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Outline

The Law Society
Tech policy at the Law Society
AI hallucinations
Codes and principles of professional conduct
Representation

Official

MARY

Firstly, on behalf of Mia and I, thank you for inviting the Law Society to participate in the conference today. It’s great to be here and to have the opportunity to share our perspective with you all.

In the short time we have with you, we are going to give you some quick insights into:

The Law Society, who we are and what we do, including a quick explanation of our tech policy work
Then we are going to delve straight into some examples of how AI hallucinations currently play out in the legal context
Followed by some insights into one of the unique characteristics of the legal environment and how it receives technology- namely the rules of professional conduct for solicitors and firms, and why these rules matter when developing and using technology in legal services.

If there’s one thing we could choose for you to take away from our session, it‘s this:

the importance of awareness about context-specific regulatory environments, and the role of professional associations like the Law Society in facilitating the communication needed to achieve this.

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The Law Society

Professional body for solicitors in England and Wales

Regulatory body for solicitors in England and Wales

Oversight regulator of legal services in England and Wales

Official

MIA

The Law Society is the professional body for solicitors in England and Wales. We represent around 210,000 members.

We are the representative body only, we are not the regulator of solicitors in England and Wales.

If we had more time, I could tell you about how we used to be both the representative body and the regulator – but I don’t imagine many of you are here to learn about regulatory evolution.

Now - the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) is the sole regulator for solicitors in England and Wales. The SRA set standards for solicitors, including rules of professional conduct and development.

The SRA also oversees and enforces these standards, including through disciplinary proceedings.

Within the legal regulatory space, you may also have heard about or come across the Legal Services Board (or the LSB.) The LSB is the oversight regulator for legal services, so in this context they oversee the SRA’s regulation of our members

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The Law Society

Support solicitors to deliver their work, through our trusted resources, training, networks and events
Advocate for rule of law and access to justice
Democratically represent and engage our membership in governance, policy and regulation

Official

MARY

Now I’m going to zoom in a bit to tell you about the internal structures and values of the Law Society.

We support our members and law firms to deliver their work through our resources, guidance and training.

And at the heart of all we do are the values of access to justice and the rule of law.

A key feature of the Law Society is that we are a democratic membership organisation. We have a Council of solicitors that acts as our main governance body, setting the strategic direction of the LS.

And all our work is informed by our specialist member advisory committees. For example, the work of the tech policy team is assisted by the technology and law committee.

In relation to tech policy, this structure means that the Law Society is a democratic vehicle that can give voice to the perspective of the legal profession in the development, application and use of AI in legal services.

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Technology policy @ the Law Society

What do we cover?

Cyber security, data protection, lawtech, digital assets and artificial intelligence

What do we do?

Member resources
Policy development and influencing

Official

MIA

We are in the first year of our new 3-year corporate strategy. This will guide our work until October 2028.
There are 5 key missions under this strategy which address both the current priorities of the solicitor profession and where we will direct most of our efforts to support and represent the.

[The missions are: technology, growth, justice and rule of law, responsible business and member experience and value]

Mission one is technology, the practice of law and the experience of consumers.

We have four strategic goals under this mission, which roughly correlate to the topics we cover under it:

support our members with technology adoption
cyber security support
artificial intelligence (AI) regulation supporting legal practice
ethical use of justice technology

As the tech policy team – our role is essentially two-fold.

We directly engage with our members to understand the realities of their practice, offering support through resources directly aimed at them (guides and practice notes)
We also do public policy work – developing (informed by the engagement with our members) policy, which we then communicate to regulators, government, and other stakeholders to ensure the priorities and requirements of the profession are understood and considered

Our technology policy work is incredibly far reaching, and we are regularly thinking through ways to both proactively support the profession and reactively handle novel challenges.

One of these challenges that many of you in this room may be familiar with is AI hallucinations of legal authorities.

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AI hallucinations: what is really happening?

Ayinde v London Borough of Haringey and Al-Haroun v Qatar National Bank

Damien Charlotin - AI hallucination cases database

59 cases in the UK

AI hallucination cases database

Official

MIA

AI hallucinations within legal work are no longer theoretical risks or a future problem for regulation to catch up with
Of course, hallucinations aren’t a legal sector specific issue – many of us may have received nonsensical and overly confident responses from an LLM.
But the ramifications of AI hallucinations within legal work can be far reaching – not least because of the sensitivity of legal issues being dealt with, and the destination of materials containing hallucinations referred to as fact
They have already reached the courts, and continue to… even with well-known cases that surfaced these issues having occurred over a year ago
In the cases that make the news, it is the judges who have acted as the final stop gap - identifying, investigating and flagging fabricated case names and references to legislation.

Ayinde v London Borough of Haringey and Al-Haroun v Qatar National Bank

These cases were brought before the high court together to scrutinise failures in lawyers’ duties to the court – the solicitors acting in the cases were suspected of citing non-existent cases and quoting incorrect or misleading statements of law
Court considered the actual or suspected use of generative AI in producing the documents submitted to the court
In its assessment of the case, the court was clear that this was not a question of novel technical errors – the use of AI did not alter the existing professional duties the solicitors were responsible for adhering to

Lawyers are responsible for the accuracy of everything they put before the court
That responsibility applies whether AI tools are used or not

Damien Charlotin - AI hallucination cases database

These cases are not the only examples of AI hallucinations within this jurisdiction
Damien Charlotin, an academic and lecturer who advises on legal and data strategy has created an AI hallucination cases database
The database tracks legal decisions in cases where generative AI produced hallucinated content – typically fake citations, but also other types of AI-generated arguments
Within this database there are currently 59 cases of identified AI hallucinations within the UK

Although, it is likely that these are merely the tip of the iceberg

In all of these cases, the court itself had to play a role in identifying the problem

The issue of fictitious (hallucinated) legal authorities only came to light because opposing parties queried authorities, or judges undertook scrutiny and investigation and could not verify citations

The practical problem

In these cases, the judge acted as a final safeguard to the integrity of what becomes court record and what is referred to in the proceeding judgment – which in our common law jurisdiction influences the development of legal precedent.
They are identifying issues within documentation that should have been checked and verified before it ever reaches the court
In a way, this is shifting part of the burden of verification and accuracy onto the court, which the system is not designed to carry

Transition

The professional regulatory framework that solicitors are subject to relies on those submitting materials to court to take responsibility, and to ensure the accuracy of what they put before the court.
Where that fails, it is the courts that step in. But that is not where responsibility is intended to sit
This points us back to something quite fundamental: the existing professional regulatory framework already contains the relevant duties that should prevent these issues from reaching a crunch point

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Principles and Codes of Conduct

Awareness
Themes
Consequences

SRA Standards and Regulations

Official

MARY

Awareness of regulatory environment

The cases outlined by Mia show how important it is for everyone involved with the development and application of technology to be aware of context-specific rules.

Communicating across disciplines about these rules is an important step to ensure technology is suitable for the environment in which it is operating, and that everyone understands their responsibilities when deploying technology.

In the legal context, solicitors and law firms are held to high standards of professional conduct under rules applied by the SRA.

When solicitors qualify, they register with the SRA. They are then bound by the SRA principles and codes of conduct. There is also a code that applies to the management and governance of law firms.

The principles and codes are a key feature of the regulatory environment in which lawtech operates and provide a detailed, ethical framework for the behaviour and choices of legal professionals. This applies to use of technology, just as any other aspect of their work.

Themes from the rules

There isn’t time in this short session to outline all aspects of these rules, but we’ve included a QR code on our slide if you’d like to delve more into the details.

For now, I’m just going to highlight some common themes that appear across the rules and principles, just to give you a flavour of how these might impact on the development and use of lawtech.

Firstly, solicitors must act in a way that upholds the rule of law, and public trust and confidence in the profession and the administration of justice

And so if for example, AI generated a claim without proper legal foundation, or resulted in bias outcomes, a breach of this obligation could arise.

There are also obligations not to mislead others, and to provide properly reasoned arguments to the court

As the cases Mia has outlined illustrate, AI hallucinations that make their way into court documents might undermine these duties.

And solicitors must also act with independence

In circumstances where a legal professional relies on AI to make a judgment, can they be said to be acting with independence?

These are not questions with clear-cut answers, but what is clear is that where rules of professional conduct are breached, the consequences are serious for a range of parties and organisations.

Consequences of non-compliance

For solicitors and firms

For solicitors and firms, lack of compliance can have a range of consequences, ranging from reprimands, to firm closure, and referrals to the solicitors disciplinary tribunal.

For clients

There are also consequences for clients.
Legal services and justice is a high stakes environment where livelihood and liberty may be on the line. Where technology-led outcomes are impacted by a failure to comply with professional duties, this can have life changing outcomes for clients.

Awareness about the professional rules and how they apply to technology will mean that some of these negative impacts can be minimised.

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Representation

Communication
Guidance
Voice

Official

MARY

Awareness

And so now in closing, returning to our starting point at the outset of this presentation, regarding the importance of awareness of context-specific regulation.

This awareness matters for:

Technologists - to ensure technology is fit for purpose within a given context

Lawyers – to ensure understanding of how the rules apply to the application and use of technology.

Clients – to avoid negative outcomes

As the representative body for solicitors we play a key role in facilitating this awareness raising .

Guidance

We provide our members with guidance to help them with regulatory compliance, explaining the way AI and new technologies can be used, and how this links to the regulatory framework that our members sit within

Voice

And finally we represent our members, giving voice to the needs and interests of the profession to stakeholders such as technologists and policy-makers, facilitating the multi-disciplinary exchange of information that we believe is fundamental to successful innovation.

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Find out more

Get in touch with us at technologypolicy@lawsociety.org.uk or scan:

The Law Society AI and Lawtech Hub

AI hallucination cases database

SRA Standards and Regulations

Official

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