AI

• Judge Jed Rakoff, who ruled on whether a defendant’s use of an AI chatbot to discuss legal issues was covered by privilege or work product doctrine, has issued a written memorandum explaining his reasoning

• From Law.com [$]: “In Opinion Footnote, 5th Circuit Calls Out Trial Judge’s AI Use”

• Axiom Advice & Counsel, part of the attorney outsourcing company Axiom Global, has closed its Arizona law firm that was opened under the Alternative Business Structure program; in the ashes of the firm, an Arizona-based attorney recruiting company is suing Axiom (parent and subsidiary) and the private equity firm that backed the parent company [Reuters ($) | Law360 ($) | Case information page | Complaint]

• Suffolk Law School LitLab’s Quinten Steenhuis argues that “ it is morally wrong to withhold carefully tested AI tools from unrepresented litigants when the alternative is ChatGPT or nothing at all”

• From Bloomberg Law [$]: an oped from Prof. Keith Procaro of Duke University School of Law, arguing that “Rather than democratize the law, AI could help fuel yet another wave of consolidation, where the benefits accrue to those with the most capital, the most data, or the most market share”

• Law Librarian (and friend of the newsletter) Rebecca Fordon has part 1 of a 3-part series on AI hallucinations in legal research: “What the Science Says About Hallucinations in Legal Research”

• The Research and Policy Lab at Georgetown University has launched a Justice AI Tracker, showing where AI tools are being deployed by courts, law enforcement and corrections

• A bug in Microsoft’s Copilot allowed it to access and summarize confidential emails since late January [Bleeping Computer]

• It appears that the South Coast Air Quality Management District voted against new proposed rules regulating gas-powered appliances after opponents used an AI platform to send in 20,000 comments against the rules [Los Angeles Times ($) | Campaigns & Elections]

• Meta announced plans to add facial recognition software to its Ray-Bans smart glasses as early as later this year [NY Times ($) | TechCrunch | CNet | LifeHacker]

• The Atlantic has an article on the growing number of companies developing AI-based griefbots

Fabrication Follies

• Virgil v. Experian Information Solutions Inc. et al. [Law360 ($) | Docket | Order]

• TQJ, LLC v. Jennifer Esquivel et al. [Law360 ($) | Docket | Order]

Miscellaneous

• Sen. Chuck Grassley and three other Republican senators have introduced a bill “to increase transparency and oversight of third-party litigation funding in certain actions” [Grassley press release | ABA Journal ($) | Congress.gov]

Long Read(ish)s

• Bean, A.M., Payne, R.E., Parsons, G. et al. Reliability of LLMs as medical assistants for the general public: a randomized preregistered study, Nat Med, 2026 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-025-04074-y

• Kitreoff, Natalie and Roose, Kevin, “Can A.I. Already Do Your Job?” [Podcast] New York Times [$], Feb. 18, 2026