Extract from Melina Efstathiou’s article “By the Book”
This week, the Law Society called on the Ministry of Justice, the SRA and HM Courts and Tribunals Service to tell solicitors exactly how AI can be used responsibly in court proceedings. Ian Jeffery, the Law Society’s chief executive, said the profession needed a balanced framework, clear guidance and new rules on transparency. The Civil Justice Council is already consulting. The SRA is understood to be preparing a clearer set of rules for later this year and the Bar Standards Board has already acted upon it.
Said Law Society request is entirely reasonable. It is also, on reflection, worth examining carefully — because the solicitors referred to the SRA this week in Rodney v Gee’z Micro Bar & Pitstop did not fail for want of rules. They failed for want of the most basic professional act: Checking the work before submitting it.
His Honour Judge Grimshaw was pointed. The skeleton argument submitted by AML Legal contained false authorities — citations said to support propositions that they simply did not support. One document bore a citation number apparently relating to a case about disclosure in family proceedings, entirely unconnected to the matter at hand. The skeleton argument itself, the judge noted, had the appearance of having been generated by AI — at one point stating “Relevance: Your client was a litigant in person”, a phrase that could only have been churned out by a system producing generic output rather than a lawyer thinking about a specific case. A statement of truth had been signed. The referral to the SRA followed. “Admonishment alone,” said the judge, “is insufficient.”
