Deploying Artificial Intelligence Responsibly: Our Response to the CJC Consultation “The Use of AI for Preparing Court Documents”

Law is not static. It is continuously applied and developed through authorised acts legislation, judicial decisions, and, importantly, the work of legal practitioners, including the preparation and submission of documents such as skeleton arguments. These are not merely technical exercises, but legally operative acts within the adjudicative process. The legal system already provides a clear and coherent framework for allocating responsibility, grounded in established rules of procedure and professional competence. Further attempts to regulate—or micromanage responsibility for the content of legal documents is therefore unnecessary. Both litigants in person and legal representatives bear responsibility for their submissions as an incident of their duty to the court.

From the standpoint of the legal order, the decisive question is not what generated the words—whether diligent research, reliance on a trainee, time pressure, or the use of a large language model—but who, within the legal framework, is to answer for them. This conclusion is reinforced by empirical findings from the PROBabLE Futures project, which indicate that practitioners themselves approach AI generated material with a clear sense of personal responsibility and professional accountability.