Post by Kathryn Tewson / Redsky

Kathryn Tewson • Feed

Sorry, two partners and of counsel. The conduct of the other partner, William R. Lundsford, was so egregious that I forgot about William J. Cransford. I would describe the court’s commentary about how little effort Mr. Cransford would have needed to expend to prevent this disaster as “withering.”

5. William J. Cranford Mr. Cranford drafted, signed, and personally filed both motions at issue. Doc. 194-3 19 4-19. He included the fabricated citations in these filings without reviewing any of them after Mr. Reeves inserted them. Id. 19 7, 17. Although Mr. Cranford did not know that Mr. Reeves used generative AI, Mr. Cranford had an obligation to check the citations before signing the motions and filing them with the court. Any reasonable investigation (indeed, even the most cursory of investigations, or a spot check) would have quickly revealed the problem. Mr. Cranford acknowledged his culpability at the show cause hearing:

At the threshold, the court observes that if these motions had not been discovery motions, Mr. Cranford's conduct would have been a textbook Rule 11 violation. In any event, Mr. Cranford failed to discharge his most basic responsibility as an attorney signing and filing motions with the court: to make sure that the statements in the motions were true. Mr. Cranford's repeated decisions to make no effort in this regard reflect a troubling indifference to the veracity of his court filings and disinterest in the most rudimentary demands of professional responsibility. This misconduct was more than simple recklessness and is particularly egregious, especially in the light of how little effort would have been required of Mr. Cranford to uncover any of the falsehoods. The unacceptable result of Mr. Cranford's decisions is that motions were filed with the court that no attorney ensured were free from false statements. Attorneys who sign motions must know — as Mr. Cranford acknowledges — that they risk serious sanctions when they make no effort to ensure that those motions tell the truth. Accordingly, the court finds that Mr. Cranford's misconduct was tantamount to bad faith and will sanction him under its inherent power.

To be clear, not every error in a motion is recklessness or more. To err is human, and minor typographical errors, even in citations, occasionally occur despite attorneys' best efforts. Likewise, some factual or legal authorities are the subject of reasonable debate, and a mere disagreement with one side's view does not necessarily mean that the view is objectively false. The insertion of bogus citations is not a mere typographical error, nor the subject of reasonable debate.

jul 24, 2025, 2:54 pm • 49 3

Replies

This is beyond walk into the sea. This is leap into a volcano. I imagine if I were a client of this firm, I might be reviewing the work they did for me to see if false citations are in it because I'm sure the other parties will be checking to see if there are.

jul 24, 2025, 2:59 pm • 3 0 • view

And now, we get to William R. Lundsford, apparently “Bill” to his friends and colleagues. Mr. Lundsford has, per his firm bio, “devoted his legal career to representing governmental officials in systemic, institutional reform litigation.” www.butlersnow.com/professional...

jul 24, 2025, 3:01 pm • 24 2 • view

I love the Hotshot Lawyer Mullet.

jul 24, 2025, 3:06 pm • 1 0 • view

He looks like this.

Bill Lundsford, a partner with Butler Snow, is a white man wearing a navy blue suit and a red dotted tie. His face bears an expression which resembles what I imagine would result if you asked ChatGPT to approximate a smile.

jul 24, 2025, 3:04 pm • 16 0 • view

I was gonna say his face looks like it came from a plastic mold used to manufacture these guys. And then I read your alt text...

jul 24, 2025, 3:11 pm • 1 0 • view

This alt!!!!!!!

jul 25, 2025, 9:04 am • 0 0 • view

Is that "uncanny valley" to anyone else?

jul 24, 2025, 3:05 pm • 2 0 • view

check the alt text

jul 24, 2025, 3:06 pm • 0 0 • view

I figured it was real, but it still comes across as *wrong*. Thus, uncanny valley.

jul 24, 2025, 3:07 pm • 1 0 • view

I’m just sayin you ain’t the only one

jul 24, 2025, 3:08 pm • 2 0 • view

whew, thank you.

jul 24, 2025, 3:09 pm • 1 0 • view

It dies not help that his hand is in his pocket in a way that makes one leg look twice as wide as the other one. Throws everything off.

jul 24, 2025, 3:11 pm • 0 0 • view

His head looks too small for his body, his jacket is sticking out too far *and* makes his torso look longer than it is, which is supported by the weirdly-long tie, his hand is a different shade than his face.

jul 24, 2025, 3:13 pm • 0 0 • view

It's also a suit tailored over a pear shape to try and hide it, this is not the portrait pose for someone with all that going on, it would have read as off even 20 years ago now it starts to look like AI slop. Not a lot of places to train as a portrait photographer anymore, and this is the result.

jul 24, 2025, 3:27 pm • 1 0 • view

Mr. Lundsford is not just a partner at Butler Snow, however. He is in fact a Deputy Attorney General of the State of Alabama, and it was in that capacity that he was defending the Alabama Department of Corrections and supervising the work of the other Butler Snow attorneys on this case.

6. William R. Lunsford Mr. Lunsford stated in his declaration that he did not review the motion for leave to depose and did review the motion to compel. Doc. 194-1 11 9-10. Nevertheless, in accordance with his practice group's ordinary workflow, Mr. Lunsford allowed Mr. Cranford to use his name in the signature block on both motions. See id. 11 9-11; see generally Doc. 200 at 25-26 (discussing how the

jul 24, 2025, 3:06 pm • 23 2 • view

I think it’s good actually that the prisons have counsel of this quality

jul 24, 2025, 3:11 pm • 1 0 • view

That might be true if we could assume every judge and magistrate (not to mention plaintiff's attorneys) can and will perform the checking needed on filings from such counsel. I'm skeptical that such falsehoods will always be caught.

jul 24, 2025, 3:48 pm • 1 0 • view

Big, and I cannot stress this enough, oof.

jul 24, 2025, 3:08 pm • 47 2 • view

As you all know, I am not an attorney. But god damn, I am pretty sure these are not words that any attorney wants to see written about them by a Federal judge.

jul 24, 2025, 3:10 pm • 57 5 • view

Yikes

jul 24, 2025, 3:16 pm • 4 0 • view

The amazing thing about this one is that the law firm actually had a robust internal protocol re AI use that was designed to prevent this, and the attorneys whose conduct was at issue just disregarded it. That did not improve the court's opinion of their conduct.

jul 24, 2025, 3:32 pm • 1 0 • view

Oh, yeah — when the OTSC first dropped, Deputy AG Lundsford over here’s first response was to ask if he could just not show up for the hearing. (The court declined.)

First, Mr. Lunsford's request to be excused from the show cause hearing reflected an intense lack of concern for the seriousness of the misconduct that both Plaintiff Johnson and the court had described. See Doc. 188. Either Mr. Lunsford personally reviewed the show cause order and decided to try to skip the hearing despite the accusation of fabricated citations, or he failed to personally review the order and made no effort to evaluate the seriousness of the issue before asking for a pass. Either way, Mr. Lunsford's hasty excuse request troubled the court.

jul 24, 2025, 3:13 pm • 28 3 • view

Mr. Lundsford’s general approach to citation appears to be “trust me, bro, as I have trusted you.” (The cites are to his own declaration. WILD to imagine putting that shit in writing, yeah?)

Second, after the court denied Mr. Lunsford's request and before the hearing, Mr. Lunsford explained in his declaration his ordinary practices and his team's workflow. See Doc. 194-1. He stated that this

jul 24, 2025, 3:17 pm • 29 2 • view

I'm not even a lawyer, but uh...

jul 24, 2025, 3:25 pm • 0 0 • view

Here’s Mr. Lundsford’s declaration in full, you can read it for yourself storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

jul 24, 2025, 3:19 pm • 15 1 • view

“In any event, Mr. Lunsford made clear that performing (or verifying) legal research for each case is not something that he requires of the team he leads.” Y’ALL.

Third, at the hearing, when the court asked Mr. Lunsford about his use of Al, he explained that because the cases he handles as a deputy attorney general often involve similar facts and law, when the team he leads has a need for legal research in a case, it is their ordinary practice to re-use (apparently without verification) material from filings in other cases. See Doc. 200 at 27. This practice, Mr. Lunsford implied, obviated any need to rely on Al. See id. In any event, Mr. Lunsford made clear that performing (or verifying) legal research for each case is not something that he requires of the team he leads.

jul 24, 2025, 3:22 pm • 28 4 • view

That is definitely a choice. As a programmer, I always always always double check AI-generated code, but I'm sure it's not as important when it's only someone's freedom on the line.

jul 24, 2025, 3:25 pm • 3 0 • view

“According to Mr. Lunsford's own testimony, he did not make any effort to verify the contents of the motion to compel before authorizing its filing, and it would have been extremely unusual for him to do so.” Damn, your Honor, I didn’t know you could cook

On this factual record, the court has no difficulty finding that Mr. Lunsford bears responsibility for the false statements of law made to the court over his name in the signature block. He acknowledges as much and has apologized. See Doc. 194- 1 11 2, 6-7, 9, 13. Indeed, although Mr. Lunsford did not personally use Al to generate citations and did not personally file the motions at issue, the record does not suggest that he would have done anything differently than Mr. Cranford did, nor that he expected Mr. Cranford to do anything differently. According to Mr. Lunsford's own testimony, he did not make any effort to verify the contents of the motion to compel before authorizing its filing, and it would have been extremely unusual for him to do so. Nor did he require (or even ask) Mr. Cranford or Mr. Reeves, or any other attorney (or person), to undertake that task. Nor was it his practice to require (or ask) that of them.

jul 24, 2025, 3:25 pm • 34 2 • view

Not sure if I should go with a "please shut up" gif or a gif about bad lawyering. This is very much saying you couldn't have committed the murder because you were doing a bankrobbery in another state that day.

jul 24, 2025, 3:26 pm • 0 0 • view

Oh he’s toast. Ooooofffff

jul 24, 2025, 3:17 pm • 0 0 • view

Yeah. I think we're seeing a systemic (though not ubiquitous!) failing of the legal world being dramatically exposed.

jul 24, 2025, 3:10 pm • 3 1 • view

Good grief, that guy bleaches his teeth, doesn't he?

jul 24, 2025, 3:08 pm • 3 0 • view

My take on why we KEEP seeing this has always been "lack of meaningful oversight." There's certainly some of that here, but sheesh -- the idiocy is at a much higher level of responsibility than I might have hoped.

jul 24, 2025, 2:57 pm • 3 0 • view