Nebraska Attorney Suspended for AI-Generated Court Filings

Omaha family law attorney Greg Lake was suspended from the practice of law by the Nebraska Supreme Court on April 16, 2026, becoming the Nebraska attorney suspended for AI-generated court filings in the state’s first major disciplinary case tied to generative artificial intelligence. The suspension followed an appellate brief in a divorce case that contained 57 defective citations out of 63, including entirely fabricated opinions and invented quotations from real statutes.¹

What Was Wrong With the Brief

Lake represented Jason Regan, the father in Prososki v. Regan, No. S-25-295, on appeal from a district court ruling on property division and child custody. Opposing counsel flagged the citation problems first. The Nebraska Supreme Court then cataloged them: a 90% error rate across 63 references.²

Four cases were entirely fictitious, including a supposed 2019 opinion styled Kennedy v. Kennedy. Twenty references were what the court called “hallucinations”: they drew the names or docket numbers from real Nebraska cases but invented the holdings or the quoted language. Real cases including Schrag v. Spear and Walker v. Walker appeared paired with fabricated quotations. A citation to Simons v. Simons was offered for a proposition about attorney fees that the actual opinion never addressed; its only mention of attorney fees sat inside a standard-of-review discussion about alimony. The brief also quoted language that does not exist in the Nebraska statutes it attributed those words to, and used that invented language to argue that Nebraska law favors joint custody.²

Justice John Freudenberg wrote that every one of these errors would have been “immediately apparent” from a basic search of Westlaw, LexisNexis, or the Nebraska Appellate Courts Online Library.³

The Oral Argument and Lake’s Initial Denial

At oral argument in February 2026, the justices interrupted Lake 37 seconds into his presentation. “The elephant in the room is whether or not you used artificial intelligence. Did you?” one justice asked. Lake said no. He offered a series of alternative explanations: he had uploaded an “incorrect version” of the brief while traveling for his wedding anniversary, a “catastrophic screen crack” had left him without his computer for five days, and the defects came from “sloppy” copying and pasting of placeholder text used in drafting. “My writing process is when I’m drafting, I stick in things that I know wouldn’t pass muster,” he told the court.⁴

The justices were skeptical. “If you didn’t use artificial intelligence, how do we end up with a citation to cases that don’t exist?” one asked. Lake also claimed he had filed a corrected brief within 48 hours of the original submission, but the court noted that “there is no record of any such filing.”²

The March 2026 Ruling

On March 20, 2026, the Nebraska Supreme Court issued a unanimous opinion. It struck Lake’s brief, dismissed Regan’s appeal, affirmed the district court’s judgment, and referred Lake to the state’s Counsel for Discipline. The court rejected the copy-and-paste explanation, writing that it did not account for cases and quotations that appear nowhere in Nebraska law. It held that “conscious avoidance” of verification — the failure to check whether cited authority is actually good law — satisfies the “knowingly” standard under the duty of candor.⁵

The referral cited potential violations of four Nebraska Rules of Professional Conduct:

Competence (§ 3-501.1), which includes keeping abreast of risks associated with relevant technology.
Candor toward the tribunal (§ 3-503.3), which bars knowingly false statements of law or fact.
Meritorious claims (§ 3-503.1), which prohibits frivolous arguments.
Dishonesty (§ 3-508.4), which does not require proof of intent to defraud.

The court framed the case as a “novel issue for Nebraska courts” and warned the state’s bar: “AI, like other technological tools, can be a benefit to the legal community, but it must be used with caution and humility. Anything less imperils the reputation of the legal profession and wastes time and resources of both the courts and litigants.”³

The Admission and Suspension

In early April 2026, the Nebraska Counsel for Discipline recommended a temporary suspension and gave Lake one week to respond.⁶

On April 14, Lake submitted an affidavit reversing his earlier denials. He admitted he had used a generative AI tool to draft the brief and had not verified the citations it produced. He described his failure to be forthright with the court as a “grave error of judgment.” Two days later, on April 16, 2026, Chief Justice Michael Heavican issued a one-page directive suspending Lake from the practice of law until further notice. The order bypassed the standard months-long investigative process.⁷¹

The suspension is temporary. Under Nebraska’s disciplinary rules a court-appointed referee will conduct a full evidentiary hearing and issue a written report recommending a final sanction, with the Nebraska Supreme Court typically issuing its final order within 90 days of receiving the referee’s report. Sanctions in Nebraska range from private reprimand to disbarment, and Lake’s initial denial followed by a sworn admission is treated as an aggravating factor.⁸

What It Cost the Client

Jason Regan lost his appeal. Because the brief was struck, the district court’s rulings on custody, property division, and support stand. The court also assessed $52,000 in attorney fees against Regan: $17,000 for opposing counsel and $35,000 for his ex-spouse’s legal fees, reflecting the work the other side did identifying fabricated citations and preparing motions to strike. Lake’s suspension did not vacate that fee award.⁶¹

Regan told reporters in April 2026 he was “exhausted and frustrated” and unsure whether he had “the stomach or finances to hire a malpractice attorney for another legal fight.” No malpractice claim against Lake had been publicly reported at that time.⁶

What the Ruling Means for Nebraska Lawyers

Nebraska has no standalone rule requiring attorneys to disclose generative AI use in state court filings. The Supreme Court’s opinion made clear that none is needed to discipline this conduct: the existing rules already cover it. Whether an attorney uses AI or not, the court wrote, “the obligations of candor, competency, diligence, and making good faith arguments remain the same.”⁵

A disclosure rule may still come. The Nebraska Attorney General’s office filed an amicus brief urging the court to adopt one modeled on the federal District of Nebraska’s local rule, NECivR 7.1(d), effective December 1, 2024, which requires attorneys to certify whether generative AI was used and, if so, to identify the tool and the portions it drafted.⁹ The state court has not adopted that rule but signaled practitioners should prepare for the possibility.

Where This Fits Nationally

Lake’s case is not isolated. As of late 2025, one tracking database had identified 486 cases worldwide involving AI-hallucinated legal citations, 324 of them in U.S. courts, with at least 128 lawyers and two judges linked to such filings.¹⁰¹¹

What sets the Nebraska case apart is the combination of the sheer volume of defective citations, a sworn denial followed by a sworn admission, and the concrete harm to a client who lost his appeal and faces $52,000 in fees with no obvious recourse.

1
Divorce.law. Nebraska Supreme Court Suspends Attorney for AI Hallucinations in Divorce Brief
2
WOWT. Nebraska Supreme Court Rules in Case Involving AI Use in Court Brief
3
Nebraska Public Media. Nebraska Supreme Court Blasts AI-Authored Court Filings, Recommends Discipline
4
WOWT. Nebraska Supreme Court Questions Attorney About AI Use in Court Brief
5
Nebraska Judicial Branch. Prososki v. Regan, 321 Neb. 38
6
WOWT. Nebraska Attorney Faces Suspension Over Alleged AI Use in State Supreme Court Brief
7
WOWT. Nebraska Supreme Court Suspends Omaha Attorney Over AI Use
8
Divorce.law. Nebraska Supreme Court Suspends Omaha Attorney for AI-Fabricated Citations
9
U.S. District Court for the District of Nebraska. NECivR Local Rules
10
Cronkite News. Lawyers, AI Hallucinations, and ChatGPT
11
Sixth Circuit Appellate Blog. Sixth Circuit Sanctions Attorneys for Fake Citations