Attorney Battling Federal Judge Issues Letter To Court Showing Opinion Contained Quotes That Were Wrong

So here we are again, folks—another day, another diversity hire melting down in real time. And this time, it’s happening in a federal courtroom.

U.S. District Court Judge Julien Neals, one of President Biden’s proudly touted judicial appointees, just had to withdraw an official opinion after an attorney pointed out it was packed with—wait for it—fake quotes and misattributed case law. Not typos. Not formatting issues. Full-on “this quote doesn’t exist in the case you cited” mistakes. And now, legal experts are floating the idea that the real author of the opinion may not have been human at all.

AI. Yes, that AI.

Let’s unpack this slowly, because it’s a bit like watching a car crash in slow motion: horrifying, predictable, and yet somehow impossible to look away from.

The opinion in question came down on June 30th, 2025. It was noticed almost immediately by attorney Andrew Lichtman, who took the rare—and bold—step of issuing a formal letter to Judge Neals pointing out not one, not two, but six separate errors in the opinion. These weren’t small potatoes. We’re talking quotes that never appeared in the cited legal cases. Entirely fictional language attributed to defendants. And factual reversals about case outcomes. Imagine citing a case where a motion was denied when, in reality, it was granted. That’s not interpretation. That’s fiction.

And yes, Lichtman brought receipts.

You don’t even need a law degree to fact-check it. As Lichtman basically said: just hit “Ctrl+F” and try to find the quotes. They aren’t there.

So what did Neals do?

He yanked the opinion. Quietly. A one-line notice appeared on the docket: “That opinion and order were entered in error.” That’s it. No public comment. No explanation. Just a silent walk of shame back into chambers.

Now let’s address the uncomfortable elephant tap-dancing around this mess: the suspicion that AI, not a human, actually wrote large parts of the opinion. Legal scholars and outlets like Bloomberg and The Volokh Conspiracy are openly speculating that Judge Neals—or more likely, one of his law clerks—used artificial intelligence and didn’t bother to check its work.