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The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (the “Tribunal") has, for the first time, sanctioned a lawyer in relation to the misuse of generative AI in proceedings. In Solicitors Regulation Authority Ltd v Kumar (Case No. 12884-2026), the Tribunal ordered that a Registered Foreign Lawyer (the “Respondent”) be struck off the Register of Foreign Lawyers. The case arose from two distinct sets of misconduct: first, a criminal conviction for knowingly employing a person without the right to work; and second, and of wider professional significance, the Respondent’s use of unverified and inaccurate legal citations arising from his use of generative AI in the course of the same disciplinary proceedings. Notably, the Tribunal was clear that the sanction it reached was the same sanction it would have imposed if either allegation had appeared before the Tribunal without the other, meaning that the AI-related misconduct alone was sufficiently serious to warrant a strike-off order.
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