Elite Wall Street law firm Sullivan & Cromwell apologized to a federal bankruptcy judge after an emergency court filing contained inaccurate citations and other errors produced by artificial intelligence. Partner Andrew Dietderich told Judge Martin Glenn that the firm’s internal AI policies and secondary review process were not followed, and a rival firm, Boies Schiller Flexner, flagged the mistakes. Sullivan & Cromwell filed a corrected motion and said it is evaluating enhancements to training and review protocols. The incident underscores a growing pattern of AI “hallucinations” appearing in legal filings and the operational and ethical risks of unvetted AI usage in high-stakes workflows.
Sullivan & Cromwell notified U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Martin Glenn that an emergency filing in the Prince Global Holdings Chapter 15 case contained inaccurate citations and other errors described as AI “hallucinations.” In an April 18 letter, partner Andrew Dietderich apologized, saying firm policies governing AI use were not followed and the secondary review process failed to catch the fabricated or misquoted authorities. Rival counsel at Boies Schiller Flexner identified the errors, prompting a corrected filing and direct apologies to opposing counsel.
The firm characterized the problem as instances where AI generated non-existent case citations, misquoted authorities, and produced incorrect article titles and numbers. The corrected submission contained a redline showing entire sentences and citation strings replaced or removed.
This is a concrete example of downstream risk when generative models are used as research or drafting assistants without rigorous validation. Legal citations are high-integrity artifacts: a fabricated case citation is not a harmless stylistic error, it is a factual inaccuracy that can mislead courts, trigger sanctions, and damage firm reputation. The incident illustrates two failure modes relevant across industries: model hallucination producing plausible but false strings, and process failure where human reviewers rely on AI outputs without sufficient cross-checks.
Sullivan & Cromwell LLP is an American multinational white shoe law firm headquartered in New York City. It was founded in 1879 by Algernon Sydney Sullivan and William Nelson Cromwell and is currently one of the most profitable law firms in the world.
…………………………….
What do you think? In our legal English course, we maintain that research should be conducted using AI models that include sources which can subsequently be verified.
💥 Would you be interested in learning how we could help you excel in your global legal practice?
ORGANIZĂM CURSURI DE ENGLEZĂ JURIDICĂ PENTRU AVOCAȚI
🔔Contact
➡️ 0040722 841 053 (WHATSAPP)
➡️ http://www.seocopywriting.ro/en/contact-us.php
✳️ Discount START ENGLISH CLUB: 10%
✳️ Check out the link below:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeWZ0YFW_0m1hQDVygg1OzPJqt8DjClTTSqS8wn0M9IIQjyIA/viewform
Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash
