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AI in the Land and Environment Court: New Guidelines for Legal Practitioners
Melissa Neighbour • February 21, 2025
AI in the Land and Environment Court: New Guidelines for Legal Practitioners
In November 2024, several NSW courts released a practice note addressing the use of generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI). Recently, the NSW Court introduced a new Practice Note on Generative AI, effective 12 February 2025.
This guidance clarifies the permissible use of AI in court proceedings while addressing its potential risks associated with its use in the NSW legal system.
Key takeaways from the guidelines:
- Permitted Uses: AI may assist with administrative tasks like summarising documents, generating chronologies, and drafting legal submissions, provided all citations and legal references are verified.
- Prohibited Uses:
AI cannot be used for drafting affidavits, expert reports, witness statements, or confidential/suppressed material unless explicit court approval is obtained. Any AI-generated case law, legislation, or references must be manually verified—AI cannot be relied upon alone. AI must not draft expert reports unless prior leave of the Court is obtained, and it must be disclosed in the report.
Affidavits, witness statements, character references should contain and reflect a person’s own knowledge, not AI-generated content.
- Risks Identified:
The Court warns against AI hallucinations (false citations), data privacy breaches, and biased outputs, reinforcing the responsibility of legal professionals to ensure accuracy of information and ethical compliance.
Legal professionals and unrepresented parties must be cautious when using Generative AI, as any data entered may be stored and used to train the AI model. This could inadvertently expose confidential or sensitive information to other users, posing significant privacy and security risks.
This marks a significant step in balancing AI innovation with legal integrity in NSW court proceedings.
Stay informed as the guidelines evolve!
You can access the LEC practice note via this link
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