AI Lawyers & Justice: A Shocking Turn ⚖️🤯
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In recent years, attorneys have begun exploring diverse applications of artificial intelligence. Following a man’s unexpected death after cardiac surgery in the Midlands, barrister Anthony Searle sought to understand the circumstances. Frustrated by the denial of an independent expert report, Searle utilized AI tools. He emphasizes that no client data is entered, and all outputs are rigorously vetted. Data analytics from LexisNexis reveal that by January 2026, 50 percent of barristers were employing AI, a significant increase from 25 percent in 2024. Simultaneously, firms like Shoosmiths and Ropes & Gray are integrating AI into their practices, while concerns regarding potential misuse, highlighted by judgments in the High Court, remain a subject of scrutiny. The increasing adoption of AI within the legal profession presents both opportunities and challenges, demanding careful oversight and a focus on responsible implementation.
THE RISE OF AI IN LEGAL INVESTIGATION
“Deaths that go to inquests are there because they are a shock. What families want is to increase their understanding as to how their loved one has died,” says Searle. “My use of ChatGPT allowed my questions to be more focused on the technical aspects of the surgery and help fill the gaps left by not having experts to call upon.” Searle, 35, is at pains to emphasize that he does not put any client data or information into the AI tools he uses, and vets all of the information and citations the bot spits out. The possibility of AI helping to draft skeleton arguments, the case summaries presented in court, and calculates more precise estimates taking into account factors such as age and lost pension contributions. Searle’s initiative in taking up the technology means he has got involved in developing broader AI governance strategies for expert witnesses in clinical negligence cases and at his top London chambers, Serjeants’ Inn. “This is an ancient profession,” he says. “We’ve been around for hundreds of years, and I think much like the common law we like things to develop only incrementally.”
A SYSTEM STRAINED: AI AS A RESPONSE
In England’s underfunded justice system, AI is increasingly being offered as an answer to problems like court backlogs and a lack of resources for those involved in trials. Proposed government reforms, which would mark the biggest overhaul of the criminal justice system in modern times, include plans to roll out AI in courts for listing cases, translation and transcripts, among other uses. In a sign of how fundamental AI is to the government’s vision, deputy prime minister and justice secretary David Lammy delivered his key speech on court reforms last month at a Microsoft AI event in London—a setting that would have seemed incongruous only a few years ago. Courts minister Sarah Sackman has described AI pilots as “game changing.”
INFORMATION ACCELERATION: AI-POWERED RESEARCH
Where Google searches and YouTube videos used to be the go-to resource for Searle to get to grips with complex medical procedures, AI offers a juiced-up version that can help improve the types of questions lawyers like him need to be asking in such cases. ChatGPT and custom programs in the medical space, such as PubMed in Anthropic’s Claude, allow Searle to search quickly for clinical studies and articles from medical journals. The tools are a way of more efficiently understanding and gathering information on the complex topics he has to litigate every day, he says. He has noticed when speaking to experts that some appear more impressed by questions since he has taken on his automated research assistants.
RISKS AND CAUTIONS: AI’S LIMITATIONS
Like many sectors, however, AI has also become a buzzword in the legal world. Almost all large law firms are drafting grand plans for its use yet show little evidence of how it is in fact disrupting the multibillion-pound sector. “If there were a ranking for the most au courant and widely discussed topic among law firm leaders over the last few decades, AI would win hands down. But so far the evidence is that that’s all it is: discussed,” says Bruce MacEwen, president of New York law consultancy Adam Smith, Esq. “How can firm leaders commit to anything so unproven and so consequential? Clearly, no one knows where this is going.”
DATA PROTECTION AND TRUST: A FRAGILE IMPLEMENTATION
Client confidentiality and data protection limit how much AI can currently be used in reality. The industry is also on high alert after London’s High Court handed down a scathing judgment last year citing two cases containing false information in which barristers had, or were suspected of, using AI. “Artificial intelligence is a tool that carries with it risks as well as opportunities,” the judges said in their ruling last June. “There are serious implications for the administration of justice and public confidence in the justice system if artificial intelligence is misused.”
This article is AI-synthesized from public sources and may not reflect original reporting.