Discover Docket

DDEAS · Discover Docket Ethical and Accountability Standards

Ethics built in. Not bolted on.

DDEAS is the cryptographic backbone behind every JILL output — validating sources, scoring confidence, and creating an immutable audit trail of every action she takes on your matters.

May 2023 · Mata v. Avianca · S.D.N.Y.

Steven Schwartz and Peter LoDuca filed a personal injury brief citing six federal cases. Every one was fabricated by ChatGPT. They were sanctioned $5,000. Their firm's reputation never recovered. The case is now in every state bar's ethics curriculum.

Park v. Kim. Mata v. Avianca. ABA Formal Opinion 512. The discipline cases are accumulating. The “I didn't know it would hallucinate” defense is dead. Every lawyer using generative AI now carries personal exposure for what the model invents.

What DDEAS is

DDEAS — the Discover Docket Ethical and Accountability Standards — is the framework that governs how JILL works. In plain English: nothing JILL cites reaches you unchecked. Every authority is validated, every output is scored, and every action is recorded.

Why this matters now

Courts have begun sanctioning lawyers for AI-fabricated citations. In Mata v. Avianca (S.D.N.Y. 2023), counsel submitted a brief citing cases that did not exist. In Park v. Kim (2d Cir. 2024), a court referred counsel for discipline after an AI tool produced a non-existent authority. The list of similar sanctions continues to grow.

Guidance has followed the cases. ABA Formal Opinion 512 (2024) addresses a lawyer's duties when using generative AI, and a growing number of state bars have issued their own. The throughline is the same: the duty of competence and candor does not transfer to the tool. DDEAS is built so that duty is supportable.

Full case-law analysis and the signed founder essay are drafted in a follow-up session.

The four layers

  1. Validation. Each citation is checked against current law before it reaches you.
  2. Confidence scoring. Every output is rated, so you know exactly where to verify deeper.
  3. Audit log. Each action is signed and chained into an immutable record.
  4. Immutable record. The trail cannot be altered after the fact — only appended to.

What “defensible” means in practice

If a filing is challenged, you can show your work: which authorities were relied on, that each was current when used, the confidence attached to the output, and a tamper-evident record of the steps taken. That is the difference between plausible and defensible.

A litigator's argument for ethical AI

This page closes with a signed essay from founder Chris Waters on why ethical AI is non-negotiable in legal practice.

Founder essay (signed, thought-leadership) to be added in the follow-up copy session.

Related reading: how JILL works, our security posture, and the glossary.

DDEAS

Verification record

Authorities validated

  • CCP §2030.300· current
  • CRC 3.1345· current
  • Dept. 23 standing order· current
Confidence96
Audit entry
hash 8f2a1b9c · signed · chained

Illustrative verification record.

Defensible AI, from the first draft.

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