The Florida Supreme Court Just Sent Lawyers A Message About AI

The Florida Supreme Court's new rule concerning AI-related filings will take effect on June 15, and based on some media reports, you might believe Florida courts are stepping into some kind of futuristic legal landscape.

They are not.

What the court actually did was remind attorneys of a principle that existed long before computers, the internet, and probably most of the courtrooms where we practice today: if you sign your name to a filing, you are accountable for its contents.

That is the real takeaway here.

This rule change comes as courts nationwide have been confronting an increasing number of filings that feature fabricated cases, fake quotations, and citations that appear completely valid until someone attempts to locate them. Many of those issues stem from lawyers over-relying on generative AI tools without sufficiently verifying the output before submitting documents.

And, to be candid, some of those instances have been remarkable.

Not because the technology produced errors. Anyone who has worked with these systems understands they can generate mistakes. What is surprising is how many attorneys apparently trusted the output enough to submit it in court without conducting independent verification.

That is the aspect judges are responding to.

The new Florida regulation revises Rule 2.515 to require lawyers who sign court filings to confirm that cited legal authorities actually exist and are properly presented. Courts are also expressly granted the power to impose sanctions for violations.

In practical terms, this means lawyers now have even less ability to argue, "the software gave me incorrect information."

But I suspect most judges already felt that way.

What the Florida Supreme Court truly appears to be doing is establishing uniform expectations across the state. Different circuits had begun issuing their own administrative orders concerning AI usage, disclosures, certifications, and verification requirements. If you practiced in multiple jurisdictions, the rules could seem inconsistent depending on where your case was located.

Now there is at least one statewide standard.

Frankly, that likely benefits everyone.

The broader issue, however, is not really about whether lawyers employ AI. Most attorneys already use technology constantly. Legal research platforms themselves have integrated AI-driven tools for years. Younger lawyers, in particular, are naturally exploring newer systems because they are fast, efficient, and often genuinely valuable.

The trouble begins when efficiency quietly replaces judgment.

That is where things can go wrong.

One thing non-lawyers may not fully grasp is how convincing AI hallucinations can appear within legal writing. These systems do not typically produce nonsense that immediately sounds absurd. They generate citations that resemble actual cases. They produce quotations written in persuasive judicial language. Sometimes the formatting is flawless.

Until someone checks the source.

That "until someone checks" part matters more than ever now.

Judges should not have to spend time figuring out whether cited authority exists. Opposing counsel should not have to waste billable hours hunting down phantom cases. Courts already move slowly enough without adding forensic citation review to motion practice.

And credibility, once damaged in front of a judge, is difficult to restore.

Every experienced litigator understands that.

You can lose an argument and recover. You can lose a motion and recover. But once a court begins questioning whether your filings can be relied upon, the problem becomes far larger than one bad brief.

That is why I do not view this rule as anti-technology. I also do not believe it means courts are attempting to ban AI from legal practice. That ship sailed long ago.

A better comparison is probably GPS.

GPS is extremely helpful. Almost everyone relies on it. But if your GPS tells you to drive into a lake, at some point you are still accountable for looking through the windshield.

AI works the same way.

Used carefully, it can save time and help lawyers organize information more quickly. Used carelessly, it can create a mess in a hurry.

And the legal profession is likely still early in determining where those boundaries lie.

A couple years ago, many lawyers dismissed concerns about hallucinated citations as exaggerated. At the time, some of this felt more theoretical than real. That has changed. Courts around the country are now dealing with these issues regularly enough that judges clearly feel the need to send a stronger message.

Florida is hardly alone in that regard.

What may ultimately matter most about this rule is not the language itself, but what it signals about the direction courts are heading. Judges are growing less tolerant of the notion that AI mistakes are somehow distinct from other professional failures.

From the court's perspective, a nonexistent case citation is still a nonexistent case citation regardless of whether a lawyer created it personally or copied it from a chatbot.

And honestly, that is probably the correct approach.

Technology changes. Professional responsibility does not.

At the end of the day, no software program signs the filing. No algorithm stands before the judge at a hearing. No chatbot gets sanctioned by the court.

The lawyer does.

That part has not changed at all.

Matthew T. Christ is a partner at Rafferty Domnick Cunningham & Yaffa , a leading Florida law firm with offices in Palm Beach Gardens, West Palm Beach, Pensacola, and Jacksonville.

Topics:

AI Legal Beat

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Florida

Matthew T. Christ

Technology