Ethics
2 government attorneys resign over use of fake AI citations
A federal judge has found that two attorneys in New Orleans’ law department used artificial intelligence to create fake case citations in a court filing. The attorneys have resigned. (Image from Shutterstock)
Two attorneys in New Orleans’ law department have resigned after an investigation found that they used artificial intelligence to create fake case citations in a court filing.
According to WDSU, the resignations of Assistant City Attorney Jalen Harris and Deputy City Attorney James Roquemore follow sanctions issued by a federal judge, who found that the attorneys filed a motion that included nine made-up case citations generated by AI.
U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier of the Eastern District of Louisiana ordered the attorneys to appear in court after he discovered the false citations in a January 2026 motion. The motion was filed in a lawsuit brought by a man who is suing New Orleans, former Mayor LaToya Cantrell, the New Orleans Police Department and several officers. The man is claiming that they violated his civil rights, according to WDSU.
WDSU reports that Harris admitted during a hearing in March that he used ChatGPT to help research the motion. He said he searched Westlaw, an online legal research database, first but then turned to AI to speed up the work. Harris said he did not verify whether the AI-generated cases were real and did not read them before including them in the brief. He apologized repeatedly in court.
Roquemore also apologized. He reviewed the motion before it was filed, but he did not question the strange formatting of the fake citations, according to WDSU. Roquemore had more responsibility because he supervised Harris, the court said.
Barbier ordered Harris to pay a $250 fine, and he ordered Roquemore to pay $1,000.
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