A Supreme Court survey has found widespread exposure to fabricated legal authorities in Korean court filings. The court surveyed 360 judges from Oct. 6 to 16. Among judges handling civil, family and administrative cases, about 80 percent said they had encountered citations to precedents that did not exist or contained false information.
Among respondents to the relevant questions, 196 judges, or 80.7 percent, reported seeing nonexistent precedents, while 159, or 65.4 percent, had encountered precedents whose contents were false. Those categories may overlap and cannot be added together. One publisher summarized the overall result as 68 percent, but the supplied evidence does not provide enough denominator or question detail to reconcile that figure with the case-specific findings.
Fabricated authorities extend beyond precedents
Fabrication extended beyond court decisions. Forty-one judges, or 16.9 percent, reported citations to nonexistent or false statutes, while 10, or 4.1 percent, had encountered fake academic papers or publications. The results show that unreliable material can enter filings in several forms rather than through precedent citations alone.
Respondents most often identified lawyers as the parties submitting fabricated precedents or other information: 136 judges, or 57.6 percent, selected them. The survey does not establish how each false citation was produced or whether every cited item came from generative AI. Court officials nevertheless warned that checking questionable authorities adds verification work, which can delay proceedings and increase litigation costs.
About 92 percent of all respondents said institutional safeguards were needed to address AI-generated fake precedent citations. Proposed measures included creating a legal basis for fines, requiring submitted information to be verified and establishing disciplinary options for lawyers who repeatedly cite false material. The Court Administration Office said the survey should inform effective countermeasures, making the scope and enforcement of any verification duty the next development to watch.