Illinois Law professors Lesley Wexler and Jennifer Robbennolt comment on the recent decision by a judge declining to require an apology from the lawyers who submitted a brief with fictitious cases generated by ChatGPT. Professors Wexler and Robbennolt explain why the judge’s reasoning that “a compelled apology is not a sincere apology” assumes that a compelled apology has no value and fails to consider the other purposes apologies serve, such as acknowledgment to victims and affirmation of violated norms.

Former federal prosecutor Dennis Aftergut comments on the public censure of Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis for her misrepresentations on Fox News and elsewhere regarding the outcome of the 2020 Presidential Election. Mr. Aftergut points out that now, thanks to Jenna Ellis, we have a discipline case on the record against a lawyer whose only misconduct was in misleading the public in the public square.

Austin Sarat—Associate Provost and Associate Dean of the Faculty and William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence & Political Science at Amherst College—predicts that because the lawyer discipline process is broken, President Trump’s lawyers will get away with facilitating his anti-democratic misconduct. Professor Sarat notes that Lawyers Defending American Democracy (LDAD) released a letter calling on bar authorities to investigate and punish members of Trump’s post-election legal team, but he points out that while LDAD can shame those members, it still lacks the ability itself to discipline or disbar.