A New York judge has scolded a law firm for citing ChatGPT to support its application for “excessive” attorneys’ fees of up to $600 an hour.
The Cuddy Law Firm had invoked the predictive artificial intelligence tool in a declaration to the court over a case it won against the city’s education department. It said it had done so “to provide context to what a parent — having ChatGPT-4 open and available to them — might take away in researching whether to hire an attorney and who to accept or reject”.
When asked what would be a “reasonable hourly rate” to expect for an associate attorney with up to three years experience in a hearing over disabilities education, the large language model said it could “range anywhere from $200 to $500 an hour”, an attorney at the firm wrote.