Payne v. State

What sanction did the court impose?

Writing for the Court, Justice Land admonished ADA Leslie and the Clayton County district attorney's office under Supreme Court Rule 7, invoking the Court's inherent authority and its Rule 7 authority to sanction attorneys who violate its rules. The Court suspended ADA Leslie's privilege to practice before it for six months; reinstatement requires 12 hours of continuing legal education beyond the regular State Bar requirement, covering ethics, brief writing, and the proper use of artificial intelligence software, shown in a petition for reinstatement. It vacated the order denying the motion for new trial and remanded with instructions that the trial court issue a new order containing no fictitious or misattributed citations and not prepared by counsel for either party. It stated that the sanctions are case-specific and do not affect any proceedings by the State Bar of Georgia, the Judicial Qualifications Commission, or any other entity, and warned that continued failure to ensure the accuracy of filings may subject counsel to additional sanctions. It granted Payne's motion to clarify its production order. Justice LaGrua, joined by Justice Colvin, dissented from the admonishment of the elected district attorney; the majority responded that it had admonished her office, not the district attorney individually. The opinion does not decide the merits of Payne's appeal.

Why does Payne v. State matter for law firms using AI?

Payne is a Georgia Supreme Court opinion in which defective citations appeared in three places. ADA Leslie acknowledged using artificial intelligence software to draft the State’s briefs in opposition to the motion for new trial and the proposed order, and the trial court’s order denying that motion (which, the opinion notes, reflects that ADA Leslie prepared it) contained non-existent and misattributed citations. On appeal, the Court said, she “once again cited cases that do not stand for the proposition asserted,” and she later withdrew reliance on nine authorities in the State’s appellate brief; the opinion does not attribute those appellate citations to AI. The Court said the filings had “sidetracked” it from resolving the merits and required it “to devote significant time and resources to the discovery of this misconduct and deciding what to do about it.” Its framing of the rule is narrow: “While we have no rule against the responsible use of artificial intelligence software by attorneys, citing cases that do not exist or do not support the proposition for which they are cited is a violation of this Court’s rules and falls far beneath the conduct we expect from Georgia lawyers.”

The remedies reach three actors. The individual lawyer lost her privilege to practice before the Court for six months, with reinstatement tied to CLE on ethics, brief writing, and “the proper use of artificial intelligence software in the legal system.” The Court warned that “[c]ontinued failure to ensure the accuracy of filings before this Court may subject counsel to additional sanctions.” The district attorney’s office was admonished because ADA Leslie “submitted the filings at issue on behalf of that office”; Justice LaGrua, joined by Justice Colvin, would not have admonished the elected district attorney, pointing to the district attorney’s letter apologizing and describing discipline and new policies. And the trial court’s order was vacated, with the Court directing that the replacement “shall not be prepared by counsel for either party” and “strongly encourag[ing] trial courts to carefully review proposed orders with the understanding that artificial intelligence software, with all of its potential risks and benefits, may have been used to prepare such proposed orders.”

Firms documenting compliance may wish to consider the proposed-order pathway this opinion describes: a draft order prepared by counsel can carry unverified AI output into a ruling the court signs, and here the consequence was vacatur of the ruling itself as well as sanctions on the lawyer. The Court also stated that its sanctions are case-specific and leave any State Bar of Georgia or Judicial Qualifications Commission proceedings unaffected.