Matter of Janelle Melissa Lewis

What sanction did the court impose?

On the Committee's unopposed motion, the Appellate Division, First Department (Scarpulla, J.P., Shulman, Rodriguez, Michael, and Chan, JJ.) suspended Lewis from the practice of law in New York "effective immediately, and until further order of this Court." The decretal paragraph grants the motion under 22 NYCRR 1240.9(a)(3); the discussion holds suspension warranted under 1240.9(a)(1) and (3) because she "refused to appear for an EUO and produce the requested documents as directed by judicial subpoena, and failed to comply with the AGC's lawful investigative demands." The order directs her to desist from practicing law and holding herself out as an attorney, to comply with the rules governing suspended attorneys, and to return any Office of Court Administration secure pass, and allows her to request a post-suspension hearing within 20 days of service. This is an interim suspension for non-cooperation; the order makes no finding on the underlying drafting conduct.

Why does Matter of Janelle Melissa Lewis matter for law firms using AI?

Matter of Lewis is the disciplinary sequel to a federal AI-hallucination sanction, and it is a suspension for non-cooperation rather than a ruling on the hallucinations themselves. The First Department’s per curiam order recites that the Attorney Grievance Committee opened its investigation on a complaint from the Texas immigration attorney who had hired Lewis, through an online platform, to draft a response to an order to show cause in the District of New Mexico. That draft, the order states, “was replete with citations to non-existent cases attributed by the court to hallucinations by ChatGPT or a similar artificial intelligence program,” and the federal court fined the hiring attorney $1,500 and directed the complainant to report Lewis to New York authorities. The order does not name the federal case, but the facts it recites match Dehghani v. Castro, the D.N.M. sanctions matter in which the court directed the signing attorney to report the freelance drafter to the New York bar.

Lewis’s response to the investigation drove the outcome. She declined to appear for an agreed examination under oath, characterizing the investigation as “a racist attack and a form of racial and gender harassment,” refused email service of a judicial subpoena, told the Committee to “cease and desist,” and emailed court officials and the Attorney General that she had “resigned” from the bar, attaching an affidavit purporting to resign for non-disciplinary reasons. The court noted that she “never moved before any Court to resign pursuant to 22 NYCRR 1240.10” and did not respond to the suspension motion. Relying on its precedents suspending attorneys who fail to appear for subpoenaed examinations, it suspended her effective immediately and until further order.

For firms, the two orders read together. If, as the matching facts indicate, Lewis is the drafter in Dehghani, outsourcing the drafting did not insulate the signing attorney, who was fined, and it did not insulate the drafter, who became the subject of a grievance investigation and was suspended on an interim basis for failing to cooperate with it. Firms documenting compliance may wish to consider how their engagements with freelance drafters allocate citation verification and whether both sides understand that each carries independent professional exposure.