A Commonwealth Court judge accused a Butler-based law firm of using artificial intelligence and citing court cases that do not exist in a legal brief challenging the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission’s interpretation of anti-discrimination protections for transgender high schoolers.

Commonwealth Court Judge Matthew Wolf accused attorneys Tom King and Thomas Breth of Dillon, McCandless, King, Coulter & Graham of filing a brief that contained “AI hallucinations” in a Dec. 10 hearing in the case of South Side Area School District et. al v. Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission.

King and Breth, as well as the law firm, have denied using AI in the legal brief or citing made-up court cases.

The case challenging requirements to allow transgender athletes to compete in women’s sports lists Knoch School District and state Rep. Aaron Bernstine, R-8th, as plaintiffs.

In the filed legal brief, the petitioners are challenging the commission’s application of anti-discrimination protections for transgender students in public schools. They have claimed the commission, along with the state executive branch, is “expanding” the interpretation of sex beyond male and female, and that they do not have the authority to do so.

Shortly after King rose to make his case, Wolf asked whether King’s firm had improperly used artificial intelligence to prepare the brief.

“ You quote the Pennsylvania Supreme Court from the Bayada case for a quote that does not exist in that case,” Wolf said during the hearing. “You cite the Popowsky case for a proposition and a quote that does not exist, and that case is not even on point to this case.”

“I’m unhappy,” Wolf added. “I feel as though you’ve put the court at a disadvantage.”

At the time, King apologized for “any artificial intelligence that might be contained in this brief,” according to previous reporting from multiple outlets.

King shared a statement from the firm that said it “carefully reviewed” the brief submitted to the court, and said all case law it cited were actual cases, and that legal arguments were sound and properly supported.

The law firm also said it retained services of technical support specialists to evaluate the brief’s language. It said the specialists concluded the text in question would “almost certainly be classified as human-written,” and not AI-generated.

Jay Silberblatt, a Pittsburgh-area attorney speaking on behalf of the firm, insisted the law firm did not use artificial intelligence to write up the legal brief.

“The law firm has a stellar reputation across the state, it’s unfortunate they’ve been tarnished in a certain way by this negativity,” Silberblatt said. “The point I would like to get across is a lawyer is perfectly within their rights to utilize AI. (The firm) in this instance did not use AI in drafting of the brief.”

Bernstine said the accusation of using AI does not affect the merits of the case. He clarified he was not involved in filing the case but looks forward to winning the case.

“If you look at what the judge said, it’s all about the merits of the case,” Bernstine said.

Here in Butler County, the court case has become politically charged, receiving scrutiny from Knoch School District residents in the months and weeks leading up to the Dec. 10 hearing.

Parents have repeatedly attended board meetings since the board voted in March to join the litigation, protesting the decision. Parents and residents have also taken issue with the board paying $10,000 in litigation costs to Breth, who is also Knoch’s solicitor. Breth and King are both members of the Thomas Moore Society, a Chicago-based conservative, Roman Catholic public interest firm covering the majority of remaining litigation costs.

Board members who voted to join the litigation included board President Donna Eakin, Justin Kovach, Patti Larimer, Bill Gebhart and David McRandal.

Rebecca Boyd and Jill McDonald voted no, and are both being replaced by newly elected members.

The American Bar Association said in its generative AI intelligence guidelines that many lawyers use artificial intelligence-based technologies to improve efficiency and quality of services.

The association allows AI to be used in electronic discovery, which it said is a means of categorizing documents, performing contract analytics, predicting how lawyers and judges may behave based on previous rulings and for general research to improve search results.

It added lawyers are obligated to understand the benefits, risks and limitations associated with using AI.

“Lawyers may not abdicate their responsibilities by relying solely on a (generative AI) tool to perform tasks that call for the exercise of professional judgment,” it said.

Silverblatt said the use of AI for court purposes by lawyers is generally OK. He pointed to attorney rules of professional conduct which include lawyers must be competent and aware of changes in law and practice of relevant technology.

But Silverblatt maintains the petitioners in this case did not use AI, and suggested Wolf could have made a mistake, such as putting the brief through a program to detect AI that messed up.

“It did not happen in the Knoch case. Neither Mr. King nor Mr. Breth used AI in the preparation of the brief. In fact, all of the cases referenced in brief, all volumes and page numbers are tied to actual cases cited in actual courts in Pa.,” Silverblatt said.