Assistant US attorney Rudy Renfer recently came under fire for a series of blunders. Not only did he manage to file a response that was replete with AI-generated quotes and faulty case holdings, a judge held that he made false or misleading statements about how they got in there. The shoddy work, followed by a shoddy attempt to cover up the shoddy work, was so egregious that Renfer was taxed with explaining not only why he shouldn’t be sanctioned, but why his entire office shouldn’t be held jointly responsible. To think the psychological torment of picking your own switch ended with childhood. Rather than prepare a defense for why he and his cohort shouldn’t be punished for his mistakes, Renfer opted to resign instead. Bloomberg Law has coverage:
An assistant US attorney in North Carolina said he’s resigning over AI-created fabricated quotes and erroneous citations in an AI-produced court brief.
Assistant US attorney Rudy Renfer said he’s made “a personal decision to separate from the office” of the US attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina during a Tuesday afternoon show-cause hearing. Magistrate Judge Robert Numbers chastised Renfer’s “disappointing” conduct, including for a lack of candor in accounting for the errors when it was discovered.
The most refreshing thing about all of this is Judge Numbers’s candor in pointing out how dumb it was to damage your career over fast and foolhearted AI use:
[N]umbers said that Renfer taking “shortcuts” on “basic work” made it “all the more outrageous.” He added that filings by Renfer he reviewed—beyond the AI brief and his explanation—added “grave concerns” over what was, at best, “sloppiness.”
“I don’t think it’s helpful. It’s hurtful to your cause,” Numbers said. He also pushed back on Renfer’s characterization that his error wasn’t intentional, saying, “it sounds like you intentionally used AI, and intentionally filed it to the court.”
That’s the sort of telling it like it is we need to see more of! None of this fashionable shifting blame onto machine “hallucinations.” Refner does blame some of the incentive on using AI on things that may have been a little out of his control like putting to much work on himself at one time and accidentally overwriting a previous version of the filing, but that doesn’t give you license to make stuff up along the way.
A few take away reminders. Using AI does not replace good lawyering. If you cite to cases, make sure they say what you say they do. And while we’re here, remember to brush your damned teeth — AI can’t do that for you yet either.
DOJ Lawyer Quits Before Judicial Scolding for AI Brief Error (1) [Bloomberg Law]
Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s . He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boat builder who is learning to swim and is interested in rhetoric, Spinozists and humor. Getting back in to cycling wouldn’t hurt either. You can reach him by email at [email protected] and by tweet at @WritesForRent.