A federal appeals court in Denver on Friday proposed requiring lawyers to certify that any court filings prepared with the assistance of generative AI have been reviewed by humans for accuracy. If adopted, the 10th US ​Circuit Court of Appeals would become the first of the 13 federal appeals courts nationally to ‌have a rule targeting the mountain of instances of fake and hallucinated case citations that have shown up in court filings since AI debuted on a mass scale in 2022.

Div. One of the Fourth District Court of Appeal held yesterday that a judge erred in sua sponte disqualifying a man’s attorney-brother from representing him pro bono in divorce proceedings, saying that the fact that the lawyer might be a potential witness with a possible financial interest in the case, based on evidence that he had been helping his sibling out financially, was not enough to overcome the party’s right to the counsel of his choosing.

Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Friday that he is directing state agencies to develop artificial intelligence safety recommendations, some of which were part of a bill he vetoed two years ago. His change of tune on those measures, including requiring AI developers to include a “kill switch” to shut off certain programs in emergencies, comes in response to growing public alarm over the fast-developing technology’s potential “catastrophic” harms such as AI creating a bioweapon or bringing down the power grid. 

(Subscription required) Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday named two of his top lawyers to the appellate bench as he continues to pare down his legal departments with just four months left in office. Brian Goldman, the governor’s chief deputy legal affairs secretary, and Adam Hofmann, Newsom’s deputy judicial appointments secretary, will both serve on the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco, if confirmed by the Commission on Judicial Appointments.