> They lied to a judge, doubled down, showed further incompetence by admitting to not knowing how the legal reference they supposedly quoted was even structured, then lied to a judge again trying to get more time to get their story straight, and all it cost them was $5000?

Well, no, they also have to right letters and attach the sanctions order, and the transcript of the sanctions hearing to:

(1) their client in the case, and

(2) each of the real judges to whom they (on the basis of ChatGPT “research”) falsely attributed a decision.

But, yes, sanctions are fairly light (particularly the absence of a disciplinary referral).

> I can understand how the rubber stamping lawyer signing all the paperwork got off easy; he was just signing documents because the lawyer who supposedly did all the work for the case couldn't operate in the court the case was transfered to.

> The other lawyer, the one who did the AI equivalent from copy pasting from the summary page of Google, should not be deemed fit to practice law.

They both failed their duty in nearly identical ways; passing of someone else’s work to which they did not apply independent professional analysis as their professional work. If anything, the one doing so directly to the court should be more, not less, liable to outside sanction (if the issue was sanctions within the firm, that’s a different story, maybe.)