Was Reaves Law Firm, PLLC v. Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, PC, et al. sanctioned over AI-generated citations?

Reaves Law Firm, PLLC v. Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, PC, et al. (W.D. Tennessee, June 2, 2026) is a documented matter involving citations that could not be verified against the reporters named. The recorded outcome was: Rule 11 sanctions: cost/fee reimbursement (amount to be determined); referral to Tennessee Board of Professional Responsibility. No monetary penalty in this order.

Which AI tool was involved in Reaves Law Firm, PLLC v. Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, PC, et al.?

The order in Reaves Law Firm, PLLC v. Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, PC, et al. does not identify a specific generative tool by name. The court treated the citations as the product of an unverified AI-assisted drafting workflow.

June 2, 2026 · AI sanctions database

Reaves Law Firm, PLLC v. Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, PC, et al.

Reaves Law Firm, PLLC v. Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, PC, et al. is one matter in the Veritas record of US court proceedings involving AI-generated citations that could not be verified against the reporters named. The summary below is drawn from the underlying court document, linked at the foot of this page.

Court: W.D. Tennessee
Date: June 2, 2026
Party: Lawyer
AI tool: Not identified in the order
Outcome: Rule 11 sanctions: cost/fee reimbursement (amount to be determined); referral to Tennessee Board of Professional Responsibility
Penalty: No monetary penalty in this order.

Professional sanctionBar referral

What the record shows

The court found that plaintiff law firm Reaves Law Firm relied on generative-AI-assisted filings containing citations and quotations to authorities that could not be verified, in violation of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11. The court ordered the firm to reimburse defendants' costs and attorneys' fees for the responsive filings (amount to be set on a later accounting) and referred the matter to the Tennessee Board of Professional Responsibility's Disciplinary Counsel.

This entry reflects the court document as filed. The citations at issue could not be located in the reporters named at the time of the order. The reading here is descriptive of the public record and is not legal advice.

Source documents

Primary court document ↗

The test this filing did not run

Every matter in this record shares one mechanism: a citation that did not resolve to an opinion in the reporter named, in a brief that was filed before any verification step ran. Veritas runs that step. The Filing Risk Scanner extracts each citation, resolves it against reporter and public-record sources, and returns a verdict on each one — located, partial, or not located in reporter — before the brief is signed.

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Filed under · AI sanctions database · W.D. Tennessee

About this publication

Veritas is a pre-filing citation verification platform for law firms and in-house counsel. Every post on the audit log is written by the Veritas editorial team and cross-checked against the underlying sanctions order, standing order, or published opinion it references. Reporter citations are read in their named volumes. Quotations from court orders are checked against the docket.

The product was built by Andrew Zoll, founder of Veritas, who tracks generative AI sanctions in federal and state courts and turns each documented failure mode into verification logic the scanner runs. Veritas was built after the canonical Mata v. Avianca sanctions order made the verification gap a published failure mode of the bar.

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