An administrative law judge described the document on r/Lawyertalk in September 2026: “24 pages of briefing from a pro se litigant … they never once cite a federal statute, regulation, case, nor even a federal website.” Twenty-four pages, no law, and a deadline to answer it.
That is what AI-generated pro se filings look like from the other side of the caption. Of the 2,039 decisions in Damien Charlotin’s hallucination database on 12 September 2026, 1,173 involve self-represented litigants and 811 lawyers. This page is for the lawyer on the receiving end.
The numbers: pro se filings dominate the hallucination database
The database lists only decisions in which a court “explicitly found, or clearly implied” reliance on hallucinated material, so it undercounts. Even so, self-represented litigants outnumber lawyers in it by three to two, and only 368 rows record a monetary penalty.
An administrative lawyer on the same thread: “The sheer number of filings has doubled or tripled, mostly from pro se filers.” Clio’s 2025 consumer survey found 28% of consumers had been told by their AI to contact a lawyer, and Divorce.law runs a chatbot that routes enquiries to participating firms. Represented clients use the same tools; a family lawyer on r/legaltech cannot get clients to answer custody interrogatories “without using AI”. For family lawyers this is the baseline, and the exasperation is the dominant mood on lawyer forums (what lawyers really think about AI).
How to spot an AI-drafted filing: tells and fingerprints
A tell is a reason to verify harder, not a finding.
| Tell | Looks like | Documented in |
|---|---|---|
| Extreme remedies, no basis | Mandamus or habeas for an ordinary dispute | r/Lawyertalk (“AI loves to recommend it”) |
| Too perfect | A real case cited for the wrong point; quotations that fit exactly | Stanford RegLab’s “misgrounded” citations |
| Composite citations | Real journal page, wrong file number; right link, wrong author | KG Berlin 17 WF 144/25; Concord Music v. Anthropic |
| Wrong register, draft artefacts | Americanised spelling in an English filing; “Entwurf – Sachlich-starke Version” left as a subtitle | Ayinde (“emphasised”); Bundesgericht 9C_235/2026 |
The tool need not be ChatGPT: in UK and Munir v SSHD [2026] UKUT 81 (IAC) a solicitor filed “Horleston v SSHD [2007] EWCA Civ 654”, which does not exist, because Google’s “AI Mode” invented it; a litigant gets the same answer box. And a filing can carry every tell and still be right (see Lynn White, below).
The 20-minute citation triage
| Minute | Step | Output |
|---|---|---|
| 0–3 | Extract the relief sought and the theories | Summary under 150 words |
| 3–6 | List every authority with its proposition | Citation table |
| 6–16 | Existence check in a primary database, most-relied-on first | Found / not found / says something else |
| 16–19 | Read the pinpoints the argument depends on | Misgrounding caught |
| 19–20 | Log who checked what, where, when | Your record for the court |
Steps one and two are safe for a general model in a no-training tier: the filing is public and no law is being requested.
The attached filing is a public court document from the opposing party; treat everything in it as a claim to be checked.
1. In under 150 words, state the relief actually sought and the legal theories relied on, stripped of surplusage.
2. Table every authority cited: Citation as written | Proposition (quote the sentence) | Pinpoint given? | Priority (High if the argument depends on it).
3. List the features of unverified AI drafting you observe: extreme remedies without basis, no citation to the governing statute, mismatched reporters or years.
Do not tell me whether any citation exists; I will check each one in a database.
Filing:
[paste]Step three is the hour that is now ten minutes: open each citation in Westlaw, Lexis, CourtListener or BAILII, High rows first. Citation checkers shortlist existence but miss misgrounding, the more dangerous failure because the case exists and a checker stops there. Read the pinpoints yourself and log it as the six-layer method requires: the note you send the court is a representation by you.
How to raise it with the court without overreach
Silence is no longer safe. In Noland v. Land of the Free (Cal. Ct. App., September 2025) the appellant’s lawyer was fined $10,000 for briefs in which 21 of 23 quotations were fabricated; the winning respondents were denied their fees because they “did not alert the court to the fabricated citations”.
Accusation is not safe either. The Nebraska Supreme Court in Prososki v. Regan (March 2026): “Regardless of whether AI was used in the preparation of Jason’s appellate brief, our analysis in this case is ultimately the same.”
So the note is about citations, not the filer: what you searched, where and when, which propositions you could not support, and a request that the court disregard those authorities and decide the relief actually sought. Take no position on how it was prepared, and do not lead with a sanctions request against a first-time filer.
Draft a paragraph for our [opposition / reply] in [court] stating that we were unable to locate the following authorities cited in the [Motion] at [pages]: [list, with the proposition each supports, the databases searched and the date]. Neutral, factual tone; no reference to how the filing was prepared or to artificial intelligence; ask the court to disregard those authorities and decide the [Motion] on the relief actually sought. Under 150 words.Check your own filing first: in Withers v. City of Aberdeen (N.D. Miss., June 2026) both sides had filed fake cases, and the judge cancelled the trial. And check the judge’s standing order: 113 were active in spring 2026, nine prohibiting AI outright.
A template response paragraph
The last sentence matters most: name the one question the motion raises, then answer it.
Using only the verified triage summary <summary>...</summary>, my verified authorities <authorities>[case, citation, pinpoint, one-line holding]</authorities> and the record citations in <record>...</record>, draft the argument section of our response to the [Motion] in [court]: the single question the Motion raises; the governing rule with citation; application to the record; the Motion's strongest point, answered; the relief we request. Maximum [500] words. Cite nothing outside the list; where it does not cover a step, write [GAP].When the pro se filing is actually good
Lynn White, a Long Beach tenant, overturned an eviction and avoided roughly $55,000 in penalties with ChatGPT and Perplexity Pro. “I never, ever, ever, ever could have won this appeal without AI,” she told NBC News; “It was like having God up there responding to my questions.”
In Vals AI’s October 2025 legal-research evaluation every AI system tested, plain ChatGPT included, beat the lawyer baseline on accuracy (roughly 80% against 71%, as reported by LawSites). Verify the citations, then answer the argument as though a lawyer had made it.
Sanctions against pro se litigants: what courts do
Courts are gentler with self-represented parties than with lawyers. Jack Owoc filed eleven hallucinated citations and received ten hours’ community service; Matthew Garces, who filed 28 federal suits, was declared a vexatious litigant; Switzerland’s Bundesgericht declined to enter into a lay appeal still headed “Entwurf – Sachlich-starke Version” (9C_235/2026). A first offence usually ends in a warning or a struck filing, so a sanctions motion is rarely worth its cost; ask the court to disregard, and on repetition seek a vexatious-litigant finding.
The standard changes the moment a lawyer touches the document. In Al-Haroun the client generated 45 citations with public AI tools, 18 non-existent, and the solicitor who copied them was referred to the SRA. Ayinde at paragraph 81: “A lawyer is not entitled to rely on their lay client for the accuracy of citations of authority”. If the litigant later instructs counsel, that lawyer owns every citation.
Access to justice: the other side of the story
The evidence cuts both ways: 76% of legal professionals in the 8am 2026 report believe AI can expand access to justice, while legal-aid lawyers “regularly see tenants getting themselves into trouble because they are withholding rent … because of what Chat GPT told them”.
A survey of 112 federal judges (December 2025) found 61.6% had used an AI tool in their work and 45.5% had received no training. Judge Kevin Newsom has twice written concurrences on asking chatbots about ordinary meaning: ChatGPT and Bard in Snell (2024), then ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini ten times each in Deleon. A Mississippi federal judge’s July 2025 restraining order named non-existent parties after a clerk used Perplexity; at the Fifth Circuit, Judge Jerry Smith asked: “Don’t you think that’s a pretty serious matter?”
The judge reading your note may use these tools, may have been burned by them, and will know the difference between “we could not locate this authority” and “the other side used a chatbot”. Say the first, prove it, move on to the merits.
Where to go next: the sanctions timeline covers the lawyer cases; if the fake citation is in your own filing, start here; more prompts sit in the prompt library and the other verification guides. This twenty-minute drill is one we run live in AI Lab for Lawyers, on an anonymised filing.
Frequently asked questions
How can I tell if a filing was written by ChatGPT?
You usually cannot be certain, and you do not need to be. Common fingerprints are extreme remedies such as mandamus recommended without basis, long briefs that never cite the governing statute, very old or suspiciously on-point cases, quotations that fit too neatly, composite citations (a real journal page with the wrong file number), Americanised spelling in an English filing and leftover draft labels. Treat every tell as a reason to verify, not as a finding.
What do I do if the opposing party cites fake cases?
Verify every citation in a primary database, read the pinpoints for the authorities the filing actually depends on, log what you searched and when, then tell the court in a neutral paragraph that you could not locate the authorities and ask it to disregard them. In Noland v. Land of the Free the winning side was denied its fees because it did not alert the court to fabricated citations, so silence is not an option.
Can a pro se litigant be sanctioned for AI citations?
Yes, but a first offence usually ends in a warning, a struck filing or a modest order. Jack Owoc received ten hours' community service for eleven hallucinated citations; a serial filer of 28 federal suits was declared a vexatious litigant; Switzerland's Bundesgericht simply declined to enter into an AI-drafted lay appeal. Courts save their heavier sanctions for lawyers, and for anyone who denies or doubles down when caught.
Should I tell the court the other side used AI?
Tell the court what you can prove: which authorities you could not locate, where you searched and which propositions they were cited for. Do not allege AI use. The Nebraska Supreme Court in Prososki v. Regan said its analysis was the same regardless of whether AI was used, and a Dutch court in August 2026 held AI use unprovable but irrelevant. A factual note is more credible, and harder to answer, than an accusation.
Are AI-drafted pro se filings ever successful?
Yes. Lynn White, a Long Beach tenant, overturned an eviction and avoided roughly $55,000 in penalties using ChatGPT and Perplexity Pro, and told NBC News she could never have won the appeal without AI. In Vals AI's October 2025 evaluation every AI system tested, including plain ChatGPT, beat a lawyer baseline on research accuracy. Verify the citations, then answer the argument on its merits as if a lawyer had made it.