EWJ August 62 2025 web - Journal - Page 78
AI Hallucinations Hit the High Court
by Matthew Herrmann, Jamie Tomlinson, Imogen Jones & Lucy Grivvell
www.dacbeachcroft.com
Overview
R. (on the application of Ayinde) v Haringey LBC and
Al-Haroun v Qatar National Bank QPSC1
At the Hamid hearing, Mr Ayinde's barrister accepted
that she had been negligent in citing fabricated case
law but denied deliberately using GenAI to conduct
legal research. She suggested that she had relied on a
list of authorities when drafting Mr Ayinde's grounds
(but did not explain how that list came to exist). She
also accepted that she may have inadvertently relied
on GenAI-generated responses to Google searches in
her research. In light of those explanations, the
Court found the threshold for contempt of court proceedings to have been met: either the barrister had
deliberately included fake citations, or she had covered
up the full extent of her use of GenAI. While those
proceedings were not ultimately initiated, (owing, in
part, to the mitigating factor of counsel's relative inexperience), the Judge was anxious that the Court's
leniency should not set a precedent, noting: "Lawyers
who do not comply with their professional obligations in this
respect risk severe sanction."
Generative Artificial Intelligence ("GenAI") continues
to have a profound impact on the legal profession.
While many practitioners are still getting to grips with
the various new technologies which promise to improve efficiency, recent developments highlight the
dangers of overreliance.
On 6 June 2025 the High Court handed down a judgment in respect of two cases referred to it under the
"Hamid Jurisdiction" (a mechanism allowing the court
to refer potential abuses of procedure to a "Hamid
Judge" for consideration). The Court scrutinised the
apparent misuse of GenAI by the parties' legal teams
in both instances, reminding lawyers of their fundamental professional duty to take responsibility for
their own submissions, including by taking steps to
verify GenAI's output.
Al-Haroun v Qatar National Bank and QNB Capital
Mr Al-Haroun3 sought substantial damages for
alleged breaches of a financing agreement. The defendants made applications to dispute the Court's jurisdiction and to strike out the claim. The Court
granted the defendants an extension of time to file
and serve evidence in relation to those applications.
In response, the claimant made an application to have
that order set aside. This application was supported
by witness statements from Mr Al-Haroun and his
solicitor.
Ayinde v London Borough of Haringey
The first case2 concerned a dispute between Mr
Ayinde and the London Borough of Haringey
("Haringey") arising out of Mr Ayinde's application for
social housing assistance. Mr Ayinde had requested
urgent interim accommodation, which was not
granted, and subsequently brought judicial review
proceedings against Haringey for its alleged breach of
section 188(3) of the Housing Act 1996.
The barrister instructed by Mr Ayinde drafted
grounds for the judicial review supported by (on their
face) compelling authorities. Haringey's solicitors
wrote to Mr Ayinde's team upon finding that five of
the cases referred to in the grounds for judicial review
appeared to not exist. Rather than simply providing
the authorities, Mr Ayinde's barrister drafted what the
Judge later called "a quite remarkable letter", criticising
Haringey's focus on "errors in citations" which could, apparently, be "easily explained" (although no attempt
to explain was forthcoming).
The claimant's application was dismissed and referred
for consideration by a Hamid Judge after the defendants found that both witness statements relied on authorities which were either fictitious, or, where they
did exist, did not contain the passages ostensibly
quoted from them.
At the Hamid hearing, the claimant admitted to
having generated fake citations using publicly available GenAI tools. While the claimant's solicitor had not
himself used GenAI to conduct the research, he had,
by his own admission, relied on legal research produced by his own client, the claimant, without independently verifying the authorities. The Court found:
"it is extraordinary that the lawyer was relying on the client for
the accuracy of their legal research, rather than the other way
around." The Court referred to the solicitor's behaviour as "a lamentable failure to comply with the basic requirement to check the accuracy of material that is put before
the court." Accordingly, the solicitor was referred to the
Solicitors Regulation Authority.
In reality, those five cases did not exist and Mr
Ayinde's grounds misidentified the effect of relevant
legislation. The matter was brought to the attention
of the Court on the issue of wasted costs, and an order
was duly granted in Haringey's favour. The Judge, in
an excoriating judgment, said: "It is wholly improper to
put fake cases in a pleading. It was unreasonable, when it
was pointed out, to say that these fake cases were "minor citation errors" or to use the phrase of the solicitors, "Cosmetic errors". While he stopped short of finding that Mr
Ayinde's solicitors or counsel had used GenAI to draft
the grounds for judicial review and list of authorities,
that inference is easily drawn. The Judge referred Mr
Ayinde's barrister to the Bar Standards Board and his
solicitors to the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
EXPERT WITNESS JOURNAL
Analysis
These decisions are a stark reminder of the serious
consequences of a failure to check-and-challenge
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