Defense attorney Monica Tranel caught violating AI rules in case filing

A top attorney for the Office of Public Defender may have violated local artificial intelligence rules after the county attorney's office discovered a case filing generated with AI.

Managing public defender Monica Tranel filed the motion Feb. 9 to dismiss a case about a local burglary, according to documents obtained by the Missoulian.

One week later, she asked the court to strike that document from the record after a county prosecutor suggested Tranel made the filing without properly disclosing the artificial intelligence use, or fact-checking its contents. She subsequently filed a corrected motion.

The prosecutor, Justin Ekwall, also expressed concern the Missoula Office of Public Defender uploaded sensitive documents into an artificial intelligence server.

"While AI could theoretically one day become a replacement for portions of staff of experienced attorneys, it is readily apparent that this day has not yet arrived," Ekwall said in his motion to strike the filing.

The Fourth Judicial District of Montana, which covers Missoula and Mineral counties, updated its rules of practice last year to address the use of AI in filings. It requires the disclosure of that use, along with which AI tool a party used, how it was used and how they fact-checked any language generated by it.

"The court presumes that a party who files a document that does not contain this certification certifies that no part of the document was prepared using generative artificial intelligence," the court rules state.

Missoula County Attorney Matt Jennings told the Missoulian in an email the case was the first time his office has seen AI language clearly used within a court filing.

The rise of large language models to generate legal briefs has been gaining national attention, with hundreds of cases in which nonexistent legal citations and other "hallucinations" have appeared in legal filings.

In a Wednesday interview, Office of Public Defender Division Administrator Brian Smith told the Missoulian the AI-generated language was inadvertently included in an unrelated filing. And he criticized the county attorney's office for filing a "four-page diatribe about the dangers of AI" instead of working with the defense to correct her mistake.

"That's not helping the client or the case," Smith said, "and all you are doing is trying to throw a professional colleague under the bus."

Tranel could not be reached for comment. She has worked as a supervisor at the Missoula public defender's office since 2025, but is more widely known as a Democratic candidate for Congress in 2022 and 2024.  Earlier this week, Tranel filed to run as a Democrat for the Legislature.

Filing brought concern of errors, privacy

The apparently AI-generated legal language was contained at the end of a motion filed by Tranel asking the judge to dismiss the case.

A 13-page section begins with the statement, "Below is concise motion language you can drop into a 'Motion to Admit Mental-Disease Evidence and for Related Instructions,' ... Adjust headings/captions to your local practice."

In a response the following week, Ekwall points to that language while alleging Tranel's filing also included incorrect information and obvious uses of artificial intelligence language.

"It is not plausible on its face that any source other than generative AI would have created such language for a filed version of a brief," Ekwall wrote.

He wrote the defense's filing also raised privacy concerns, suggesting confidential criminal justice information and the defendant's mental health evaluations may have been uploaded to an outside server to generate the legal arguments. Tranel's filing contained numerous citations that appeared as links to files uploaded to Amazon Web Services.

Smith, with the public defender's office, pushed back on that criticism. The licensed AI tools his office is allowed to use, he said, utilize a "closed system" that doesn't retain information inputted by attorneys.

The district court's new AI rule, Smith argued, implicates "large language models that are learning off the information that you're putting into it, and then also referencing that to give the user results. We don't use that."

Tranel's filing also included errors of fact regarding when a mental health evaluation was made for the defendant, according to Ekwall.

"The state does not necessarily take the position that providing such documents to an artificial intelligence program can never be appropriate where safeguards are in place," Ekwall wrote, "however, absent knowledge of the specific tool used, it is difficult to have confidence that such information is secure."

On Feb. 19, Missoula District Court Judge John Larson vacated a trial that had previously been set for this week. He didn't weigh in on any of the apparent AI use, but indicated a subsequent order to show cause will follow.

In a subsequent filing this week, Ekwall suggested the judge's order "appears from context due to concerns raised by the February 9 filing and/or the state's response."

County seeks more information on AI use 

As a part of Ekwall's earlier response, the Missoula County Attorney's Office requested an order from Larson to require the public defenders' office to share what other filings contain generative AI, what AI tools were used and to certify any information from AI.

Jennings said the county has suspicions other filed briefs could contain artificial intelligence, citing some AI detection software he used, but said the county attorney's office alone cannot decide the authenticity of a filing.

"It’s up to the judges to police those actions," Jennings said. "We do not specifically know if other briefs were written by AI. That is why the local rule was adopted last year — to advise the court and other parties that generative AI was used to be able to assess authority and arguments."

Jennings said he expects artificial intelligence to be integrated into more legal processes in the future, but said most AI tools are not secure enough to upload sensitive materials like confidential criminal justice information.

He said Missoula County will not use generative AI until "its security and accuracy is better understood."

Smith called that a "Luddite approach" and argued that the type of closed-system AI tools that his office uses are becoming a best practice for legal professionals.

Smith shared with the Missoulian a new certification form for the public defenders office when using AI that was circulated through the department with a memo on AI on Feb. 19.

The one-page form requires the public defenders to disclose whether one of three specific generative AI tools were used for a filing.

In the memo, Tranel wrote that the office will also use a "clean eyes" review to prevent clerical errors and accidental attachments, but doubled down on the importance of using AI.

"Tools like JusticeText and Lexis AI are force multipliers that allow us to fight harder for our clients," Tranel wrote. "We will continue to use them, but we will use them with the discipline and transparency the court requires."