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AI: Not all bad?

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Rather than automatically discrediting AI-generated content, the sector—including the judiciary—needs better AI literacy, argues Dr Alan Ma
  • Recent judgments have signalled a growing need for clearer ethical guidance, practitioner safeguards and judicial consistency in handling AI-generated materials.
  • The article challenges emerging judicial tendencies to discount or discredit AI-generated content without evidentiary justification, warning of the risks of procedural unfairness and anti-innovation bias.
  • It proposes practical steps to help legal professionals adapt responsibly.

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT are increasingly being used to assist with legal drafting, research, and summary writing. As access to such tools has widened, so too has the potential for unintended misuse, particularly where lawyers, litigants or tribunal users submit AI-generated content that contains inaccuracies, fabricated case law, or stylistic features that draw suspicion.

Recent decisions in England, Wales and Ireland reveal how courts and tribunals are beginning to respond to this development. This article explores seven illustrative cases, drawing attention to outright misuse but also to

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Keystone Law—Milena Szuniewicz-Wenzel & Ian Hopkinson

Keystone Law—Milena Szuniewicz-Wenzel & Ian Hopkinson

International arbitration team strengthened by double partner hire

Coodes Solicitors—Pam Johns, Rachel Pearce & Bradley Kaine

Coodes Solicitors—Pam Johns, Rachel Pearce & Bradley Kaine

Firm celebrates trio holding senior regional law society and junior lawyers division roles

Michelman Robinson—Sukhi Kaler

Michelman Robinson—Sukhi Kaler

Partner joins commercial and business litigation team in London

NEWS
The Legal Action Group (LAG)—the UK charity dedicated to advancing access to justice—has unveiled its calendar of training courses, seminars and conferences designed to support lawyers, advisers and other legal professionals in tackling key areas of public interest law
The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 transformed criminal justice. Writing in NLJ this week, Ed Cape of UWE and Matthew Hardcastle and Sandra Paul of Kingsley Napley trace its ‘seismic impact’
Operational resilience is no longer optional. Writing in NLJ this week, Emma Radmore and Michael Lewis of Womble Bond Dickinson explain how UK regulators expect firms to identify ‘important business services’ that could cause ‘intolerable levels of harm’ if disrupted
As the drip-feed of Epstein disclosures fuels ‘collateral damage’, the rush to cry misconduct in public office may be premature. Writing in NLJ this week, David Locke of Hill Dickinson warns that the offence is no catch-all for political embarrassment. It demands a ‘grave departure’ from proper standards, an ‘abuse of the public’s trust’ and conduct ‘sufficiently serious to warrant criminal punishment’
Employment law is shifting at the margins. In his latest Employment Law Brief for NLJ this week, Ian Smith of Norwich Law School examines a Court of Appeal ruling confirming that volunteers are not a special legal species and may qualify as ‘workers’
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