TL;DR

Sir Robert Buckland KC, lord chancellor from 2019 to 2021, has proposed that courts use costs awards to discourage people representing themselves from swamping cases with AI-generated paperwork. He argues no new rules are needed, only a clear statement that AI-assisted behaviour counts as conduct under the existing ones. It is the second senior legal voice in a fortnight to put responsibility for AI output squarely on whoever files it.

The economics have changed

Speaking at the Costs Law Reports conference, Buckland said generative AI lets a litigant turn a grievance into pleadings, witness statements, a skeleton argument and a list of authorities at almost no cost to themselves. The other side, the court and the taxpayer still carry the cost of reading it. In the past, he said, lawyers’ fees acted as a natural limit on long-windedness. “AI removed that break, and I think the costs jurisdiction can and should provide another.”

He described “AI slop” as large volumes of legal material that look impressive on the surface but serve no purpose. Unlike a lawyer, he noted, the software has no instinct for when an argument is not worth running.

Discretion, not a blanket penalty

Buckland was careful not to single out people without lawyers, many of whom cannot afford one. Treating “LIP + AI = costs sanction” as a rule “would be unfair and unworkable,” he said. Courts should separate someone who wrongly trusted a chatbot, who may need guidance, from someone who keeps citing an authority after being told it does not exist.

The mechanism already exists in CPR 44, which lets courts make costs orders for unreasonable behaviour. What he proposes is a warning at the start of a case, especially where a litigant in person is involved: AI can help, but the filer is answerable for accuracy, must check authorities and facts, and should keep documents proportionate. Unreasonable costs caused by AI use could then count when the bill is assessed.

For professionals, his message was blunter: “If you put it before the court, you own it.”

Looking forward

The proposal fits a wider pattern. Earlier this month an Employment Appeal Tribunal judge warned litigants in person to check their AI output after receiving a 300-page skeleton argument written with ChatGPT. Buckland, who now consults for DAC Beachcroft and practises from Foundry Chambers, is not a sitting judge, so this remains a suggestion. For businesses facing self-represented opponents, it signals that an AI-inflated case may eventually cost the person who brought it.