U.S. District Judge Sharion Aycock disqualified four attorneys and barred two from appearing in her court after finding they “blindly” used generative artificial intelligence in legal filings, producing fabricated quotes and citations, Aycock wrote in a June 8 ruling, first reported by the Mississippi Free Press.
The attorneys were involved in a lawsuit over a contractual pay dispute between Tom Withers III and the city of Aberdeen. Kathleen Wilson and Shauncey Hunter Ridgeway represented Withers, while Mark McClinton and Kathryn Young Williams represented the city, according to the ruling.
Aycock told the parties of her concerns in December and ordered them to defend their use of AI at a January hearing. Both legal teams filed documents correcting the hallucinated sources, the ruling said. The judge said the filings nevertheless showed the attorneys had relied on AI-generated material without adequate verification.
The June 8 ruling says Williams admitted using an in-house AI research tool and Wilson admitted using an AI tool to draft a filing. Neither verified the AI work before filing, the judge found. McClinton and Ridgeway admitted they failed to review error-filled filings they signed. Aycock called Wilson’s testimony that she did not know AI could produce false sources “insufficient and incredulous,” the opinion said.
Aycock revoked the out-of-state lawyers’ pro hac vice admission, barred Wilson and Williams from appearing in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi for two years and ordered fines and other penalties, including a required legal education course on artificial intelligence for Wilson. Aycock disqualified Ridgeway and McClinton and fined them, finding their conduct negligent but not in bad faith. Copies of the order will be sent to the Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas bar associations, the ruling said.
Kathleen Wilson, reached by Mississippi Today, said she was “trying to shake back from all of this and regroup” and called the sanctions fair. Ben Cooper, a University of Mississippi School of Law professor and member of the Mississippi Bar Association’s Ethics Committee, told the Mississippi Free Press the decision was “tough, but fair” and warned that lawyers must verify AI outputs. Ridgeway, Williams and McClinton could not be reached for comment, the ruling noted.
Jon Ross Myers is the executive editor and publisher of the Mississippi News Network, Mississippi's largest digital only media company. He can be reached at editor@tippahnews.com
