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An Attorney-Client Communication Advising Spoliation is Not Privileged
Michael D. Berman examines a ruling that advice to spoliate evidence is not privileged, though the court found no actual destruction because both pre- and post-advice versions of Meta’s disputed documents survived and were ordered...
Drafting RFPs for Robots to Read
With producing parties increasingly letting large language models make first-pass relevance calls, this piece argues that requests for production should be drafted as prompts and demonstrates this approach using the Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox...
Restrictions on Use of Artificial Intelligence Tools to Process Disclosure Materials
Michael Berman reports on a case with restrictions on the use of AI tools to handle disclosure materials and questions what happens in a clawback situation.
Glass Houses Proverb—Don’t Throw Stones and Invective
A Court of Federal Claims judge sanctioned plaintiffs’ counsel under RCFC 11 for confidently asserting settled North Carolina law without citing a single supporting case, then calling the government’s correct position “frivolous.” The same opinion...
When Evidence Behaves Like Water, Law Cannot Think Like a Mouse
Ralph Losey argues that quantum and quantum-assisted systems will produce evidence that varies between runs rather than repeating identically. Lawyers will need to test whether the resulting distribution is reliable and preserve the calibration logs,...
Information Governance–Employee’s Use of Employer’s Email for Privileged Communications
Michael Berman analyzed Lalwani v. Trustees of Indiana University where an employee, plaintiff Mr. Lalwani, had communicated with his lawyers using the employer-defendant university’s email system that found Indiana University to be a public institution...
Passing the Controls: The Art of Legal Judgment, Mentorship, and the Next Generation in the Age of AI
What happens to legal judgment when AI can perform, at surface level, the very tasks junior lawyers have always used to build skill? Retired judge Ralph Artigliere and Wake Forest-bound Zara Russell tackle that question...
Another A.I. Protective Order
Protective orders addressing the use of A.I. to review materials produced to an opponent in discovery are becoming routine. The stipulated protective order in RMME LLC v. Majestic Steel USA, Inc., 2026 WL 1831063, at...
It is Improper to Combine Interrogatories and Document Requests
Michael Berman surveys a consistent line of authority holding that the two discovery tools should be served separately, with some courts concluding that defendants need not respond to requests that combine both forms of discovery.
Is it OK if “Actual Authorities” Support the “Bogus” Proposition Set Out in a Hallucinated Case?
In Withers v. City of Aberdeen, a federal court rejected the argument that attorneys should avoid sanctions for citing AI-hallucinated cases simply because legitimate authorities support the same legal propositions. The decision emphasizes that fake...
A.I. Protective Order—Again
Two recent Southern District of New York cases highlight a growing trend in discovery practice: protective orders that regulate how parties may use confidential discovery materials with AI tools. While not universal, these provisions increasingly...
Trial Court’s Order Contained Hallucinated Mistake
The Georgia Court of Appeals rebuked both counsel and the trial court after a proposed order containing a hallucinated case citation was submitted and signed. In Henry County Schools v. Grant, the court highlighted errors...