The Civil Justice Council has convened a dedicated working group on artificial intelligence, the Law Society Gazette has reported, in response to the proliferation of fabricated case citations generated by generative AI tools and filed in the civil courts of England and Wales.

The advisory body has labelled the phenomenon as "fake" citations — a category covering authorities that do not exist, complete with invented judges, dates and pinpoint paragraphs, produced when lawyers query large language models without independently verifying the output. The scare quotes around the word "fake" signal a deeper problem: a case that has never been decided cannot be tendered in argument, no matter how plausible its surrounding text appears.

The formation of the working group follows a series of judicial rebukes in the County Court and the High Court, where judges have struck out pleadings and skeleton arguments founded on hallucinated authorities. In several reported instances the court has named the solicitor responsible and referred the matter to the regulator. Such orders have made clear that AI assistance does not displace the professional duty to verify authority before it is filed.

What does the Civil Justice Council do?

Established under section 6 of the Civil Procedure Act 2004, the council brings together judges, barristers, solicitors, lay users and academics. It advises the Lord Chancellor, the judiciary and the Civil Procedure Rule Committee on the operation of the civil justice system. It operates through standing committees covering areas such as litigation funding, alongside time-limited working groups that produce reports on defined procedural issues.

The council's recommendations are advisory, but successive reports have informed reforms including the proportionality test introduced in 2013 and the disclosure pilot that took effect in 2022.

What will the working group likely consider?

CJC working groups ordinarily report within twelve to eighteen months and often include draft rules or practice directions for the Rule Committee. The agenda is expected to address:

• Disclosure obligations when AI drafting tools have helped prepare statements of case
• Possible amendments to the Civil Procedure Rules on citation verification and the statement of truth
• Training protocols for chambers and law firms adopting generative AI in practice
• Costs orders and sanctions for reliance on non-existent authorities

What does the move mean for practitioners?

Practitioners already owe a duty of candour and personal responsibility for every pleading signed and filed. The formation of the working group does not relax those obligations; it signals that the Lord Chancellor and the judiciary consider the present framework insufficient to deter a recurring pattern of hallucinated authorities.

In practical terms, lawyers should treat any reference produced by an AI assistant as unverified until it has been confirmed against a recognised database — Westlaw, Lexis+ or BAILII. The practitioner signing the document, not the tool, remains the author of every citation it contains. Court bundles containing fabricated case law may be struck out, with costs thrown away and potential referral to the Solicitors Regulation Authority or the Bar Standards Board.

The full composition, terms of reference and timetable of the working group are set out in the Law Society Gazette's coverage of the announcement.