Professor David Flint submitted, yesterday, his response to the call for evidence on the Regulation of Legal Services (Scotland) Bill. Professor Flint supports the principal recommendation of the Roberton Review that an independent regulator should be created to regulate legal professionals. In his response Professor Flint suggests that the present system, and what is proposed…
On 31 July, The Herald published a letter by Michael Sheridan, Solicitor, Glasgow claiming that Law Firms are “public assets” that should not be allowed to be sold to shareholder companies. Mr Sheridan was alerting the public to, in his view, the “proposed sale of public assets for private gain” that could happen if section…
I have submitted my response to the call for evidence on the Regulation of Legal Services (Scotland) Bill by the Equalities, Human Rights & Civil Justice Committee of the Scottish Parliament. My response is a follows:- 1. What are your views on: a. the principal recommendation of the Roberton Review that an independent regulator should…
Views on the Regulation of Legal Services (Scotland) Bill must be with the Scottish Parliament by 9 August 2023. So, this is just a nudge, if you haven’t done so already, to submit your views by that date. It is most important that anyone with an interest in the future of regulation of legal services…
The Judge in the infamous ChatGPT lawyer case (Mata v Avianca) has now issued his judgement. He has sanctioned the ChatGPT lawyers. Judge P. Kevin Castel issued a 34 page Opinion [PDF]. It concludes that a penalty of $5,000 is jointly and severally imposed on the lawyers in question. In addition they must send a letter…
The Judge in the infamous ChatGPT lawyer case (Mata v Avianca) this week suggested what ChatGPT produced was “legal gibberish”. Possibly a better and more realistic term than legal hallucinations! Judge Castel had called a hearing for 8 June with a view to considering whether any sanctions were appropriate for the lawyers using ChatGPT to…
Judges have entered the ChatGPT fray and are giving their views on the use of Generative AI in Court. This is perhaps not surprising following recent incidents of lawyers and litigants in person producing fake case citations to courts. All generated by the master hallucinator that is Chat GPT. Judge says a Human Being must…
The Law Society Gazette reported, at the beginning of the week, that a Litigant in Person in the UK used ChatGPT to research the law resulting in false citations being put before the court. This comes hot on the heels of a lawyer in the USA doing exactly the same thing. I blogged about that…
Events this past week have raised the importance of law firms employing ChatGPT technology to also employ a Legal Hallucinatory Detectorist. Alternatively, perhaps, simply not to use ChatGPT at all. Legal Prompt Engineers The initial buzz around ChatGPT led to many saying you had to employ Legal Prompt Engineers. Without the correct prompts the technology…
On 10 May 2023 I attended the British Legal Technology Forum 2023. I hadn’t been at a NetLaw Media event for a good few years. The format was the one I recalled from the past: Various stages and lots of talks, large Expo hall with Legal Tech vendors and swag, a big name keynote and…
The LawtechUK Launch Event took place in Edinburgh yesterday. It was to launch the new chapter in the life of LawtechUK with CodeBase & Legal Geek being, since 1 April 2023, the implementing partners. LawtechUK, is a government-backed initiative within Tech Nation, established to support the transformation of the UK legal sector through technology, for…
‘On being ambitious in regulatory change’ was a talk that I was asked to do for the online conference on ‘The Scottish Legal Services Regulation Reform Bill: what’s needed and what’s next?’ (Organised by Mackay Hannah) on 27 April 2023. I am reproducing that talk here with one added point, in square brackets, noted by…
