Legal research agent cites non-existent case law
| ID | AGI-2026-0015 |
| Date | 2025-06-10 |
| Severity | critical |
| Agent type | legal research agent |
| Primary pattern | BP-001 |
| Secondary | BP-005 · BP-007 |
Summary
An AI legal research agent produced a brief citing six court cases, three of which did not exist. The fabricated citations included realistic case numbers, court names, and legal reasoning. The brief was submitted to court before the citations were verified.
Key Lesson
In high-stakes domains, agent output must pass a verification checkpoint before any consequential action is taken. Citation validation is not optional in legal workflows — it is the gate between output and filing.
Sources
- Legal industry reporting, 2025
Tags: fabrication, legal, citation, court-submission
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