Errors

• The forwarded answer

  An AI answer passed to a partner, counsel or client without anyone reading or checking it on the way.

  • First recorded: June 2023
  • Where it shows up: emails to partners · instructions to counsel · witness statements · client updates
  • Status: under enforcement

• Phantom authority

  The invented citation, in three grades: the case that does not exist, the real case with words it never said, and the real case cited for a point it does not decide.

  • First recorded: May 2023
  • Where it shows up: skeleton arguments · grounds of claim · witness statements · tribunal submissions
  • Status: under enforcement

• "Only cite real cases."

  The line added to a prompt as if it were a safeguard. It changes what the model says about its citations; it checks none of them.

  • First recorded: unknown
  • Where it shows up: research prompts · custom instructions · shared prompt libraries
  • Status: recurring

• "All citations verified."

  A claim that the citations have been checked, from a tool or a person, with no method behind it. The question is: against what?

  • First recorded: May 2023
  • Where it shows up: tool answers · covering emails · replies to the other side · statements to the court
  • Status: under enforcement

• "Hallucination-free"

  The vendor claim. Research tools sold as grounded or hallucination-free still invented or misdescribed authority when they were measured.

  • First recorded: 2023
  • Where it shows up: vendor websites · product demonstrations · procurement decks
  • Status: measured

• "That's a strong argument"

  Sycophancy: the model agreeing with the position it was given. Dangerous in legal work because the lawyer wanted that answer.

  • First recorded: December 2022
  • Where it shows up: merits assessments · draft skeleton arguments · negotiation positions
  • Status: measured

• Privileged, until pasted

  Client facts, or privileged material, pasted into a consumer chatbot whose terms let the provider train on the input or let staff read it.

  • First recorded: November 2023
  • Where it shows up: consumer chatbots · personal phones · free accounts · browser extensions
  • Status: recurring

• The shared chat

  A share link to a conversation that holds a client's facts. In 2025, shared ChatGPT conversations marked discoverable turned up in search results, and the option was withdrawn.

  • First recorded: July 2025
  • Where it shows up: share links · search results · messages to colleagues
  • Status: emerging

• "Just upload the whole bundle."

  The entire bundle, lease or data room put into one prompt with a request for any issues. Accuracy falls as the input grows, and the middle is where things go missing.

  • First recorded: July 2023
  • Where it shows up: data rooms · trial bundles · leases · disclosure
  • Status: measured

• Cognitive debt

  What accumulates when a tool takes on the reading and reasoning, and the effort that would have built the lawyer's understanding is skipped. The trainee who cannot explain the advice.

  • First recorded: June 2025
  • Where it shows up: trainee research · first drafts · attendance notes · supervision
  • Status: emerging

The format follows the field notes on meatproxy.me; the entries are written from the sources on each page.