AI hallucinations in court
In times of AI, can the justice system still be relied upon? After all, real facts count there. A report from the USA shows: The opposite is true.
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Artificial intelligence is increasingly used in the justice system. This presents legal systems with challenges: Courts worldwide are struggling with pleadings containing AI hallucinations, reports US radio station NPR.
According to the report, more and more lawyers are using AI for documents in ongoing proceedings. The problem: AI applications cite non-existent court rulings, falsify statements, or misrepresent judgments. This is particularly problematic for Anglo-American case law, which relies heavily on precedent.
Damien Charlotin, a legal scholar at the HEC Paris business school, maintains an online database that records proceedings worldwide in which courts have sanctioned individuals for submitting documents with AI errors. According to this database, there have been more than 1300 such court cases worldwide as of April 2026. 800 of these cases alone were in US courts, Charlotin told NPR.
Volume of proceedings is increasing
According to the scientist, the number of court proceedings in which documents with errors from AI tools were used has increased significantly since last year. Just recently, ten cases in ten different courts became known in one day.
Penalties are also becoming harsher. Last month, a US federal court in Oregon imposed sanctions totaling over $100,000 on a lawyer. He too had submitted documents containing errors caused by AI models. According to NPR, such cases of hallucinated court decisions or false citations in legal documents have already occurred in the supreme courts of US states.
First US courts introduce labeling requirements
According to NPR, some US courts have already introduced labeling requirements. Accordingly, any document created or edited with AI must be labeled in detail. The goal is to determine which documents courts need to check in detail for AI hallucinations.
However, one lawyer quoted by NPR considers this practice to be of little practical use. Since AI is now integrated into the standard functionality of law firm software, almost every document would be subject to labeling requirements.
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