Can a lawyer be sued for malpractice for using AI-generated content?

Why This Question Has Become Urgent

As AI tools like large language models have become widely available and increasingly used by attorneys for drafting, research, and analysis, a natural question has followed: what happens legally when an attorney relies on AI-generated content that turns out to be wrong, and a client is harmed as a result? This question sits at the intersection of long-standing legal malpractice principles and a genuinely new source of error.

How Malpractice Liability Actually Works

Legal malpractice claims generally require a client to show that an attorney owed them a duty of care, breached that duty by falling below the standard expected of a reasonably competent attorney, and that the breach caused actual, quantifiable harm to the client’s case or interests. Importantly, this framework doesn’t change simply because AI was involved — the question is still whether the attorney’s conduct fell below the applicable standard of care, not whether a particular tool was used.

This means using AI is not, by itself, malpractice. Attorneys have long used tools — legal research databases, document assembly software, junior associates — that can introduce errors if not properly supervised, and the same logic extends to AI. What can constitute a breach is failing to exercise appropriate diligence in verifying AI-generated content before relying on it in a way that affects a client’s matter, particularly given how well-publicized the risk of AI-generated errors, including fabricated case citations, has become across the legal profession.

The Well-Known Fabricated Citations Example

One of the most widely reported illustrations of this risk involved attorneys who used an AI chatbot to help research and draft a court filing, which ended up containing citations to cases that did not actually exist. The court identified the fabricated citations, and the attorneys involved faced sanctions as a result. While that case centered on court sanctions rather than a separate malpractice claim, it illustrates exactly the kind of unverified AI reliance that could also expose an attorney to malpractice liability if a client were harmed by the underlying error — for example, if a case was lost or a deadline missed because of reliance on inaccurate AI output.

What Reduces This Risk

Because the standard of care doesn’t change with the tool used, attorneys are generally expected to independently verify factual and legal claims generated by AI before relying on them, just as they would be expected to verify work from any other source. Maintaining this verification step, documenting review processes, and staying current with bar guidance on AI use are all practical ways attorneys reduce their exposure to both sanctions and malpractice claims.

Bottom Line

A lawyer can potentially face a malpractice claim if unverified AI-generated content causes actual harm to a client, because the underlying duty of care and competence doesn’t change based on what tool produced the work. Independently verifying AI output before relying on it remains the key safeguard against both malpractice exposure and court sanctions.

Go deeper

• Can AI Companies Be Sued for What Their Models Say?