Verified Authority

The regulator has spoken, the courts have ruled, and the measured reliability of the leading tools is lower than the market implies. All three facts are recent and all three are public. Three duties are engaged by this technology, and each has now been considered by an authority. The duty not to mislead the court has been considered by a Divisional Court. The duty of confidentiality, and with it privilege, has been considered by a tribunal. The duty to remain accountable for one’s own work has been stated by the regulator. Nothing in this area now rests on speculation. Artificial intelligence is useful in a law firm wherever an authoritative source exists to check the output against, and dangerous wherever one does not. The regulator has said that solicitors remain accountable for their work and outputs regardless of how that work was prepared.5 A tribunal has said that uploading confidential documents to an open tool places them in the public domain.10 Neither statement asks a firm to do anything new. Both require a firm to show that it did the thing it has always been required to do, which means verification has to become a recorded step. Assuming it happened is what the cases turn on.