Lawyer.exe | Trial by AI

The Texas Supreme Court heard argument on October 6 on whether a plaintiff can use an AI-generated transcript of a deposition he took. A Texas trial court struck the transcript on April 1, 2025. 🧵

Whatever the Texas Supreme Court decides about AI transcripts, somebody in a deposition room still has to be the person who can read back exactly what the witness said when two lawyers remember it differently. A court reporter does that on the record, in the moment. An AI transcript is something different. One wonders if these will become ubiquitous.

AI TIP FOR NON-LAWYERS Health insurance denied a claim? Snap a photo of the denial letter and the coverage section of your policy, upload both to ChatGPT or Claude, and ask: "Why was this denied, what's my deadline to appeal, and what does my policy say about this treatment? Quote the policy language." Then have it draft the appeal letter using those quotes. Two things before you send anything. Black out your member ID and Social Security number before you upload. And check the appeal deadline against the letter yourself, because if the AI gets that date wrong you can lose the appeal entirely. Worst case, they say no twice.

The Florida Bar's ethics committee is taking comments on a proposed AI advisory opinion before any of it has been written. The October 15 notice says there are "no drafts for the committee's consideration at this time." On the table: agentic AI, AI notetakers and transcription tools, what to tell clients who use AI themselves, and an update to Opinion 24-1. Comments have to be postmarked by December 1, ahead of a December 10 committee meeting, and can go to [email protected]. Florida folks, now's the time to tell them what you actually need answered.

Federal Judge Rita F. Lin in San Francisco dismissed, with leave to amend, the remaining claims that Google's contact-center AI eavesdropped on Home Depot customer service calls. Two plaintiffs had accepted Home Depot's privacy statement, which let it share call recordings with "service providers." The third never agreed to anything, but nobody alleged facts showing Google meant to listen without consent. Most people calling a law firm's intake line haven't signed anything yet either. If an AI tool is listening to those calls, what did they agree to?

Grok topped a new contract-review benchmark from Ivo and micro1 at 58.3%, just ahead of Opus 5.5 at 58.1% and Kimi K3 at 57.1%. None of the seven models tested cleared 60%. 🧵

Legora raised $550 million at an $8.8 billion valuation on October 21, up from $5.6 billion at its last round. Per the release, in-house teams made up more than 40% of the customers it added last quarter, and more than half the AmLaw 50 are customers. The next day Jones Day said it's rolling Legora out to more than 2,500 lawyers in 40 offices. Solo and small firms don't come up anywhere in the release. Just saying.

Two billing reports came out in October and they don't line up. In Everlaw's survey of 300 in-house legal professionals, 81% expect "outcome-based pricing to eclipse the billable hour within five years." 8am's data from more than 60,000 small and midsize firms has the hour gaining ground. 🧵

The Florida Supreme Court suspended Broward County judge Lauren Nichole Peffer for 30 days and fined her $10,000 on October 9. During her 2024 campaign she told the Sun Sentinel about an "image crisis" tied to another circuit, leaned on a book she later admitted she'd never read, and when asked for evidence, sent a recording of a supposed call between Florida Supreme Court justices and that circuit's chief judge. The call was fake. Bloomberg Law reports it was AI-generated. The court's problem was that she "failed to verify the accuracy of the book or recording on which she relied." Turns out "verify before you file" covers campaign interviews too.

When a lawyer files fake AI citations, the lawyer pays. When a judge signs an order with them, the parties pay, and in Jackson Federation of Teachers v. Fitch it took the State 15 months and a trip to the Fifth Circuit. Read the full breakdown below👇🏻:

If you're up at 4 a.m. finishing a brief, skip the last round of polish and spend that hour pulling cites. Nobody ever got sanctioned for a clunky transition.

When a ruling goes against you, check the order's citations the same way you'd check the other side's brief. Paste it into Claude, have it list every case, pincite, and quote, and then pull each one yourself. In Jackson Federation of Teachers v. Fitch, the State flagged fake parties and declarations in a TRO two days after it issued. A nonexistent Fourth Circuit case in the "corrected" version didn't come out until oral argument at the Fifth Circuit. Find it before the panel does.

A Florida appeals court referred Jaclyn R. Soroka to the Florida Bar on October 21 in Lisandrillo v. Palozzi. The court had ordered her to show cause why she shouldn't be sanctioned, and said her 82-page response "misses the point." In it, she admitted a motion she filed in the trial court had a lengthy false quotation attributed to one of the appeals court's own cases, and called it "human error" under "time pressure." The court's reply: "Until AI, and until this case, we never encountered lawyers 'hallucinating' non-existent quotations." To add insult to injury, the court also said that “[n]o competent attorney, much less one who holds herself out as board certified, should file a similar petition in an appellate court.” So apparently, she’s board certified, too. Yikes.