Attorney’s Suspected Employment of Slop Draws Court Ire

The Trained A-Eye

A Florida attorney's filings in a divorce proceeding raised "red flags" of AI misuse, while other parts were "too unpolished" to have been machine generated. The court directed the attorney to show why she shouldn't be sanctioned and to be fully human in doing so.

Case

Lisandrillo v. Palozzi, No. 4D2026-2262 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2026)

What Happened?

In a divorce action, petitioner's counsel filed, inter alia, a motion to disqualify the judge and an emergency petition seeking a writ of prohibition to review the denial of the motion to disqualify and also seeing certiorari review of seven other rulings in the case.

The petition demanded an emergency stay of proceedings but then, "strangely," recognized that the court did so, noting, "The relief this Petition sought to forestall has issued, and the accrual it sets in motion is continuing."

From the court's view, the problem was that the filings contained "indicia of non-human authorship."

Rule of Law

Abusive AI filing threatens the orderly administration of justice, and Florida courts have sanctioned vexatious pro se litigants for abusive AI filings; courts must require more from attorneys and not tolerate abusive practice fueled by AI.

What the Court Said

Picking apart counsel's methods, the court found that "like the other filings in this case, the emergency request churns out a string of convoluted arguments." In particular, the court faulted the motion to disqualify, which alleged that the judge "systematically muzzled" counsel at the hearing. The hearing transcript refuted the allegation along with "many more of the allegations."

From the court's perspective, the allegations weren't humanly generated.

"A judge cannot be disqualified based on AI-hallucinated events," the court wrote.

The court also homed in on "legal gibberish" that appeared in the filings, including an allegation that "The Court admonished her for that judgment. The bind that creates, participate and get shut down on the one hand ... decline and get admonished on the other, is not a fair proceeding. It is the record of one," which referenced an alleged admonishing that did not appear in the record.

"The filings often emphasize (with bold and italics) seemingly random sentences causing the reader to focus on what turns out to be irrelevant facts," the court wrote.

Some factually shaky allegations in counsel's filings included charges that:

+ The court denied the emergency motion at a 1:30 p.m. hearing when it was actually scheduled for 4:30 p.m.

+ There was a "prejudgment from the bench" alleging that the court stated that faiilure to produce the parties' child to a guardian ad litem would be contempt, when no such prejudgment occurred.

+ The court erred in making evidentiary findings because the hearing was not noticed as evidentiary, but the contempt hearing was evidentiary, and the court took testimony, including from the petitioner.

"Whether this was AI-generated, AI-assisted or something else makes no difference" the court wrote. "An attorney is obligated to stand behind any submission to a court."

Likewise, allegations that the judge mispronounced counsel's name and referred to her as "Mr." did not appear in the official transcript.

"We suspect that AI generated these bogus arguments from mistranscriptions in the 'rough draft transcript,'" the court wrote.

The court emphasized that an attorney should not clog dockets and undermine "the administration of justice" with AI-generated filings that have not been subject to careful human review.

"An AI supercomputer would struggle to find meaning in some of the prose used in this case," the court wrote. "Counsel's arguments need to be comprehensible to human readers -- the courts, opposing counsel, and litigants."

The court also questioned counsel's professional ethics, particularly with what she was charging the client.

"It takes almost no skill and little time to generate AI slop," the court wrote. "When a lawyer files such slop, the lawyer violates the duty to 'exercise independent professional judgment.'"

Verdict: The Court ordered petitioner's counsel to file a response and show cause "without the use of AI" why sanctions should not be imposed for submitting frivolous filings.

Takeaway

Using AI to "crank out" extensive and confounding documents causes delay, annoyance, and expense in judicial proceedings. No less than a pro se litigant, an attorney is responsible for the content of filings and should not be filing frivolous, scattershot arguments by relying on generative AI without double-checking the results.

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