In re Eric Chibueze Nwaubani
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit · 4th Cir. · Maryland bar guidance , North Carolina bar guidance , South Carolina bar guidance , Virginia bar guidance , West Virginia bar guidance
Conduct
Attorney filed 4th Cir. brief citing three nonexistent cases (Nationwide Mut. v. Jackson; CFTC v. Glencore; In re Acres).
Consequence
Public admonishment under 4th Cir. Local Rule 46(g)(1)(c) for violating D.C. RPC 8.4(d). No monetary sanction.
Lesson
The Fourth Circuit grounds AI-hallucination sanctions in existing Rule 8.4(d) duties, not in any AI-specific framework.
Verified May 6, 2026
- Citation
- In re Nwaubani, No. 25-9517 (4th Cir. Mar. 11, 2026) (Quattlebaum, Rushing, Benjamin, JJ.)
- Decided
- March 11, 2026
Summary
Attorney Eric Chibueze Nwaubani filed an appellate brief in Bolden v. Baltimore Gas & Electric (4th Cir.) that contained three citations to cases that do not exist. The Fourth Circuit referred the matter for disciplinary review and, in the operative March 11, 2026 order, the panel (Quattlebaum, Rushing, Benjamin) publicly admonished Nwaubani under Fourth Circuit Local Rule 46(g)(1)(c) for violating D.C. Rules of Professional Conduct 8.4(d), which prohibits conduct that seriously interferes with the administration of justice. The court expressly declined to ground the sanction on whether or not generative AI was actually used, holding that the bar's existing rules apply equally to fabricated citations regardless of how they are produced.
- AI tool:
- Technology-agnostic. The court named ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, and Claude as examples but declined to determine which tool, if any, was used.
What sanction did the court impose?
Public admonishment under 4th Cir. Local Rule 46(g)(1)(c). No monetary sanction. The opinion is a published Fourth Circuit disciplinary opinion and operates as the leading published 4th Cir. authority on attorney AI hallucinations.
Why does In re Eric Chibueze Nwaubani matter for law firms using AI?
Nwaubani is the published Fourth Circuit authority on attorney AI hallucinations and the cleanest articulation of why the existing bar discipline framework already covers the conduct. The court declined to determine whether AI was actually used. The court declined to write an AI-specific rule. Instead, the operative reasoning is that filing a brief with citations to cases that do not exist is itself “conduct that seriously interferes with the administration of justice” under D.C. Rule of Professional Conduct 8.4(d), regardless of the means.
Two verbatim lines from the opinion bear on every Fourth Circuit practitioner’s threat model:
“Rule 8.4(d)‘s prohibition of ‘conduct that seriously interferes with the administration of justice’ applies to submitting a brief with nonexistent cases no matter how it is done, whether through generative AI or not.”
“Modern generative AI may be a new technology, but the same sanctions rules apply, and the rules we have are well equipped to handle these types of cases.”
The three fabricated cases the court identified in the underlying Bolden v. Baltimore Gas & Electric briefing are Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. v. Jackson, 548 U.S. 629 (2006); Commodity Futures Trading Commission v. Glencore Ltd., 611 F.3d 1330 (Fed. Cir. 2010); and In re Acres Properties, Inc., 100 F.3d 1307 (7th Cir. 1996). Each is a plausible-looking citation: real-sounding parties, plausible reporters, plausible page numbers, and plausible courts. None corresponds to a real decision. That fact pattern is the dominant failure mode of generative AI in legal research, and Nwaubani is now the published Fourth Circuit anchor citation for the proposition that Rule 8.4(d) reaches it without further amendment.
Implications for your firm
Operational steps a firm reading this case may wish to consider documenting. Strategic and rule-application calls belong to your firm's attorneys.
- Document a citation-verification step that confirms each cited case exists in a real reporter, not merely that the citation format is well-formed.
- Train associates and contract attorneys on the principle that bar discipline for fabricated citations does not depend on how the fabrication arose; AI-assisted drafts inherit the same accuracy standard as manually-written ones.
- Review the firm's bar-discipline exposure analysis to incorporate AI hallucination as a Rule 8.4(d) trigger across the four circuits where the firm practices, not just those with AI-specific standing orders.