AI-Generated Misrepresentations in Court: The Case of Fletcher v. Experian

December 18, 2025

In Fletcher v. Experian Information Solutions, Inc., a Fifth Circuit court found that attorney Heather Hersh utilized generative AI to draft a significant portion of a reply brief containing fabricated legal support and factual misrepresentations. Initially issuing a show-cause order, the court later imposed a $2,500 sanction, attributing the filing errors to unverified AI-generated output. The incident underscores the need for responsible AI governance and safe and secure AI practices within legal contexts. To learn more about the ongoing efforts in this area, consider joining us through JOIN US.

Alleged deployer

heather-hersh

Alleged developer

unknown-large-language-model-developers

Alleged harmed parties

united-states-court-of-appeals-for-the-fifth-circuit, judicial-integrity, james-fletcher, experian-information-solutions-inc., epistemic-integrity

AI governance case studies

For forensic AI governance failure analysis (TAIMScore™ case studies), browse Human Signal’s Failure Files™.

Data source

Incident data is from the AI Incident Database (AIID).

When citing the database as a whole, please use:

McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-21). Virtual Conference.

Pre-print on arXiv · Database snapshots & citation guide

We use weekly snapshots of the AIID for stable reference. For the official suggested citation of a specific incident, use the “Cite this incident” link on each incident page.