adaptable to the requirements of society at the time of its application in court.” Surratt v. Thompson, 212 Va. 191, 193, 183 S.E.2d 200, 202 (1971) (quotation marks omitted). The court has consistently expressed this understanding of the protean nature of the common law despite a Virginia statute mandating that “[t]he common law of England, insofar as it is not repugnant to the principles of the Bill of Rights and Constitution of this Commonwealth, shall continue in full force within the same, and be the rule of decision, except as altered by the General Assembly.” Va. Code Ann. § 1-200. Thus, the court has indicated that Code § 1-200 “does not mean that common law rules are forever chiseled in stone, never changing. The common law is dynamic, evolves to meet developing societal problems, and is adaptable to society’s requirements at the time of its application by the Court.” Cline v. Dunlora S., LLC, 284 Va. 102, 106-07, 726 S.E.2d 14, 16 (2012) (quotation marks omitted). And yet, in Under Wild Skies, Inc. v. NRA of AmericaUnder Wild Skies, Inc. v. NRA of Am., 304 Va. 310, 319, 915 S.E.2d 514, 519 (2025), the court declined to incorporate the universally well-regarded doctrine of adequate assurance into the Virginia common law, ostensibly because “[t]he decision to adopt a new doctrine applicable to all contractual disputes is a policy decision that is more appropriately left to the legislature.”

Lee Dunham—Senior Attorney

     On February 5, 2026, Judge Failla of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York issued an Opinion and Order in Flycatcher Corp. Ltd. v. Affable Avenue LLC, 24 Civ. 9429 (KPF), 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 23980 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 5, 2026), imposing severe Rule 11 sanctions on attorney Steven A. Feldman for repeatedly filing apparently AI-generated submissions with false citations, including an initial motion to dismiss and several more briefs in response to the court’s Order to Show Cause why the initial motion should not be dismissed.

Matthew T. McDavitt—Senior Attorney

CIVIL PROCEDURE: UFOs, Aliens, and Helicopters: A Study in Improper Parties

      By federal complaint filed January 9, 2013, plaintiff Shirley Durante—clearly suffering from some unstated mental health issue—sued defendants: (1) Massachusetts real estate broker Todd Sandler, (2) UFOs, (3) Aliens, and (4) Helicopters, alleging that aliens from Jupiter and Mars were harassing her:

Shirley Durante . . . complains that helicopters, UFOs, and aliens have been harassing her with laxatives and bright lights which burn her face and eyes. This harassment is destructive to her property as well, damaging three car mirrors. It appears that in some unspecified way Todd Sandler and family of Randolph, Massachusetts, have something to do with this harassment. Durante has written to the Department of Homeland Security and Senator Susan Collins about this harassment, but apparently has received no assistance. She has also gone to the Maine state courts seeking relief from the harassment. She has now determined that her recourse is to file a federal lawsuit.