TL;DR
The Lady Chief Justice, Baroness Carr of Walton-on-the-Hill, says in her third annual report that people representing themselves in court are increasingly using AI to prepare their cases. The report, which reviews the year to September 2026, finds this “is improving access to justice but is also placing significant demands on both court staff and the judiciary”, the Law Society Gazette reported on 6 November.
What the report says
The observation is specific. In two parts of the High Court, the Administrative Court and the King’s Bench Division’s civil work, more litigants in person sought reasonable adjustments and were “using AI to construct their claims”. The cost shows up in case management: judges often have to work out “what remedy the LiP is actually seeking”.
The criminal side reports the same trend. Criminal Appeal Office staff are helping a growing number of unrepresented appellants, and the report says AI use in preparing their grounds of appeal “has been noted”, with guidance now being drafted by the criminal appeal court.
In her introduction, Baroness Carr is careful to keep both sides in view. She sees value in AI that transcribes or summarises, as a way to reduce backlogs, but says “oversight of use and decision-making will remain a human, judge-led function”.
Anecdote meets data
The courts’ own statistics have so far struggled to show the effect. Writing on 30 October, academics Sam Guy and Joe Tomlinson projected that 2026 would bring 36% more judicial review applications than 2025. Mr Justice Chamberlain, who leads the Administrative Court, suspects AI-assisted litigants are part of the explanation. Yet the academics found permission grant rates and “totally without merit” certifications broadly in line with earlier years, when a wave of weak AI-drafted claims would be expected to push those rates the other way.
In our view, those findings sit comfortably beside the Lady Chief Justice’s account. Her report describes a workload problem, claims that take longer to understand, rather than a merits problem. The Gazette adds that the report anticipates the CJC report on AI in court documents, which came out in late October.
What it means
In our view, the senior judiciary is treating AI-assisted self-representation as something to manage rather than resist. For legal advice charities, law firms offering unbundled services and the tool makers whose chatbots litigants use, the useful signal is the friction point the report names: unclear remedies. Tools and guidance that help people state what they are asking the court to do would address the burden judges actually describe.