_{At least Clippy was honest}

A judge has slammed a barrister, stating that it was "overwhelmingly likely" that he had used "entirely fictitious" cases generated by AI, when drafting submissions.

Immigration barrister, Chowdhury Rahman, was acting for two sisters seeking asylum, claiming they had been targeted by a powerful gang in Honduras. However, the Home Office refused their application.

At an appeal hearing, Rahman provided submissions as grounds for appeal. However, the tribunal judge, Mark Blundell, said that some of the cited authorities did not exist, and "where the cases did exist, they were often wholly irrelevant".

Like a teacher asking a pupil to show his workings, the judge told Rahman to return to his chambers and provide printed copies of the authorities. When the barrister returned that afternoon he was unable to produce some of the authorities, and those that he did find, did not support the legal arguments in his submissions.  

When asked how he had conducted his legal research, Rahman replied that he had used "various websites" and "made reference to the website of the Supreme Court and to Bailii."  

The barrister also suggested that the inaccuracies "were as a result of his drafting style". But the judge was not convinced, stating that it was not a matter of drafting style, and that he was seriously concerned that Rahman "did not appear to understand the gravity of the situation."

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The judge found the most “obvious explanation” was that "the grounds of appeal were drafted in whole or in part by generative Artificial Intelligence such as ChatGPT", and that Rahman had failed "to undertake any proper checks" on its accuracy.  

The judge lambasted Rahman for attempting "to hide that fact" from him, during the hearing, and due to those misleading statements and "the resulting waste of the tribunal’s time", he was minded to refer Rahman to the Bar Standards Board. Rahman will have an opportunity to set out in writing "why that course should not be followed" (and it's probably best that he avoids using AI). 

It's another warning to check your robot's homework, as a US lawyer was slammed in court for making an error. While City firms are increasingly making use of AI, the SRA has told firms not to rely on machine learning.

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