Courts Impose AI Verification Duty

A California appellate court fined a lawyer $10,000 for filing AI‑fabricated case citations and published a warning that attorneys must personally read and verify every cited source, regardless of AI use. In parallel, the state’s Judicial Council ordered courts to ban or adopt AI policies by Dec. 15, and the Bar is weighing code changes. Together, these moves formalize a duty of verification for AI‑assisted legal work. — By turning AI use into an explicit professional obligation, courts are setting a model for how other professions will regulate AI and assign liability.