Ajudge has said an Insolvency and Companies Court ruling should serve as ‘public admonishment’ of international firm Pinsent Masons and senior lawyers, after two botched uses of artificial intelligence.
ICC Judge Mullen concluded in Cork & Anor v Smith that the firm had misled the court twice: once by providing references which featured AI hallucinations, then a second time by using AI to produce an explanatory letter that was still wrong.
The judge said an unnamed junior lawyer (referred to as LA) seemed to have ‘almost entirely outsourced the thinking process’ to an AI program, while solicitor Samantha Poulton and partner Steven Cottee had failed to supervise LA properly.
Pinsent Masons has apologised and referred itself to the Solicitors Regulation Authority, which will also investigate whether any of the lawyers involved have breached the code of conduct.
The judge said it would be disproportionate to consider contempt proceedings but added that there was, at the very least, a prima facie case of a breach of the duty not to mislead the court and the duty not to waste court time.
He said: ‘Ms Poulton, Mr Cottee and, I will assume, LA, will have found this incident very embarrassing. Ms Poulton and Mr Cottee are experienced solicitors undertaking technical work in a reputable firm, no doubt under considerable pressure at times. I have no doubt that LA was working under pressure too. None of that excuses a failure to check the accuracy of the material that was placed before the court.’
