September 16, 2025
By Emily Poler
Will they never learn? Yet another chapter has opened in the ongoing follies of lawyers using AI. This time, it’s in a putative class action against OnlyFans’ parent company — Fenix International Ltd. — for, among other things, civil violations of the Racketeering and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. Putting the merits of Plaintiffs’ claims aside, a very unwise and/or unfortunate contract attorney working for one of the law firms representing Plaintiffs used ChatGPT to generate four briefs filed in federal court in California. It turns out that those briefs contained dozens of AI-generated hallucinations, including 11 made-up citations (out of a total of 18) — fictional cases, rulings and precedents that are embarrassing the guilty attorneys and threatening to derail a potentially legitimate lawsuit.
Oops.
In case you don’t know, OnlyFans is an Internet platform in which individual creators get paid via subscriptions and pay-per-view for the video content they generate (yes, there’s a lot of porn on it). The suit was filed on behalf of OnlyFans users who allege the site employs professional “chatters” (including AI) to impersonate content creators in their interactions with users, without disclosing that users aren’t messaging with the actual personalities they pay to talk with (let’s not get into how this is a RICO violation).
Just by way of background, whenever I submit something to a court, either I or our paralegal goes through every citation, whether it’s to a case or to an underlying document, and makes sure (1) it says what we say it says, and (2) we have the citation and the name of the case right. Obviously, the point of this exercise is to avoid making misrepresentations and damaging our client’s case, while also embarrassing ourselves in front of a judge. Both are things that I really, really try to avoid. Also, one of my jobs as an attorney is to try to avoid calling attention to myself and, instead, keep the focus on the merits of my client’s arguments (or the lack of merits of the other side’s arguments).
Yet one of the firms representing Plaintiffs in the OnlyFans suit, Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP, seems to have not taken these basic steps. That firm hired a contract attorney as co-counsel. Apparently, she was dealing with a family crisis at the time and turned to AI as a shortcut in preparing the briefs. AI — predictably — generated all the errors and invented citations. As if that’s not bad enough, after Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP, the lawyers defending Fenix, discovered the issue and brought it to the court’s attention, Hagens Berman tried to explain it away rather than simply admitting their screwup and begging for forgiveness. As a result, the firm now finds itself in a fight to have the judge let them redo the AI-generated briefs, asserting the corrected briefs are essential to their case. Fenix, meanwhile, is seeking to dismiss, arguing there is no way to “correct” fictional citations, adding that Plaintiffs blew their chance to fight the dismissal by using the AI hallucinations in the first place.
A couple of issues worth highlighting. The attorney who used AI may have been under stress because of her personal problems, but that’s no excuse for her actions. It’s also a reminder that attorneys should never take on more work than they can handle, as it is a grave disservice to their clients and, ultimately, to their own reputation — and potentially their career.
Also, while this attorney was hired as an independent contractor by Hagens Berman, the actual materials submitted to the Court were signed by one of the firm’s attorneys without first checking her work. This is an absolute no-no. The fact that the contract attorney had reportedly done good work in the past doesn’t make it ok.
What is the proper punishment here? A hearing is set for September 25 to determine whether the court should issue sanctions. Regardless of any discipline meted out to the law firm, the real losers would ultimately be the Plaintiffs if their case is damaged or dismissed because of their attorneys’ negligence.
Stepping back from this specific case, is it time for broader standards on the use and disclosure of AI in legal work and court papers? For me, the larger question is, are specific rules necessary, or should the failure to catch wrong or false materials created by AI fall within existing codes of conduct mandating that attorneys provide the level of “legal knowledge, skill, thoroughness and preparation reasonably necessary for the representation” of clients? In the OnlyFans case, the attorneys clearly did not not meet that standard, and while the issue of AI usage is novel, deception of courts is not.
While all this is being hashed out, some courts have already begun to require attorneys to disclose when they use AI. And the decision in this case, which is being watched by many in the legal community, may well set a precedent for how courts deal with AI hallucinations in the future.
September 10, 2025
By Laura Trachtman
A former partner at Katten Muchin Rosenman, LLP is suing his prior firm and two of its partners, Noah Heller and Michael Verde, for $67 million dollars, alleging, among other things, age discrimination in firing. This case is just the kind of borderline absurd scandalous legal drama that gives me life, and in three specific areas: discrimination, representation, and arbitration.
First, age discrimination is, IMO, one of the hardest discrimination-based allegations to demonstrate. Courts have held that, unlike other types of discrimination, one of the best ways to demonstrate age-based discrimination is by recounting comments rooted in age-related bigotry. Now, if you’ve ever handled a race-or gender-based discrimination case, you’ll know that most people aren’t stupid enough to make statements about a person’s gender or race. “Well, we’re going to give this position to a white person because we, as white people, feel more comfortable among other white people” or “You, being female, simply aren’t as emotionally stable as a man” are comments that are almost never heard these days, although the sentiments behind them certainly continue to thrive. However, this is not the case in age-based discrimination, as alleged in the 129-page Addendum to the Complaint. “Heller and Verde told me in an in-person meeting to tell me to resign from the firm, the firm and its malpractice insurer concluded that it presented too great a malpractice risk to the firm to allow lawyers close to retirement to continue to handle client relationships,” says Stewart B. Herman, Esq., the plaintiff, who is representing himself. The Addendum also alleged that Katten’s CEO, Heller, previously bragged to Herman that he, the CEO, secured that position by leveraging his youth against those other, older candidates, who are likely to retire more quickly and thus be less invested in the Firm.
This moves us quickly to our next interesting point: Herman is representing himself. This also almost never happens amongst BigLaw attorneys — or attorneys, full stop. Plenty of plaintiffs represent themselves pro se, but they tend to be, in my experience, cuckoo bananas. In fairness, plenty of lawyers are also cuckoo bananas, but that’s another post for another day. It does remind me of a quote from The Addams Family movie, spoken by Gomez Addams, brilliantly portrayed by the late actor Raul Julia: “They say that a man who represents himself has a fool for a client. Well, with God as my witness, I am that fool!” (I’m not calling Herman a fool. I’m just repeating what Gomez said.)
Most recently, in response to a motion filed by Katten to compel arbitration, the Magistrate Judge addressed the parties’ arbitration agreement. While the Court granted the defendant’s motion to stay the matter pending arbitration, in a fascinating twist, the Court admitted that it could not force the parties to go to arbitration: “Although the Court has the power, and obligation, to stay the instant action, it cannot affirmatively order the parties to arbitrate.” This is because the arbitration agreement between Katten and Herman says the arbitration must occur in Chicago, but the Federal Arbitration Act does not allow a court to order parties to arbitration outside of the district in which the court sits. In this instance, that’s the Southern District of New York, which obviously does not include Chicago.
So the parties have several options: agree to arbitrate in New York (which Herman has already declined to agree to), agree to arbitrate in Chicago (ditto), or sit and wait until someone changes their mind or Congress changes the law. I anticipate that Herman will have some soul-searching to do, trapped between the devil and the deep blue sea as he is.
September 2, 2025
By Emily Poler
I’ve written a lot on this blog about the legal battles between copyright owners and the AI platforms that have used and continue to use copyrighted works to train their LLMs. However, I haven’t been terribly explicit about my views on what’s right and what’s wrong. Instead, I’ve focused on the parties’ legal maneuvers and what I see as the strengths and weaknesses in the various arguments and judges’ decisions, while also suggesting that existing case law can be extended to cover new technologies. This has been an intentional choice because I’m a lawyer and a litigator, not a policy maker. Therefore, I might not be the best person to opine on what’s “right” and what’s “wrong.”
I do, however, wonder whether it is time to recalibrate our legal approach to some copyright issues. After all, U.S. copyright law traces its origins back to English common and statutory law from the 18th century, and it’s fair to say that things have changed A LOT since the days when George III wore the crown.
So, given that everyone can use some light reading after the holiday weekend, I thought that with summer in the rearview (sigh), I’d wade into this thicket with a few thoughts and questions.
In the main, I find the idea that companies like Anthropic, Google, Meta and OpenAI can mine a vast amount of content without compensating creators to be really problematic. The U.S. Constitution’s Copyright Clause (“The Congress shall have Power . . .To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries”) is intended to incentivize creation of new works. The idea here is that society as a whole benefits from incentivising individual creators while fair use provides a mechanism to allow others to create new works using existing works and thus further benefit society.
Fair use, which is what AI companies rely on in their arguments to allow them to mine copyrighted content, is disturbing to me in this context because it’s hard to believe in 2025 that any tech company is acting in the public interest or that its innovations will improve society at large. And so, my question here is, is any court capable of determining the potential societal benefit (or lack thereof) from a given innovation? It seems super hard because (1) long term benefits and downsides are difficult or impossible to predict, and (2) any one technology can have results both bad (Internet > social media) and good (Internet > not having to look at a paper map while driving).
I also have questions about how to properly classify what AI companies derive from copyrighted works. The companies argue that their training models are taking only non-expressive information — how words and other information are arranged — from human-created materials, and not expressive content — the meaning of the words and information. In other words, they claim an LLM scanning a scholarly work on who authored Shakespeare’s plays is only using the words and sentences to learn how humans think and communicate, and not actually paying attention to (and potentially ripping off) the author’s arguments that Christopher Marlowe is the true creator of Romeo and Juliet.
But can we really make that distinction? The way I arrange words in this blog post is, in fact, central to the idea that I’m expressing. By way of comparison, the argument that how human authors arrange words is “non-expressive” might be akin to saying that Death of a Salesman read by a monotone, computer-generated voice is the same as performed by an actor with years of training. I, for one, have a hard time buying that.
Furthermore, the role of corporations has changed dramatically since Parliament passed the first copyright statute — the Statute of Anne — in 1710. This makes me wonder if it’s time to consider whether copyright law should distinguish between incentives for companies to create works, and incentives for individuals to create.
Obviously, these are all big questions that in one way or another are currently being touched upon in the courts. But what all my questions come down to is, are the courts really who should be answering them? I worry that without a broader, societal examination of how copyright law should be applied to AI, as opposed to narrow courtroom applications of centuries old laws and principles to previously unimaginable technologies, we will get results that only benefit large companies while hurting individual creators and, ultimately, society as a whole — which would be the exact opposite of what copyright law was created to achieve.
August 27, 2025
By Laura Trachtman
It’s almost football season! Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce got engaged! We have drama associated with claims against the NFL for discrimination! It’s an exciting time to be a football fan.
In a 100-page First Amended Complaint, “on February 1, 2022, Coach Brian Flores—who is now joined by Coach Steve Wilks and Coach Ray Horton—filed this class action lawsuit against the National Football League (“NFL” or the “League”) and its member teams. The suit alleged, and continues to allege, systemic racial discrimination in the hiring, retention and termination of NFL coaches and executives.”
If you didn’t know (and I did not, so I looked it up), Brian Flores was the Head Coach for the Miami Dolphins, Steve Wilks was the Head Coach for the Arizona Cardinals, and Ray Horton was the Defensive Backs Coach for the Washington Redskins. The case’s venue is in the Southern District of New York, which is where the NFL maintains its headquarters, and the causes of action are an interesting mix of federal and state: Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act, New York State Human Rights Law, New York City Human Rights Law, New Jersey Law Against Discrimination, and Florida Private Whistleblower Statute.
(Side Note: I’m always interested in why a plaintiff would ground a discrimination lawsuit in the federal statutes, where the requirements to prove discrimination are so much more stringent than under the New York’s statutes, and there are filing requirements with the EEOC that must be satisfied, but that’s another blog post for another day.)
Moving past my skeptical feelings about how OF COURSE the NFL discriminates against people of color – I didn’t even realize that there were Black head coaches aside from Mike Tomlin, of the Pittsburgh Steelers – some lawyer in Southern California managed to get himself into biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig trouble with a District Court Judge in this case. False start, ten yard penalty!
Michael Caspino appeared as attorney for Wilks in January 2025, and then withdrew as Wilks’ counsel in June 2025. Unfortunately, there appear to have been some inconsistencies associated with Mr. Caspino’s Notice of Appearance, which resulted in Judge Valerie E. Caproni issuing the following on June 17, 2025:
ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE: IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Mr. Caspino is ordered to show cause by July 7, 2025, why the Court should not refer him to the disciplinary panel of this Court to consider whether he should be sanctioned for his conduct. As part of that submission, Mr. Caspino is required to provide a certificate of good standing from each state in which he is a member of the bar and explain, under oath: 1) how he was able to file a Notice of Appearance in the Southern District of New York on ECF despite not being a member of the bar for the Southern District of New York; 2) why his signature block in filings at docket entries 135 and 136 states “Pro Hac Vice Pending” despite the fact that Mr. Caspino never filed a motion to be admitted Pro Hac Vice in the Southern District of New York; 3) why he represented in the notice of appearance that he is “admitted or otherwise authorized to practice in this court” when it appears that it not accurate; 4) why as of June 17, 2025, his website (https://www.pricecaspino.com/michael-caspino) continues to represent falsely that he is a member of the Arizona bar; and 5) unless he has provided a certificate of good standing from the bars of California, Colorado, and Nevada, why, as of June 17, 2025, his website represents he is a member of the bars of those states. If Mr. Caspino fails to provide at least one certificate of good standing from the bar of at least one state, his submission must also address why a criminal referral for the unauthorized practice of law is not appropriate.
TL; DR: Judge Caproni is BIG MAD at Mr. Caspino for his misstatements of fact as to his credentials.
If you thought that the Judge would let it go after Mr. Caspino filed a letter on July 7, 2025, correcting misstatements of fact in his Notice of Appearance (that he had applied for admission in SDNY pro hac vice, which he had not) and on his website that he was admitted to the bars of certain states (AZ, CA, NV and CO, two of which he was no longer a member of), you were wrong. The Judge doubled down on July 9, 2025, with this Order:
ORDER: IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Mr. Caspino is ordered to explain, under oath, how he was able to file a Notice of Appearance in SDNY on ECF despite not being a member of the SDNY bar and to provide a Certificate of Good Standing from the California Bar by no later than July 31, 2025. IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that, also not later than July 31, 2025, Mr. Caspino must provide a more complete explanation of how he came to represent falsely that he was “admitted or otherwise authorized to practice in this court;” when it was decided that he would not represent Mr. Wilks in this action; why he thought it appropriate to state that admission pro hac vice was pending when no motion had been made; when his membership in the bars of Nevada and Colorado lapsed; when he was reinstated to the Arizona Bar and proof from the Arizona Bar that he has, in fact, been reinstated; and why he should not be referred to the disciplinary panel of this Court in light of his admitted misrepresentations to the Court.
Mr. Caspino filed another letter on July 31, 2025, providing a Certificate of Good Standing from the CA Bar and a letter from the AZ Bar, but the Judge still didn’t let it go: on August 5, 2025, she entered the following Order.
ORDER: IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Mr. Caspino is ordered to appear in person for a hearing on August 25, 2025 at 10:30 A.M. in Courtroom 20C of the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Courthouse, 500 Pearl Street, New York, New York, 10007 and be prepared to explain under oath: (i) how he obtained ECF filing privileges in this Court without being admitted to practice in this Court; (ii) how he came to represent falsely in the Notice of Appearance that he was admitted or otherwise authorized to practice in this court, Dkt. 135; (iii) when it was decided that he would not represent Mr. Wilks in this action; (iv) why he thought it appropriate to represent that admission pro hac vice was pending when no motion had been made, Dkt. 135, 136; (v) whether he has previously filed notices of appearance in any other court falsely representing that he was admitted or otherwise authorized to practice in this court, even though he was not and, if so, in what cases and in what jurisdictions; and (vi) why he failed to respond fully to either of the orders issued by this Court, Dkts. 138, 140.
Another letter from Mr. Caspino on August 21, 2025, and on August 22, 2025, the Court filed the following Order:
By no later than August 22, 2025 at 12:00 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, Mr. Caspino must provide the Court with the name of the case, case number, the presiding judge, and a copy of the Order scheduling the August 25, 2025 court appearance in Orange County Superior Court that he referenced in his declaration. Mr. Caspino’s declaration makes multiple references stating that he has “voluntarily complied with the Court’s Order” and “voluntarily provided answers,” which suggests that he does not consider that he is subject to the jurisdiction of the Southern District of New York. He is clearly mistaken. The grievance committee of the Southern District of New York may discipline “[a]ny attorney not a member of the bar of this court [who] has appeared at the bar of this court without permission to do so,” Local Civ. R. 1.5(b)(6), and the grievance committee may discipline “any attorney” who, “in connection with activities in this court,” engages in “conduct violative of the New York State Rules of Professional Conduct,” Local Civ. R. 1.5(b)(5).
At this point, this lawsuit has totally deteriorated into a war between this poor schlub from California and the District Court Judge, who is having absolutely none of his nonsense. There hasn’t been a filing related to the merits of this case for literally months; it’s just Caspino and Judge Caproni going at it hammer and tongs.
The latest filings memorialize that Judge Caproni Ordered Caspino to appear on August 25, and he claimed that he had a conflict, so she Ordered him to appear on August 26, and he claimed to have yet another conflict, and she refused to allow him to appear other than in person. He did not appear before her in person on August 26, 2025 at 2:30pm, and so she issued the following Order:
ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE: IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Mr. Caspino is ordered to show cause why he should not be held in contempt and sanctioned accordingly for his failure to appear at the show cause hearing scheduled for August 26, 2025. By no later than noon EST, August 28, 2025, Mr. Caspino must provide three dates during the last two weeks of September 2025 on which he is available to appear in-person in the Southern District of New York for the show cause hearing. IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that if Mr. Caspino wishes to submit a memorandum of law or other materials in connection with any of the orders to show cause that are pending, including the current order to show cause why he should not be held in contempt and sanctioned accordingly, all such materials must be filed no later than September 12, 2025. SO ORDERED.
And that, my friends, is why you never, ever, ever, ever, mess with a federal judge. Touchdown!
August 19, 2025
By Emily Poler
Six months ago (or thereabouts), Laura and I wrote a joint post to introduce our new firm of Trachtman & Poler. More recently, Laura wrote her own update about how our team-up has changed her approach to work and its effect on her life. Now it’s my turn.
The hardest thing for me has been confronting the fact that I no longer have to do everything on my own. It’s still very much a work in progress, but I’m getting there (I think!). Perhaps my ingrained independence has to do with the way I grew up, or maybe it’s the fact I was working solo for seven-ish years, but my default mode in every situation has been, I got this — by myself. But now with a partner and (gasp) an actual employee, I’ve got support. A team! People I can turn to for help when I need it.
Along those lines, learning to leverage each other’s strengths has been great. A second set of eyes on any question is always helpful, but they are especially valuable when the mind behind them brings a different and, often unexpected, perspective. We’re all unique humans and solve problems in distinct ways, and when our talents are combined, that can lead to new and improved results.
Another key evolution has been learning how to speak up about the little (and sometimes not so little) things so that they don’t turn into big problems later. This is especially critical when there’s a lot going on and it’s easy to let things slide. Here’s a perfect example: Prior to settling on our fabulous offices in DUMBO (if you’re in the neighborhood, please come say hi), we looked at a bunch of other spaces and saw some that we really loved but weren’t quite right. We eventually decided on one that seemed like it would work. But before we committed, Laura spoke up and said what I was also sort of thinking, but hadn’t fully realized (or had the time to realize): the space was just okay, and not what we really wanted. We needed to keep looking. So we did, and we won. The short lesson here: If you have something to say, say it!
Of course, everything isn’t perfect yet. I’m still a one-woman IT department over here; this remains the bane of my existence. I feel like Google Customer Support folks must roll their eyes every time I contact them (yes, it’s a lot) and G-chat each other “Oh, it’s her again.” Is getting our systems up and running and talking to one another easier than it would have been 10 or 15 years ago? Absolutely. Is it seamless? Definitely not.
But that’s a relatively minor irritant. The first few months of our partnership have been incredible, and I am so excited for the future here.
