A Pietermaritzburg law firm, Surendra Singh and Associates, is facing potential disciplinary action after its legal team was accused of using artificial intelligence (AI) tools, including Google and possibly ChatGPT, to fabricate legal citations in a case involving controversial KwaZulu-Natal politician Godfrey Mvundla.
Judge Elsja-Marie Bezuidenhout of the Pietermaritzburg High Court discovered the fabricated references during a hearing in September 2024, leading her to refer the matter to the Legal Practice Council (LPC) for further investigation.
The case centres around Mvundla’s application for leave to appeal a decision by Judge Bezuidenhout, who had discharged an interim interdict that Mvundla had previously secured against the Umvoti municipality.
In the application, Mvundla’s legal team, led by Surendra Singh and Associates, cited several case authorities to support their legal arguments. However, the judge found that many of the references did not exist or were cited incorrectly. Only two out of the nine cited cases were found to be legitimate, with one of them having an incorrect citation.
During the court proceedings, Judge Bezuidenhout became suspicious of the references, which led her to conduct further investigations.
She tasked two law researchers to review the cited cases, only to find that the majority could not be found in any official law reports.
The judge then questioned Mvundla’s counsel, Ms. S Pillay, who revealed that she had relied on an articled clerk for the references, citing the pressure of a heavy workload as a reason for not verifying the cases herself.
Upon further examination, the articled clerk admitted that she had sourced the cases from an online portal, claiming to have found them in law journals.
However, when questioned about the specific law journals, the clerk could not provide any answers. Judge Bezuidenhout also asked if AI tools, such as ChatGPT, had been used to gather the references. The clerk denied this, but the judge’s suspicions remained.
The law firm’s owner, Surendra Singh, later appeared in court and admitted to using Google to try and obtain the correct case law but failed to obtain copies from the court library, citing issues with paying for them.
Singh also defended his articled clerk, suggesting that the pressure on her was the cause of the issue. He further blamed the advocate for the respondent for not checking the citations.
Judge Bezuidenhout was critical of Singh’s response and the lack of accountability within the law firm. She ruled that the firm was responsible for the costs of two court hearings in which significant judicial resources were spent investigating the non-existent citations.
She also raised concerns about the professional integrity of the articled clerk, questioning whether her actions would impact her future legal career.
In her judgement, Judge Bezuidenhout remarked on the growing reliance on AI tools in legal research, warning that such technology, if misused, could have serious repercussions for the legal profession. “Had Pillay checked the authorities before coming to court, she would have denounced any reliance on the cases,” the judge stated.
She also noted that an experiment with just two of the citations using ChatGPT revealed the unreliability of the AI as a source for legal research.
Ultimately, Judge Bezuidenhout dismissed Mvundla’s application for leave to appeal, concluding that the references cited by his legal team were irrelevant and unreliable.
She ordered Surendra Singh and Associates to pay the costs incurred from the two hearings, emphasising the importance of professional responsibility in legal practice.
The judge also referred the case to the LPC for further investigation, indicating that the use of AI in legal practice could be subject to stricter scrutiny moving forward.
