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My latest blog takes a hard look at recent cases where lawyers skipped the basics, and why “no shortcuts” isn’t just a football mantra — it’s a professional requirement.

By Jeanne M. Huey

The Basics Are the Story

I could have headlined this “Is This Still Happening?” But we’ve been asking that for over two years, and the answer is still “yes.” By “this,” I mean lawyers using AI for legal research — and not bothering to verify the results. And not at the margins — we’re talking about big international firms that have every research tool, policy, training program, and resource that money can buy.

Nobody expects us to be perfect all of the time. We’ve all fumbled — accidentally misquoted a case, misspelled a cite, or leaned on a holding that later got picked apart. Those are part of the game, and when they are caught and fixed, there is no penalty. But using AI-generated citations without checking them? That’s not a misstep — that’s running a hook and ladder on the very first play.

When Fundamentals Get Skipped

Last month, in Johnson v. Dunn, three Butler Snow LLP lawyers were sanctioned after one of them admitted to using unverified AI-generated citations in court filings. Until early 2024, this lawyer’s AI use had been purely personal —finding vacation spots, looking up fitness info, even researching colleges for his kids.

He told the Judge that he knew the firm’s AI policy but did not comply with it. How a tool he had only used casually for travel tips became a substitute for the firm’s paid legal research services — which cost thousands each month for a reason — is hard to understand. As a partner, he could have asked any paralegal, associate, or staff person to pull the cases and highlight the relevant passages for his review; reviewing them would have taken minutes. The only charitable explanation is that he thought AI was a legitimate legal research platform. If that’s true, this case shows that when it comes to the use of technology in the practice of law, even strong institutional safeguards mean little without constant education and personal accountability.

The Brief Bank

At the show-cause hearing in the case, another Butler Snow lawyer explained why he hadn’t checked the citations added by his colleague. His reasoning: Many of their cases involve the same law and precedent, so his team often pulls citations from older briefs and plugs them into briefs on the same topics. The suggestion was that this eliminated the need to rely on AI and was safer because they had used those cases before.

The Judge felt differently, writing that this practice was one of three factors that  “deepened rather than allayed” her concerns. 

The problem with this practice? Past use isn’t proof of present accuracy. Laws change. Precedent gets overturned—context matters. 

This same concern applies to lawyers who borrow motions or briefs from other lawyers — or who post to a listserv asking for forms or legal advice from other lawyers that they plan to file as their own. Whether the information comes from your firm’s file cabinet, another lawyer’s Dropbox, or an AI chatbot, if you haven’t verified it for the case at hand, you’re taking a shortcut you can’t defend.

Cite & Highlight: A Run Up the Middle

Here’s an easy solution: require every case cited to be attached in an appendix with the relevant quote or holding highlighted. I call it “Cite & Highlight.” Courts could adopt it tomorrow. Firms could implement it today. The time it takes is nothing compared to the reputational cost of getting burned by a bad citation.

In Johnson v. Dunn, the partner who dropped AI-generated citations into a filing without review failed to make the reasonable inquiry Rule 11 requires. In Lacey v. State Farm (C.D. Cal. May 5, 2025), several large national firms made the same mistake by using AI — this time with 27 citations, nine wrong and at least two nonexistent. Whether the bad law comes from AI, an old brief, or a motion written by another lawyer, the problem is the same: If your name is going on it, you’re skipping the work. And in law, like football, there’s no substitute for work.

Flash and Fundamentals

Oregon football has a reputation for flash — the best uniforms, the newest tech, the gleaming facilities (thanks, Uncle Phil). But that’s not why they win.

Coach Lanning tells his players to do the work every single day and ask themselves: “How can I improve?” To own mistakes. To learn from people who do it better. To have the patience to get it right, because fast and wrong is still wrong. That lesson fits the courtroom as well as it does the gridiron.

The ethics rules don’t demand excellence — they set the baseline for lawyer ethics. But clients don’t hire us for the baseline. They pay us to prepare, check, and deliver our best. Yes it is hard, but if it was easy, anyone could do it. The practice of law requires intense work done meticulously every time.

Senior lawyers: model that standard. Young lawyers: don’t let pressure for speed push you into skipping steps. Stop feeding the myth that good work can be done in a flash. Shortcuts might buy you a little time today, but they undermine your work product, your discipline, and your success in the long run.

Law is not a job — it’s a profession. Every filing, every argument, every case reflects our expertise and pride in our work. Wins — in football or in law — are constructed day by day, decision by decision. And there are no shortcuts.

Go Ducks.