A case focusing on anti-discrimination protections for transgender high school students has raised new controversy: a debate over whether or not attorneys used AI to draft a brief regarding the case.

The Butler-based attorneys at the center of the controversy continue to deny claims that they used “AI hallucinations” in a brief filed in a Dec. 10 hearing in the case of South Side Area School District et. al v. Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission.

Knoch School District and state Rep. Aaron Bernstine, R-8th, are also included as plaintiffs in the case, which examines the anti-discrimination protections for transgender students.

The accusations came from Commonwealth Court Judge Matthew Wolf shortly after attorney Tom King of Dillon, McCandless, King, Coulter & Graham made his case. His words cut through a shaky livestreamed version of the hearing.

“ 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.”

But the attorneys, who are planning a formal response due Monday, Feb. 2, say the allegations are not true. Though the use of AI is permitted by attorneys, the Butler-based firm fiercely denies the use of AI in the preparation of the brief.

“Our response will be filed with the court. Our response will be available to the public,” attorney Tom Breth, Knoch’s solicitor, said at the most recent Knoch school board meeting. “You’ll be able to read our response.

“We welcome the scrutiny. We’re not above making mistakes. We’re not perfect — we’re human. We take our jobs very seriously,” Breth said.

But the attorneys did not use AI, he said.

Those allegations are “absolutely false,” Breth said at the Jan. 14 meeting, which was attended by more than 150 people. The concerns were raised by community member Tim Danehy, who criticized the lawsuit and Breth’s handling of it.

Though the crowd gathered largely for unrelated matters, the school district’s involvement in the case, which challenges requirements to allow transgender athletes to compete in women’s sports, still surfaced.

The district’s school board had approved spending $10,000 to participate in the litigation in March 2025. Breth is one of several who filed the legal petition.

He said the public will be able to see the response after it’s filed.

“These are very serious things. These are very important issues for public discussion, so we’ll file that Feb. 2, that document will be made public and you can determine the allegations,” Breth said.

On Jan. 12, the attorneys were granted a deadline of Monday, Feb. 2, to submit a letter addressing the issues found by the court. Legal council for the Human Relations Commission may respond by Feb. 10.

A former president of the Pennsylvania Bar Association said he wondered if the brief in which the local attorney’s office is accused of using “AI hallucinations” by the Commonwealth Court judge is being analyzed by AI tools.

Jay Silberblatt, a Pittsburgh-area attorney who spoke on behalf of the Butler attorneys, suggested the conclusion of AI use could have been reached by running the brief through a program to detect AI that “messed up.”

“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 in a Dec. 17 interview.

He added it is acceptable for lawyers to use AI for court purposes as long as they are competent and up-to-date with relevant technology, citing the Pennsylvania attorney rules of professional conduct.

But he supports the law firm in its statement of not using artificial intelligence to write up the legal brief.

Judge Wolf’s office declined a request for comment on the hearing and the remarks made and the upcoming response from the petitioners.

After Wolf’s December comments, the brief was entered into a database that curates AI hallucination cases, which is often cited by news outlets in the region and around the country. Recently, Spotlight PA cited the database, created by Damien Charlotin, a legal researcher and professor from Paris.

Charlotin created the database in early 2025, noticing a surge in legal cases suspected of being impacted by artificial intelligence around the time, he told the Butler Eagle in an interview late last week.

In the case of the brief filed by the Butler attorneys, the database references two sources under a header called “details.” One is an article about “potential AI hallucinations” by WESA. The other is the Spotlight PA story as published on The Times that calls the brief “error-filled.”

Charlotin’s database claims errors — a false quote and misrepresented information — in the brief, according to a view of the database on Jan. 27.

Specifically it flags a “citation to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court from the Bayada case for a quote that doesn’t exist in that case” and “the Popowsky case for a proposition and a quote that doesn’t exist and that case is not even on point to this case.”

The case, Bayada Nurses, Inc. v. the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Labor and Industry, is a 2010 state Supreme Court ruling in a case that challenged state Department of Labor regulations. The other case, Popowsky v. Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission, is a 1997 state Supreme Court case that addressed PUC’s ability to regulate telecommunications services.

Both cases are cited on Page 48 of the 56-page brief.

The quote attributed to Bayada Nurses, Inc. v. the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Labor and Industry reads, “agencies ‘may not, under the guise of interpretation, enlarge a statute or engraft additional substantive requirements not included by the General Assembly.’”

The accusation related to the Popowsky v. Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission was not clear.

But the Butler Eagle staff reviewed the 50-page brief, along with the 36 court cases it cited in the brief. The cases cited were real and systematically verified by the Eagle without artificial intelligence, but the origin of the Bayada quote could not be found by Eagle staff.

Charlotin said his research includes using artificial intelligence to gather information regarding the cases. He said it picked up on public information from past reporting on the case in this situation.

“Usually the way it works, when I get a PDF of it, I’ll put it in my database and I’ve got some AI tools that extract data for the entry. But this one, it’s based on the story and I don’t have the ruling,” Charlotin said.

Charlotin said the purpose of the database is not to make a judgment. He “lets the courts and judges make or imply it,” but he said that “by their nature,” most hallucinations are obvious. Making up a case name or a false quote is not something that can be a human mistake, he said.

Charlotin also said he believes legal use of AI is not only acceptable, but can be beneficial in an industry as time-crunching as law.

“My point is not to make a point about AI being unfit for legal uses. On the contrary, I think most lawyers are responsible, they know what to do with AI,” he said.

As King spoke in court in December, he apologized for “any artificial intelligence that might be contained in this brief,” and later 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 accurate and supported.

Breth said at the Knoch school board meeting his firm is going to address every allegation and prove them false.