Hallucination, Verification, and the Sanctions Risk in Legal AI
How legal AI hallucinates, why citation verification matters under ABA Formal Opinion 512 and post-Mata sanctions, and how to evaluate a vendor verification claim before signing.
- AI Hallucination Sanctions: Lawyer Cases and How to Avoid ThemCourts have sanctioned lawyers for AI-fabricated citations, from Mata v. Avianca to a $110,204.38 total in Couvrette v. Wisnovsky. Read what each order says and how to verify AI legal research.Jan 28, 2026
- Damien Charlotin's Hallucination Tracker, Read Like a Risk ManagerThe Charlotin AI hallucination database listed 2,184 decisions on 10 October 2026, 1,492 in US courts. Here is how to read it, with our own counts from its CSV.Aug 22, 2025
- AI Citation Verification: How Legal AI Verifies Citations in 4 LayersHow legal AI verifies citations: the four layers of AI citation verification (exact match, citation resolution, meaning, cross-check), what each catches, and how to test any vendor's verifier.Oct 2, 2025
- How to Verify AI Legal Citations Before You File (ABA 512 Checklist)How to verify AI legal citations before filing: a checklist tied to ABA 512 and to what courts wrote in Whiting, Farris and Lnu, that catches fake cites, wrong quotes and unsupported holdings.Mar 11, 2026
- Legal AI With No Hallucination? What the Evidence Says and How to Test a ToolDoes any legal AI avoid hallucinating cases? What Stanford's testing found, what courts have said, and a 15-minute test for telling grounded retrieval from guessing.Jan 23, 2026
- ABA Formal Opinion 512 (2024): Generative AI Duties for LawyersABA Formal Opinion 512, issued July 29, 2024, applies existing ethics rules to generative AI. A rule-by-rule guide to competence, confidentiality, fees and candor, plus the state opinions that followed.Mar 10, 2026
- Are ABA Formal Opinions Binding? What Opinion 512 Means for Your AI WorkflowAre ABA formal opinions binding? No. Here is how Opinion 512 carries weight, how states adopt or exceed it, and what it requires of your AI workflow.Dec 18, 2025
- "We Do Not Train on Your Data": How to Verify the ClaimWestlaw and every legal AI vendor says "we do not train on your data." Here is a 5-step checklist to verify the no-training claim in writing, not on a webpage.Mar 29, 2026
- Legal Research With No Data Indexing or Human Review: A Confidentiality ChecklistLegal research with no data indexing or human review is a contract term, not a slogan. A four-part checklist to verify before you upload privileged material.Dec 19, 2025
- AI Case Law Search Explained: How Semantic Search Finds the Right PrecedentAI case law search is not magic. It is embeddings, vector distance, hybrid BM25, and re-ranking. Here is how the retrieval pipeline actually finds precedent.Jul 11, 2025
- AI Law Search Engine vs Keyword Search: Find Case Law FasterAn AI law search engine wins when you know the concept but not the words. Keyword and Boolean search win when you know exactly what you want. Here is when to use each.Mar 25, 2026
- How AI Legal Research Works: RAG, Grounding, and CitationsHow AI legal research works under the hood: retrieval, grounding, citation verification, and the controls that stop an LLM from inventing cases.Jul 10, 2025
- Legal API vs Building a RAG Pipeline: Cost ComparisonLegal API vs building a RAG pipeline: estimated infrastructure and engineering costs, the per-query math, and how to find your own crossover point.Jan 8, 2026