Trial attorney. Helping you use AI in real cases. Follow and supercharge your lit workflow. NOT LEGAL ADVICE. Free prompts 👉 https://xitter.cf/t.co/CZ5LD2W1mz
Join my Substack ☞
Joined April 2026
- Tweets2.8K
- Following581
- Followers1.1K
- Likes3.8K
Pinned Tweet
AI can be a great tool in the legal field, for lawyers and clients alike. But you need to be aware of its limitations and potential pitfalls.
Clients: AI CANNOT replace your lawyer.
Lawyers: AI CANNOT replace your brain.
Use it right.
Lawyer.exe | Trial by AI retweeted
The other side's table of authorities is a to-do list. Paste their brief into Claude and have it list every case, pincite, and quotation. Then pull the cases yourself and check that each one exists, says what the brief says it says, and contains the quoted language.
Do it before your response is due, with enough time left to decide whether to call opposing counsel first or go straight to the court. Virginia's draft ethics opinion on this suggests reaching out to the other lawyer first is an option. And if the cites all hold up, you've still done your job by reading the cases your opponent thinks win it for them. Win/win.
Lawyer.exe | Trial by AI retweeted
When somebody says "I cite-checked it," ask which check they mean. Does the case exist? Is the quote in it? Does it say what the brief says it says? Is it still good law? Those are four separate steps. Garcia in Colorado was a quote that wasn't in the case, Kid International in Florida was a case that didn't exist, and Aguilar in Massachusetts was a real case cited for something it doesn't say.
Lawyer.exe | Trial by AI retweeted
Catching the other side's fake citations is starting to pay. In Noland v. Land of the Free, the California Court of Appeal refused in 2025 to award the defendants sanctions, because they never flagged the fabricated citations and seemed to learn of them only from the court's order to show cause.
On October 9, Judge Katherine Polk Failla in Flycatcher v. Ozmos (S.D.N.Y.) awarded $38,877.59 in fees and costs to the defense lawyer who investigated and reported his opponent's AI-hallucinated citations. She called it a "significant service" to the court and agreed that courts depend on lawyers to bring this stuff to their attention. Read the cites, y’all.
Lawyer.exe | Trial by AI retweeted
In Flycatcher, the sanctioned lawyer argued the fee award should shrink because two partners did work juniors could have done. The defense lawyer said he "does not have any associates in his group," and Judge Failla wrote that "the partner title is immaterial; the hourly rate is what matters." The rate was a discounted $575. Small-firm partners, frame that one!
Lawyer.exe | Trial by AI retweeted
If your client's declaration says nobody on the team saw the AI output, ask who it was sent to, by name, and check every name against the list of decision-makers before you file it. In Trax v. United States, that list included two members of the Army's evaluation board, one of them the contracting officer.
Lawyer.exe | Trial by AI retweeted
AI TIP FOR NON-LAWYERS
Before you sign a lease, paste the whole thing into ChatGPT or Claude and ask it this:
"List every clause that could cost me money or let the landlord keep my deposit. Quote the exact language and tell me which page it's on."
Make it quote the language. If it can't point to the words in your lease, don't trust the summary.
Then read those clauses yourself and check your state's tenant rights page, because the AI can get your state's rules wrong.
Takes about five minutes, and you'll actually know what you're signing.
Lawyer.exe | Trial by AI retweeted
Getting the flu the week a brief is due is awful. It's also one email asking for three more days. The judge in Aguilar v. The Crawford Group noted on September 25 that a lawyer blaming illness for citation errors had already been granted one extension for it and could have asked for another. Costs one email.
Lawyer.exe | Trial by AI retweeted
The AI certification order in Garcia v. City of Monte Vista comes with sample language for lawyers who did use AI. One sample has them certify that the party "was/were advised of and consented to such use." The order calls its samples illustrative, and the requirement itself covers one lawyer's filings. I still wonder how many clients know their lawyer is using it.
In Flycatcher, the sanctioned lawyer argued the fee award should shrink because two partners did work juniors could have done. The defense lawyer said he "does not have any associates in his group," and Judge Failla wrote that "the partner title is immaterial; the hourly rate is what matters." The rate was a discounted $575. Small-firm partners, frame that one!
Lawyer.exe | Trial by AI retweeted
Harvey is the "official legal AI partner" of the Warriors, the Valkyries, the Cubs, and Fulham, and the U.S. Open's first "official legal assistant." Legora has a Yankee Stadium fan section called The Judge's Chambers. Clio is on the Canucks' away jerseys and Filevine is on a Utah Mammoth helmet, per the ABA Journal. Somebody's per-seat price is paying for those jerseys.
If your client's declaration says nobody on the team saw the AI output, ask who it was sent to, by name, and check every name against the list of decision-makers before you file it. In Trax v. United States, that list included two members of the Army's evaluation board, one of them the contracting officer.
Lawyer.exe | Trial by AI retweeted
The Texas Supreme Court heard argument on October 6 on whether a plaintiff can use an AI-generated transcript of a deposition he took. A Texas trial court struck the transcript on April 1, 2025. 🧵
AI TIP FOR NON-LAWYERS
Before you sign a lease, paste the whole thing into ChatGPT or Claude and ask it this:
"List every clause that could cost me money or let the landlord keep my deposit. Quote the exact language and tell me which page it's on."
Make it quote the language. If it can't point to the words in your lease, don't trust the summary.
Then read those clauses yourself and check your state's tenant rights page, because the AI can get your state's rules wrong.
Takes about five minutes, and you'll actually know what you're signing.
Lawyer.exe | Trial by AI retweeted
AI TIP FOR NON-LAWYERS
Health insurance denied a claim? Snap a photo of the denial letter and the coverage section of your policy, upload both to ChatGPT or Claude, and ask:
"Why was this denied, what's my deadline to appeal, and what does my policy say about this treatment? Quote the policy language."
Then have it draft the appeal letter using those quotes.
Two things before you send anything. Black out your member ID and Social Security number before you upload. And check the appeal deadline against the letter yourself, because if the AI gets that date wrong you can lose the appeal entirely.
Worst case, they say no twice.
Getting the flu the week a brief is due is awful. It's also one email asking for three more days. The judge in Aguilar v. The Crawford Group noted on September 25 that a lawyer blaming illness for citation errors had already been granted one extension for it and could have asked for another. Costs one email.
The AI certification order in Garcia v. City of Monte Vista comes with sample language for lawyers who did use AI. One sample has them certify that the party "was/were advised of and consented to such use." The order calls its samples illustrative, and the requirement itself covers one lawyer's filings. I still wonder how many clients know their lawyer is using it.
This guy is more fit than you. And he doesn’t pay your $200/mo globohomo gym fee.
This is how you build big hamstrings at home. No equipment needed. Just kneel on a pillow and hook your feet under a piece of heavy furniture. Put additional weight on it if necessary.
Building up to a proper Nordic curl without any arm assistance will take a long time, so I recommend the following progression:
At first, use your full palms to push yourself off the floor. Once that becomes easy, push with just your fingertips. Then, start subtracting fingers one by one. The fewer fingers you use, the less your arms will be able to help.
I'm currently down to using just my thumbs, and feel I'm getting close to getting my first unassisted Nordic curl.
For fast progress, do four sets of ten reps every other day. Use your arms only as much as you need to help you complete the movement. The last reps should be hard and slow ("grinders").
Final note: You can also do this exercise by having a training partner hold your ankles down or sit on your heels, but I don't recommend this, as that makes you dependent on another person for your training, and that will mess with your consistency.
Lawyer.exe | Trial by AI retweeted
Whatever the Texas Supreme Court decides about AI transcripts, somebody in a deposition room still has to be the person who can read back exactly what the witness said when two lawyers remember it differently. A court reporter does that on the record, in the moment. An AI transcript is something different. One wonders if these will become ubiquitous.
Lawyer.exe | Trial by AI retweeted
The Florida Bar's ethics committee is taking comments on a proposed AI advisory opinion before any of it has been written. The October 15 notice says there are "no drafts for the committee's consideration at this time."
On the table: agentic AI, AI notetakers and transcription tools, what to tell clients who use AI themselves, and an update to Opinion 24-1. Comments have to be postmarked by December 1, ahead of a December 10 committee meeting, and can go to [email protected]. Florida folks, now's the time to tell them what you actually need answered.