A fine is appropriate. There's no reason to destroy someone's life because of this. There are numerous forms of disciplinary actions available that don't involve needlessly and permanently destroying a person's livelihood.
Does disbarment really destroys someone's life? It considerably reduces their career options and it means they'll probably get much less wealthy than they would otherwise have been, but they can still find another job.
By contrast, if a lawyer makes a mistake that gets someone a criminal record they didn't deserve, that person has much more ground to say it destroyed their life.
I don't think cases like these are comparable to bumping into another car. Legal proceedings can have life altering effects, and lawyers are trusted to take that responsibility. In this case, we're talking about a family that wants to visit China, and I'm not sure if they'll be punished for their lawyers incompetence, but civil lawyers will also deal with life-changing amounts of money. This isn't just their own reputation and livelihood they're putting on the line.
I don't think this particular lawyer should be disbarred, but I do think submitting lies and confabulations to the court should be punished strictly. Attempts to deceive the court should not be tolerated, especially not when the lawyer didn't even do to the work they put their signature under.
The justice system is screwed up more than enough, we don't need professionals getting away with this crap to make it even worse.
Imagine if doctor did some operation from first result in google search. Without verifying that it is correct one or even presented correctly. Should they not lose their medical license?
Using LLM to produce document and then not verifying each part is wilful negligence. Either they do not care to do right thing. Or they are too ignorant. In both cases disbarring seems reasonable. They can always go to fast food or something after it.
I found out that people are more evil and cruel in general than what I believed. The internet just made it first explicitly and later, socially acceptable.
