Calgary lawyer faces discipline for AI-generated fake cases
A family court judge ordered a Calgary lawyer to self-report after she filed court submissions containing case law that never existed.
A Calgary family law lawyer is facing potential discipline after using artificial intelligence to prepare court submissions that included fabricated case law.
Family court Justice Susan Borsic ordered Folasade Olugbemi to self-report her conduct to the Law Society of Alberta after discovering that two of three cases cited in her final submissions in a child guardianship case do not exist.
Olugbemi admitted in court on March 13 that her assistant used AI to complete the written closing submissions and that the system had "hallucinated cases that do not exist." The judge denied the guardianship application, instead returning the children to their mother under a six-month supervision order.
In her written ruling, Borsic admonished the lawyer for the breach, noting that the nonexistent cases wasted courtroom time and forced other counsel to spend hours trying to locate decisions that were never real. The judge cited an October 2023 notice posted across all Alberta court levels cautioning lawyers and self-represented litigants about AI use, which stressed the need for "meaningful human oversight" when AI prepares court submissions.
Borsic emphasized that "in the interest of maintaining the highest standards of accuracy and authenticity, any AI-generated submissions must be verified with meaningful human control."
The case underscores a growing tension in Canadian legal practice: tools designed to assist are creating new risks for the courts themselves.