The rapid infiltration of generative AI into the legal sector has sparked a global debate on transparency, leaving courts scrambling to figure out how to police this new digital frontier.
Should lawyers be forced to declare when a machine drafts their submissions or aids in their research? While some jurisdictions are rushing to implement strict disclosure rules, a refreshing dose of pragmatism recently emerged from the Delhi High Court.
Justice Prathiba M Singh has voiced valid concerns that prematurely forcing lawyers to declare their use of artificial intelligence might actually do more harm than good.
Given Justice Singh’s extensive background in intellectual property and technology law, her hesitation carries significant weight.
The intersection of law and technology is rarely seamless, and the current panic over AI in courtrooms is proving no different.
Rather than acting as a silver bullet, Justice Singh rightly points out that slapping a mandatory disclosure requirement on AI usage threatens to needlessly complicate the lives of practicing advocates, burying them under yet another layer of procedural red tape without genuinely safeguarding the integrity of the judicial process.
Why Mandatory AI Disclosure Threatens to Become Empty Compliance
Justice Singh highlighted a fundamental flaw in the rush to regulate: the inevitable degradation of well-meaning rules into meaningless paperwork.
If courts mandate that lawyers must disclose every instance of AI assistance, the practical outcome is highly predictable. It will simply become another templated affidavit.
Anyone familiar with the daily grind of litigation in India knows exactly how this plays out. Much like the standard declarations attached to electronic evidence under the Evidence Act, an AI disclosure form will quickly devolve into a routine copy-paste exercise.
Lawyers will add a standard boilerplate paragraph to the end of every petition, stating either that AI was not used, or that it was utilized strictly for “preliminary formatting.”
This doesn’t solve the underlying anxiety about algorithmic hallucinations or fabricated case law. It merely creates a false sense of security while increasing the compliance burden on already overworked legal teams.
The judicial system is already choking on administrative delays and rigid procedural formalities. Adding another mandatory certificate to the filing process does nothing to elevate the quality of legal arguments.
It only gives court registries another technicality to scrutinize, potentially delaying urgent matters over a missing signature on an AI declaration. Justice Singh’s warning is rooted in this ground reality legal tech regulation must serve a functional purpose, not just add friction to the practice of law.
Holding Lawyers Accountable for the Output, Not the Algorithm
The crux of the anxiety surrounding AI in the legal field is factual accuracy. We have all seen the cautionary tales from foreign jurisdictions where lawyers submitted non-existent citations generated by large language models, facing severe professional reprimands as a result.
However, the solution to this problem isn’t necessarily micromanaging the specific software tools lawyers use to prepare their briefs.
A lawyer’s signature on a pleading tells the court that the facts and law presented are accurate to the best of their knowledge.
If an advocate submits a hallucinated judgment, they can mislead the court and face professional misconduct. It does not matter whether the mistake came from a junior lawyer, an outdated database, or an AI tool.
The lawyer who signs the document remains responsible.
When the focus shifts from the technology to the lawyer’s professional duties, the need for separate AI disclosure becomes less clear. AI is quickly becoming another everyday legal tool, much like a search engine or grammar checker.
Requiring lawyers to make a separate declaration every time they use AI could add unnecessary paperwork. Lawyers already have strict ethical duties to verify their work and act with due care.
The better approach is to focus on the lawyer’s responsibility, not the tool they use. Courts should hold professionals accountable when they fail to check their submissions.
This encourages responsible use of AI without adding unnecessary hurdles to everyday legal work.
Source: Bar & Bench, "AI Disclosure Will Make Lawyers’ Lives Difficult: Delhi High Court Justice Prathiba M Singh"
