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13 March 2024
Issue: 8063 / Categories: Legal News , Procedure & practice , Artificial intelligence
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Judges must get to grips with AI

Artificial intelligence (AI) is ‘unlikely to be optional’ for lawyers, and ‘judges will need to become just as familiar with the use of AI as any lawyer’, Sir Geoffrey Vos, Master of the Rolls, has said

Giving the keynote speech this week to Manchester Law Society’s AI Conference 2024, Sir Geoffrey illustrated his talk with AI-generated images including ‘DALL-E’s view of what it looks like when I sit in an AI-technology enabled court’.

Sir Geoffrey said liability for the use or non-use of AI would be a theme in many cases, and could be used by judges for ‘summarising complex material’ so long as confidentiality was respected. Moreover, he said: ‘AI is likely to be a valuable tool in the context of the digital justice system that is now being created.’

MOVERS & SHAKERS

London Solicitors Litigation Association—John McElroy

London Solicitors Litigation Association—John McElroy

Fieldfisher partner appointed president as LSLA marks milestone year

Kingsley Napley—Kirsty Churm & Olivia Stiles

Kingsley Napley—Kirsty Churm & Olivia Stiles

Firm promotes two lawyers to partnership across employment and family

Foot Anstey—five promotions

Foot Anstey—five promotions

Firm promotes five lawyers to partnership across key growth areas

NEWS
Freezing orders in divorce proceedings can unexpectedly ensnare third parties and disrupt businesses. In NLJ this week, Lucy James of Trowers & Hamlins explains how these orders—dubbed a ‘nuclear weapon’—preserve assets but can extend far beyond spouses to companies and business partners 
A Court of Appeal ruling has clarified that ‘rent’ must be monetary—excluding tenants paid in labour from statutory protection. In this week's NLJ, James Naylor explains Garraway v Phillips, where a tenant worked two days a week instead of paying rent
Thousands more magistrates are to be recruited, under a major shake-up to speed up and expand the hiring process
Three men wrongly imprisoned for a combined 77 years have been released—yet received ‘not a penny’ in compensation, exposing deep flaws in the justice system. Writing in NLJ this week, Dr Jon Robins reports on Justin Plummer, Oliver Campbell and Peter Sullivan, whose convictions collapsed amid discredited forensics, ‘oppressive’ police interviews and unreliable ‘cell confessions’
A quiet month for employment cases still delivers key legal clarifications. In his latest Employment Law Brief for NLJ, Ian Smith reports that whistleblowing protection remains intact even where disclosures are partly self-serving, provided the worker reasonably believes they serve the ‘public interest’ 
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