A brewing Alabama courtroom scandal over the improper use of generative artificial intelligence by a pair of high-powered attorneys could have serious implications for a decades-old lawsuit over Baltimore jail conditions.

Four Butler Snow LLP attorneys recently issued profuse apologies in court filings for what was described as an “extremely poor lapse in judgment:” one that resulted in legal motions containing case citations referencing lawsuits that didn’t actually exist, and were instead mere fabrications generated by the AI platform ChatGPT.

Two of the attorneys — Matt Reeves and William Lunsford — also happen to be representing the state of Maryland in its quest to extricate its state corrections department from a legal settlement and ongoing monitoring in a class action involving Baltimore jail healthcare and mental health services.

The judge in Alabama is weighing whether to issue sanctions over Butler Snow‘s use of AI, which materialized in filings in a lawsuit concerning claims that correctional officers failed to protect a prisoner. Butler Snow is representing the state. The judge is considering fines, referrals to the state bar and even temporary suspensions for the attorneys, according to the Alabama Reflector.

Jay Knight, a University of Baltimore School of Law professor who studies the use of AI by attorneys, said the situation in Alabama could result in a significant reputational harm and a loss of business for Butler Snow, as well as an evaporation of trust from the firm’s clients, including the state of Maryland.

“This is your classic firestorm, trying to do damage control, kind of case,” Knight said. “Any attorney who is going up against them is going to point this out if they make any mistakes in their briefs ... That’s devastating for any law firm.”

Knight said the Maryland Office of Attorney General, responsible for hiring Butler Snow, is now “stuck between a rock and a hard place” with the potential ramifications of either sticking with the firm despite the controversy or potentially walking away, perhaps even seeking to establish a breach of contract.

The Maryland attorney general’s office declined to comment on Butler Snow’s use of AI, but did provide updated billing figures for the law firm. Since retaining the firm, attorneys for Butler Snow have billed the state roughly $776,712, according to those figures. Reeves and Lunsford did not respond to an email requesting comment.

The state’s decision to hire Butler Snow was a notable one, made under the previous attorney general, Brian Frosh, and former Gov. Larry Hogan. However, current Attorney General Anthony Brown has maintained course on the law firm’s employ, which was first reported by The Baltimore Banner in September 2023, despite its lofty price tag and minimal results so far to show for the firm’s efforts.

Butler Snow’s work in defending prison conditions has generated headlines across the South, in states like Georgia, Louisiana and Alabama, where the law firm is based. The firm often does battle in class action lawsuits brought by civil rights advocacy groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Unlike in the Southern states, Butler Snow’s contract in Maryland was approved in part and maintained under Democratic leaders in the governor’s and attorney general’s offices, who often proclaim their support for the civil rights of incarcerated people. While the high costs of the contracts drew the attention of lawmakers in Alabama, the deal faced little public scrutiny in Maryland.

In Baltimore, Butler Snow was handed the tall order of bringing litigation to an end that stretches back to before the state corrections department took over the city jails in 1991. Over that time, the lawsuit has been settled, reopened and settled again, with mixed results. It has forced an array of reforms at the jail and the closure of some of the most dilapidated structures, although independent monitors continue to report flaws in the jail’s medical and mental healthcare systems.

‘Unacceptable’ and ‘embarrassing’

In court filings earlier this week, the Butler Snow attorneys said their use of ChatGPT — and failure to verify its answers — was the result of choosing “convenience at the expense of accuracy, and for that, there is no excuse.”

“It is unacceptable, embarrassing, and does not reflect the high regard we have for the court, the judicial system, and all parties and counsel of record,” the filing said.

Lunsford, who often argues for the state of Maryland in hearings over the Baltimore jail system’s class action lawsuit, is a senior partner and head of Butler Snow’s “constitutional and civil rights litigation group.” Reeves, who is co-counsel in the Baltimore lawsuit, is the assistant practice group leader, and the attorney responsible for querying ChatGPT in the Alabama case.

Reeves said during a Wednesday court hearing in Birmingham, Alabama, that he first started using ChatGPT to explore dietary options and consider colleges for his son, according to the Reflector, an independent nonprofit news outlet.

In his filing, Reeves said he “knew generally” about the program, which he used to perform a search to “identify supporting case law for the proposition that discovery may proceed even during the pendency of other discovery issues.”

ChatGPT immediately spun out “purportedly applicable citations for those points of law,” Reeves reported in his filing.

“In my haste to finalize the motions and get them filed, I failed to verify the case citations,” he said.

Under the firm’s policy, Lunsford said, “the use of ChatGPT for legal research requires written approval from a practice group leader.” He indicated that he did not issue such an approval.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars, few results

In March 2023, the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services urged the General Assembly to approve the hiring of Butler Snow, saying it would “help bring this litigation to conclusion in the next eighteen months.”

It hasn’t worked out that way for the state of Maryland.

In October, Butler Snow attorneys failed to convince a federal judge that the Baltimore jail lawsuit had actually expired, resulting in a two-year extension.

Two months later, it lost two other arguments: failing to convince the judge that the state wasn’t obligated to turn over records that could show how often detainees were allowed out of their cells and failing to advance any of its choices for the new independent medical monitor.

At that time, the state had spent about half a million dollars on the law firm’s services.