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Lawyers Allegedly Behaving Badly

You’ve got a different take on it than a number of legal experts I’ve been reading. Despite aggressive questioning, there is no direct testimony substantiating any alleged impropriety. Even if the two are found to have been in a relationship at some point in time material to the allegations, that also does not automatically mean either is disqualified to work on the case, or alternatively that any part of the actual case is invalid should a different lead prosecutor be assigned. In any case, this should at least be wrapped up one way or another pretty quickly.
I too have been watching experts, listening, not reading. I'm guessing not the same ones as yourself. They have a completely different take than your experts. I guess we'll have to wait and see. To your point of changing prosecutors, they can remove them and assign it to someone else in the office. If they recuse, the whole office becomes ineligible. However, they can give it to a prosecutor from another county. Don't ask me to explain the nuances, it's just the way the process was explained.
 
I too have been watching experts, listening, not reading. I'm guessing not the same ones as yourself. They have a completely different take than your experts. I guess we'll have to wait and see. To your point of changing prosecutors, they can remove them and assign it to someone else in the office. If they recuse, the whole office becomes ineligible. However, they can give it to a prosecutor from another county. Don't ask me to explain the nuances, it's just the way the process was explained.
Yup- all in all, unlikely to materially affect the outcome of the prosecution one way or another. Just who has the steering wheel on the way there.
 
Busted for using bots...

Lawyers have real bad day in court after citing fake cases made up by ChatGPT​

Lawyers fined $5K and lose case after using AI chatbot "gibberish" in filings.​


A federal judge tossed a lawsuit and issued a $5,000 fine to the plaintiff's lawyers after they used ChatGPT to research court filings that cited six fake cases invented by the artificial intelligence tool made by OpenAI.

Lawyers Steven Schwartz and Peter LoDuca of the firm Levidow, Levidow, & Oberman "abandoned their responsibilities when they submitted non-existent judicial opinions with fake quotes and citations created by the artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT, then continued to stand by the fake opinions after judicial orders called their existence into question," US District Judge Kevin Castel wrote in an order yesterday. The lawyers, Castel wrote, "advocated for the fake cases and legal arguments" even "after being informed by their adversary's submission that their citations were non-existent and could not be found."

 
Busted for using bots...

Lawyers have real bad day in court after citing fake cases made up by ChatGPT​

Lawyers fined $5K and lose case after using AI chatbot "gibberish" in filings.​


A federal judge tossed a lawsuit and issued a $5,000 fine to the plaintiff's lawyers after they used ChatGPT to research court filings that cited six fake cases invented by the artificial intelligence tool made by OpenAI.

Lawyers Steven Schwartz and Peter LoDuca of the firm Levidow, Levidow, & Oberman "abandoned their responsibilities when they submitted non-existent judicial opinions with fake quotes and citations created by the artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT, then continued to stand by the fake opinions after judicial orders called their existence into question," US District Judge Kevin Castel wrote in an order yesterday. The lawyers, Castel wrote, "advocated for the fake cases and legal arguments" even "after being informed by their adversary's submission that their citations were non-existent and could not be found."

What were they smoking to double down on that? Wow.
 
Busted for using bots...

Lawyers have real bad day in court after citing fake cases made up by ChatGPT​

Lawyers fined $5K and lose case after using AI chatbot "gibberish" in filings.​

When I started in law school in 1981, the Dominion Law Reports published in about six volumes each year all the key decisions from Canadian superior courts. There were a few other reports like the Western Law Reports and the Manitoba Law Reports or even the Ontario ones, but all in all only a few hundred cases were published each year and all on paper - so no cheating - you had to photocopy and submit your precedents.

Not long after reports went onto online services, province by province and initially aggregated in various very expensive report databases and eventually a free CanLII which publisher virtually every decision by every court and board or tribunal in Canada - thousands each year. I've done searches in US caselaw. It's massive - very massive - and again, with no CanLII Americans turn to very expensive caselaw engines like WestLaw or NexisLexis. It's no wonder lawyers there turn to cheaper solutions and some type of AI engine can find crap for you.

When you do research you shepherd from case to case going from citation to case to case to case and so on. If something is misquoted you should find the problem as you progress. Researching law is trying to find cases that have previously considered your issue and identified the principles that should apply in your case. It's often a complex thought process. These guys may have not even realized their cases were bogus by relying on the AI to do that. But that would be because they didn't do their homework properly.

Lawyers get paid by their clients to research the law accurately. An AI engine is risky at best and more properly dangerous albeit I see that WestLaw uses its own AI engine. At least it is limited to WestLaw's own genuine reports.

This is going to happen more often as these tools are misrelied on more often.

🍻
 
British Columbia real estate appears to bring out the worst...

Real estate transactions are one place where things can go south very quickly and badly because it is a system where large amount of monies need to be moved; there are large numbers of transactions happening all the time; and you often have sole practitioners involved who do not have the internal financial controls larger partnerships do.

It's an area where law societies' reimbursement funds frequently have to compensate defrauded clients fairly large amounts. It's getting worse as house prices have increased over the last decade or so.

🍻
 
And with the rampant involvement of criminal elements in BC’s real estate market, it’s to be expected that there will be some shady or outright crooked lawyers. Solicitor client privilege is a very powerful protection if organized crime can leverage it.
 
When you do research you shepherd from case to case going from citation to case to case to case and so on. If something is misquoted you should find the problem as you progress. Researching law is trying to find cases that have previously considered your issue and identified the principles that should apply in your case. It's often a complex thought process. These guys may have not even realized their cases were bogus by relying on the AI to do that. But that would be because they didn't do their homework properly.
When I wrote papers for the CWO course and other PD courses I would hand write first, then type them out. Those are mine and not cut and pasted from others. I detest the cut and paste thing as the orders etc are not yours and you have invested no time or effort.

By the way I did not use a red crayon ;)
 

Probably because she was running for Mayor ;)

season 6 GIF
 
Real estate transactions are one place where things can go south very quickly and badly because it is a system where large amount of monies need to be moved; there are large numbers of transactions happening all the time; and you often have sole practitioners involved who do not have the internal financial controls larger partnerships do.

It's an area where law societies' reimbursement funds frequently have to compensate defrauded clients fairly large amounts. It's getting worse as house prices have increased over the last decade or so.

🍻
My wife tried Real Estate Law, what a mess, documents riddled with errors, submitted by the realtors at the last minute and everyone blames the lawyer for holding things up as they correct other peoples mistakes and guess who is on the hook if you miss one of those mistakes? It was not worth the stress considering how little you get per transaction.
 
My wife tried Real Estate Law, what a mess, documents riddled with errors, submitted by the realtors at the last minute and everyone blames the lawyer for holding things up as they correct other peoples mistakes and guess who is on the hook if you miss one of those mistakes? It was not worth the stress considering how little you get per transaction.
I always thought it a hoot that real estate agents who charged a fee of 6% of the sale price on a half million dollar house would price shop to try to get the lawyers to cut their fee from $250 to $200 on a transaction.

I used to do one real estate transaction a year just for the practice (did the same with incorporations) - otherwise that was a job for my solicitor partners.

:giggle:
 
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