When I was a baby lawyer, I had the good fortune to work alongside some of the finest trial lawyers of the day. Their lessons resurface decades later when I least expect them.

I remember a case in which opposing counsel failed to file a timely answer to our complaint. The law offered a clear path to a default judgment, and I was delighted at the prospect of an easy win. One of the older lawyers quickly disabused me. The judgment would almost certainly be set aside, we were unlikely to collect a dime on it, and the only lasting result would be an enemy.

“Call the guy,” he advised. “Give him some time to file his answer. Don’t make a big deal out of his mistake.”

It was excellent advice, and not just as litigation strategy. Not every mistake by an adversary is an opportunity to be exploited.

That long-ago lesson came back to me as I read Doug Austin’s reporting on a judges’ panel at the Everlaw Conference. Doug writes that Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Willie Epps Jr. of the Western District of Missouri “urged lawyers to exercise ‘grace’ when opposing counsel submits inaccurate authorities or AI-generated errors. Rather than immediately seeking sanctions, attorneys should consider contacting counsel and providing an opportunity to correct the mistake.”

AI has given lawyers new ways to make mistakes, but it hasn’t changed the wisdom of giving a colleague the chance to correct an honest one. We need a rule of thumb, perhaps even an etiquette, for opponents whose careless use of generative AI leads them astray.

We already have a model of sorts in the customs surrounding inadvertent disclosure of privileged material. There, too, an opponent’s blunder presents an inviting opportunity, and we can persuade ourselves that zealous advocacy demands we seize it. Yet the law and good practice came to recognize such disclosures as foreseeable human errors, calling for prompt notice and a chance to fix the problem.

The analogy is imperfect. Privilege rules protect a holder’s confidences; a hallucinated citation threatens the court’s reliance and the opposing client’s expense in rebutting phantom authority. Nothing in the rules requires you to warn an adversary or offer a chance to cure. But the instinct is the same: a foreseeable human error, where the adversarial reflex is to exploit rather than resolve.

So here is the etiquette I’d propose. Call first. Identify the problem specifically. Allow a short, reasonable window for correction. Escalate if the error goes uncorrected, recurs, or has caused real prejudice.

Be clear about what the call does not do. It is a courtesy to a colleague, not a discharge of what you owe the tribunal. A lawyer who knowingly misleads the court, refuses to correct an error, or repeatedly submits fabricated authorities deserves an appropriate response. And if the court has already relied on the bad authority, the calculus changes. Lawyers have an independent duty to verify what they cite, and Rule 11 demands reasonable inquiry. Grace doesn’t erase that duty. It governs how we respond when someone fails it.

Nor is grace merely good manners. As with that default judgment so many years ago, exposing an opponent’s error may do little to advance the client’s interests. Every dog gets one bite. Publicly parading a colleague’s mistake inflicts a humiliation they will never forget, and they may spend years looking for an opportunity to repay. “What goes around comes around” may seem quaint in today’s less collegial world of litigation, but it’s still a karmic truth.

Beyond enlightened self-interest, though, there’s a more important consideration. We rarely know what burdens another lawyer carries, what crisis they face, or how a momentary lapse came about. An isolated mistake, promptly acknowledged and diligently corrected, need not become a public spectacle.

Once, I was the young lawyer eager to capitalize on an opponent’s mistake. Now I’m the elder lawyer, and I hope to pass along the lesson I was fortunate to receive: Be a formidable advocate, but never forget to extend a little grace.