David Kluft asks: “Can I mediate a dispute and then later be adverse to one of the mediating parties in a substantially related dispute?” —

• “A lawyer served as a mediator between a sister and brother fighting over a loan that the sister’s LLC made to the brother.”
• “Another LLC member (Plaintiff) later sued the sister, alleging that the outcome of the mediation (forgiving the loan) was a misuse of LLC assets. One of the lawyers who appeared for the plaintiff in the new lawsuit was the mediator in the prior dispute between the siblings. The sister moved to disqualify the lawyer pursuant to Rule 1.12, which provides that a lawyer cannot represent someone if they previously participated as an adjudicator in the same ‘matter.'”
• “The plaintiff argued that the mediation, even though ‘substantially related’ to the lawsuit, was not the same ‘matter.'”
• “The trial judge actually bought this argument and refused disqualification, but the court of appeals reversed, holding that Rule 1.12’s definition of ‘matter’ is ‘not limited to the same specific case over which the adjudicative official, here a mediator, previously presided.'”
• Decision: here.

“Rehab Programs Seek To DQ Participant’s Counsel In Pay Suit” —

• “Several Texas-based addiction recovery program operators urged a federal court to disqualify a program participant’s counsel in a Fair Labor Standards Act lawsuit, arguing the attorney’s prior involvement with the programs creates both a conflict of interest and a need for him to serve as a witness.”
• “Timothy Wiseman, Wiseman Ministries Inc. and Wiseman Transport LLC said in a reply on Monday that plaintiffs’ counsel’s pre-suit involvement with the programs, including recommending them to clients and facilitating a participant’s placement, creates a conflict of interest and makes him a necessary witness in the case.”
• “‘Plaintiffs’ admission that their counsel recommended defendant Wiseman Ministries’ Recovery Programs to individuals, and even facilitated the placement of a current opt-in plaintiff into one of those recovery programs, is precisely the type of situation where the standard is met and disqualification becomes appropriate,’ the program operators said. “
• “In their filing, the program operators take aim at attorney J.D. McMullen’s prior relationship with the programs at issue. According to the filing, McMullen is a necessary witness, because he is ‘the only person who can corroborate, or refute, the statements made to him about pre-admission expectations for participation in a Recovery Program for a current opt-in Plaintiff.'”
• “The program operators rejected the plaintiffs’ proposal to limit any disqualification to trial, arguing that such a remedy would fail to address the broader impact of the counsel’s role in discovery and case strategy. The reply also emphasizes an alleged conflict of interest, asserting that the counsel’s prior endorsement of the recovery programs ‘materially limits’ his ability to challenge those same programs in litigation.”
• “By referring clients and facilitating participation, the program operators argue, the counsel effectively vouched for the programs’ benefits, creating a ‘substantive conflict’ between his ‘prior conduct and current advocacy.'”
• “They operators further argued that ‘actual prejudice to defendants is already occurring… The prejudice is not hypothetical — Attorney-Witness McMullen possesses information that should be subject to the normal discovery process, but his role (and that of his co-counsel) as an advocate for plaintiffs shields that information from proper examination.'”

“Ex-Thomson Reuters Employee’s Whistleblower Suit Highlights Controversy Over Legal Tech’s ICE Ties” —

• “An ex-Thomson Reuters attorney editor is accusing her former employer of firing her in retaliation for her reporting that the company’s products were being used to unlawfully compile and deliver sensitive data to federal immigration authorities.”
• “In a lawsuit filed last week, the former editor claimed Thomson Reuters sought to ‘make an example of her’ after she led a group of employees in voicing concern over the company’s contracts with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).”
• “The controversy around Thomson Reuters’ data sharing is not unique in legal tech. LexisNexis parent company RELX and its subsidiary LexisNexis Risk Solutions, has also received pushback over contractual ties to federal immigration authorities.”
• “Since March, Thomson Reuters employees as well as staff from LexisNexis’ brands tied to parent company RELX have voiced their concerns to respective leadership and demanded their companies cut contracts with the federal immigration authorities.”
• “In the lawsuit filed last week, captioned Little v. Thomson Reuters, former senior attorney editor Billie Little claimed she learned Thomson Reuters’ data tools supported immigration enforcement activity in Minnesota. She said she believed the company was knowingly facilitating or contributing to unlawful conduct and violating constitutional protections and state law privacy, data and sanctuary city protections, which could extend to other jurisdictions including Oregon, where her federal lawsuit was filed.”
• “Little and about 200 Thomson Reuters employees voiced their concern that the company’s products might be being used in ways that violated the law in an open letter to Thomson Reuters’ executive leadership and board of directors.”
• “‘Thomson Reuters products may be used in ways that conflict with state and local laws in sanctuary jurisdictions, as well as data protection and privacy regulations at multiple governmental levels,’ the letter said. ‘When investigative tools enable federal agencies to access data in ways that circumvent state and local privacy protections, we risk facilitating violations of laws that fall under the jurisdiction of state attorneys general, local prosecutors and data protection authorities.'”
• “The letter requested transparency, due diligence disclosures, safeguard information and an all-hands meeting. Little claimed Thomson Reuters launched an internal investigation into her after the letter was received, then fired her for a supposed code of conduct violation, which Little asserted was pretext to disguise retaliation.”
• “In a statement responding to Little’s allegations, Thomson Reuters said, ‘We take employee concerns seriously and provide clear channels for colleagues to raise issues, as outlined in our Code of Conduct. As this relates to an individual employment matter, it would be inappropriate to comment further. We strongly dispute the allegations and intend to robustly defend the case.'”
• “Little claimed Thomson Reuters’ conduct violated Oregon’s whistleblower protection law.”
• “‘Oregon’s whistleblower law exists for exactly this situation. It protects employees who report in good faith that their employer may be breaking the law,’ Maria Witt, counsel for Little and Albies & Stark of counsel, said in a press release. ‘Thomson Reuters should have thanked Billie for raising concerns about the use of its products instead of hiding behind a vague Code of Conduct violation to punish an employee for exercising rights that Oregon law expressly guarantees.'”
• “The employees’ open letter was not the first incident of Thomson Reuters facing calls to examine its ties with ICE. Thomson Reuters’ long-term minority investor British Columbia General Employees’ Union (BCGEU) said in a statement to Law.com that it has been raising issues similar to those mentioned in Little’s lawsuit since 2020. The union called Little’s allegations ‘deeply troubling.'”
• “Employees under LexisNexis voiced similar concerns about their parent company RELX in an open letter and demanded it cut contractual ties to ICE.”
• “RELX subsidiary LexisNexis Risk Solutions entered into a $22.1 million contract with the DHS in 2021 to provide ICE with a database of public records, and the company has since extended that contract, according to public U.S. spending data.”
• “‘Given ICE’s record, it is clear RELX is doing business with an organization that regularly flouts the ‘rule of law’ principles the company says it upholds,’ the employees’ letter said. ‘We are concerned our employer’s parent company may be aiding threats to our safety, both on the job as journalists and as members of the public, since ICE now has latitude to target people for arrest based on criteria including real or perceived ethnicity or speaking a language other than English.'”
• “Employees also demanded in the letter that executives be transparent about RELX’s contract status, withdraw from the contract if it was renewed and answer employees’ related questions in a town hall.”

“Top law firm apologizes to bankruptcy judge for AI hallucination” —

• “One of Wall Street’s prominent law firms, Sullivan & Cromwell, wrote to a bankruptcy judge to apologize for a court motion that included inaccurate citations generated by artificial intelligence, according to a filing in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.”
• “In the April 18 apology, Andrew Dietderich, founder and co-head of Sullivan’s restructuring group, said the firm had been made aware of errors in an emergency motion filed in the bankruptcy of Prince Global Holdings.”
• “‘The inaccuracies and errors in the Motion include artificial intelligence (‘AI’) ‘hallucinations,’ according to the letter, which added that the firm had not followed its protocols in preparing the document.”
• “‘We sincerely regret the errors in the Motion and the burden they have imposed on the Court and the parties, and I apologize on behalf of our entire team,’ Dietderich wrote in the letter. The firm said it is taking steps to ensure the accuracy of all submissions.”
  “The law firm represents liquidators overseeing actions against Prince Group, a Cambodia-based conglomerate.”
• “It is very rare for big law firms such as Sullivan & Cromwell to include AI-generated errors in a court filing, said Damien Charlotin, who oversees a database tracking court cases in which an AI hallucination has been verified by a judge or acknowledged by the lawyers involved. More often, the mistakes are made by solo practitioners in cases involving many parties, said Charlotin, who is also a senior research fellow at French business school HEC Paris.”
• “The number of such cases has grown in recent years as AI use has spread, he said. His database shows more than 900 US cases, only a handful of which are in bankruptcy court.”
• “The errors underscore growing concerns about how law firms are using AI and what safeguards they have in place. Judges have reprimanded lawyers in some cases. Last year, a bankruptcy judge publicly reprimanded a former Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani senior counsel for submitting filings with artificial-intelligence-generated fake citations, although the firm itself avoided court sanctions.”

 

The specific AI tool or tools used were not disclosed, but Sullivan’s AI practice is very much involved with OpenAI.

 

And, for technology nerds in the room still reading this far down today’s update, Damien Charlotin’s AI database is fascinating! See his roster of: “AI Hallucination Cases” —

• “This database tracks legal decisions1 in cases where generative AI produced hallucinated content – typically fake citations, but also other types of AI-generated arguments. It does not track the (necessarily wider) universe of all fake citations or use of AI in court filings.”
• “While seeking to be exhaustive (1334 cases identified so far), it is a work in progress and will expand as new examples emerge. This database has been featured in news media, and indeed in several decisions dealing with hallucinated material.”