AI Blunder in ‘Big Boy Court’ Prompts DOJ Firing of Attorney

The Justice Department fired assistant US attorney Rudy Renfer the day after he said he was resigning over his error-riddled AI-generated brief at a hearing over the matter.

Renfer was “terminated” Wednesday before he could resign or retire, W. Ellis Boyle, the US attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, told Bloomberg Law in an email. The firing came the day after Magistrate Judge Robert T. Numbers scolded Renfer for filing a brief that included fabricated quotes and misstated the holdings of several cases as well as his subsequent explanations.

The quick response by the US District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina reflected dissatisfaction with Renfer’s March 10 court appearance, during which he acknowledged AI use for the first time according to Boyle. During the hearing, Numbers repeatedly said Renfer’s accounting of his actions are “difficult to believe” and “strain credulity” while expressing disappointment in his lack of candor after his errors were flagged.

Boyle said before the hearing, Renfer had indicated a willingness to resolve the situation by retiring at the end of May, and that Renfer had already been taken off all his pending cases.

“After his performance at the hearing, the department moved swiftly to terminate him,” Boyle said by email. “The involuntary termination action began Wednesday morning and was completed by the afternoon.”

Boyle declined to comment on what aspect of Renfer’s performance resulted in his termination. Renfer, an attorney for 30 years who had spent 17 years at the US attorney’s office, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment left by voicemail. Emails to his Justice Department address bounced back as undeliverable.

Renfer’s filing came while representing the Defense Department in a lawsuit by a North Carolina pro se litigant Derence Fivehouse. The retired Air Force colonel, an attorney himself, is challenging a policy limiting availability of GLP-1 weight loss medications for TRICARE for Life participants. Fivehouse, an attorney, flagged the errors in Renfer’s response brief and Numbers demanded an explanation in a Jan. 8 filing.

In a brief, two-page Jan. 20 explanation, Renfer said “the error was clerical in nature and resulted from the inadvertent filing of an unfinalized draft document,” with no mention of AI. Numbers’ March 2 order for Tuesday’s show-cause hearing expressed “serious concerns” with the accuracy of the filings and Renfer’s explanation.

Renfer said Tuesday he’d used AI before, but only to create outlines rather than draft entire briefs. He said he “panicked” when he overwrote his first version of the brief and had AI re-write it. He said he submitted it thinking he’d already revised it.

On March 4, between the show-cause order and the hearing, Boyle sent a memo warning staff not to rely on unverified AI writing and reminding them of the seriousness of filing hallucinations to the court and the obligation to “maintain absolute candor” to the court.

“This is federal Big Boy court,” Boyle said in the memo. “Act out of fear, or respect, or reverence, or some combination thereof, accordingly.”

The case is Fivehouse v. U.S. Department of Defense, E.D.N.C., No. 2:25-cv-00041.