Background
This case, referred under the court’s Hamid jurisdiction, arose when a pupil barrister at Haringey Law Centre submitted legal arguments citing phantom authorities in a claim concerning temporary accommodation. The High Court found serious failings in professional standards and imposed wasted costs against the law centre and the lawyer involved.
AI interaction
‘They may cite sources that do not exist. They may purport to quote passages from a genuine source that do not appear in that source.’ The court stressed that generative AI tools such as ChatGPT cannot be trusted for reliable legal research and that lawyers have a professional duty to verify all citations against authoritative sources.