Sullivan & Cromwell Admits AI-Generated Hallucinations in Federal Court Filings
Sullivan & Cromwell — whose partners bill $2,000+ per hour — has submitted multiple corrections to a federal judge after court filings generated with AI assistance contained fictitious case names, fabricated quotes, and non-existent U.S. Bankruptcy Code statutes. Both the primary team and a secondary review layer failed to identify the fabrications before submission. Gary Marcus noted that this type of incident has occurred more than 1,000 times across the legal sector, citing @DamienCharlotin's hallucination tracker.
Why It Matters
The incident at one of the most prestigious and expensive law firms in the US demonstrates that professional prestige and billing rates are not a proxy for AI output verification rigour — and that multi-layer human review processes inherited from the pre-AI era are systematically insufficient when applied to AI-generated legal documents.