Written by Legal tech · Access to justice · Professional ethics
Legal technology can widen access to legal information, reduce cost and help people understand their options earlier. It can also create new risks: inaccurate AI outputs, hidden bias, data leakage, over-reliance, digital exclusion and blurred lines between legal information and legal advice. The practical question is not whether legal tech is good or bad. It is whether it is governed well enough to protect justice, confidentiality and public trust.
Publication snapshot
- Legal tech can improve access to information, triage, document preparation and dispute resolution.
- AI and automation create risks around accuracy, bias, confidentiality, data protection, explainability and accountability.
- Solicitors remain professionally responsible for work carried out with technological assistance.
- The safer model is responsible innovation: clear purpose, proper governance, human oversight, secure data handling and route-specific warnings for users.
The core point: legal tech is not a substitute for judgment
The legal sector is being reshaped by digital tools: legal research platforms, document automation, online dispute resolution, triage tools, client portals, workflow systems and generative AI. Used well, these tools can reduce friction, improve consistency and make basic legal information more accessible.
But legal tech does not remove legal responsibility. It changes where risk appears. A badly designed tool may give a user false confidence. An AI-generated answer may look authoritative while being wrong. A document system may produce a form that is technically neat but legally unsuitable. A triage system may direct a vulnerable person away from urgent advice.
The public-interest issue is therefore not whether technology should enter legal services. It already has. The issue is whether the systems around it are strong enough to protect users, clients, courts, confidentiality and the rule of law.
The access promise: why legal tech matters
Legal tech has real access-to-justice potential. It can help people understand rights, identify deadlines, prepare documents, find routes, resolve lower-value disputes and decide whether they need regulated advice. For litigants in person, small businesses and people priced out of conventional legal services, that can be significant.
Online dispute resolution is a useful example. The SRA has described work with The Access to Justice Foundation and The Law Society exploring how ODR might help unmet legal need among individuals, consumers and micro or small enterprises. That is not a guarantee that any single tool will work, but it shows why the access argument should not be dismissed.
Information
Plain-language legal resources can help users understand rights, obligations, routes and warnings before a dispute escalates.
Triage
Guided tools can help users identify whether the issue is legal advice, complaint handling, data protection, debt, housing, employment or another route.
Documents
Automation can reduce cost and inconsistency where the task is predictable, low-risk and supported by clear review safeguards.
Dispute resolution
Digital pathways can reduce friction in suitable disputes, especially where the alternative is no practical route at all.
The risk ledger: the same tool can help and harm
The draft correctly identifies the central problem: legal tech is double-edged. It can democratise access, but it can also amplify existing inequalities or create new forms of procedural unfairness.
That is especially true for generative AI. The Law Society’s guidance recognises opportunities but also identifies risks around output integrity, confidentiality, data protection, cyber security, bias and accountability. Judicial guidance for England and Wales also highlights risks of bias, hallucinations, confidentiality and misleading information.
Accuracy and hallucination
An AI-generated answer may include false cases, invented rules or plausible but wrong legal reasoning. Legal outputs need authoritative checking.
Bias and unfairness
Training data, design choices and deployment context may reproduce or intensify unfair patterns unless the system is tested and monitored.
Confidentiality and data
Client information, special-category data and litigation material should not be entered into uncontrolled public tools.
Automation bias
Users may defer to a tool because it looks authoritative, even when the output is incomplete, outdated or unsuitable for the facts.
Unauthorised advice risk
A tool that appears to give tailored legal advice may create regulatory and consumer-protection concerns if responsibility is unclear.
Digital exclusion
Tools designed for confident digital users may fail people with low digital access, disabilities, language barriers, trauma or urgent practical needs.
Professional duties do not disappear because a tool was used
The SRA Code of Conduct requires solicitors to avoid misleading clients, the court or others, and to make only properly arguable assertions or submissions. Those obligations remain relevant where a solicitor uses AI, automation or a third-party platform.
The practical consequence is clear. A solicitor cannot rely on the label “AI-generated” to avoid responsibility for inaccurate submissions, unsafe drafting, confidentiality breaches or unsupported legal propositions. If the work is being used in legal practice, someone must own the checking process.
The professional responsibility test
Before a legal-tech output is used, the responsible person should be able to answer four questions.
What was the tool asked to do?
What data was entered?
How was the output checked?
Who remains accountable?
This is where law firms need more than enthusiasm. They need policies, training, supervision, procurement diligence, data controls, client communication and a review process for accuracy and unintended consequences.
The digital divide: access to justice cannot mean access only for the digitally confident
Legal tech is often promoted as an access solution. It can be. But access is not achieved merely by putting a form, chatbot or portal online.
A person may lack stable internet access, digital literacy, English-language confidence, disability support, safe private space, time, trust or the emotional capacity to navigate an automated route. A system that works for a confident professional user may fail a vulnerable litigant in person.
Design for urgency
Users facing eviction, dismissal, safeguarding risk, domestic abuse, limitation or injunction pressure need clear escalation routes, not generic reassurance.
Design for comprehension
Legal information should be readable, route-specific and honest about when regulated advice is needed.
Design for alternatives
Digital pathways should not become the only practical gateway where users need human assistance or reasonable adjustments.
Design for challenge
Users should be able to query, correct, appeal or seek review where automated triage affects the route offered to them.
Responsible innovation: a practical governance model
The strongest approach is not anti-technology. It is disciplined adoption. SRA material on AI and technology points towards governance, leadership, risk assessment, policies, training, monitoring and client-centred decision-making. The Law Society guidance similarly emphasises lifecycle thinking, including purpose, vendor diligence, data use, training, review, risk management and communication.
Define the use case
Decide whether the tool is for information, drafting support, triage, research, client communication, document review or dispute resolution.
Map the risk
Identify confidentiality, data protection, bias, accuracy, digital exclusion, unauthorised advice, liability and insurance risks.
Control the data
Use fictional or anonymised data for testing unless there is a proper legal, contractual and professional basis for using client material.
Keep humans in the loop
Make clear when a person must review, approve, correct or override the tool before it affects a client, court, tribunal or public user.
Review and audit
Monitor outputs, complaints, false confidence, user exclusion, bias, data incidents and whether the tool still serves its original purpose.
Source anchors
These anchors support the legal-tech, AI and regulatory framework. They do not verify previous Legal Lens or LinkedIn articles, individual legal-tech products, supplier claims, case-prediction tools or disputed case studies.
- SRA Innovate — SRA resources on innovation, lawtech, AI and technology in legal services.
- SRA Risk Outlook report — SRA material on how AI is affecting legal services, including opportunities and risks.
- SRA compliance tips for AI and technology — governance, risk assessment, oversight and client-interest guidance for technology adoption.
- SRA Code of Conduct for Solicitors, RELs, RFLs and RSLs — duties relevant to misleading conduct, evidence, court submissions, competence and accountability.
- The Law Society: Generative AI — the essentials — guidance on generative AI opportunities, risks, confidentiality, data protection, output checking and lifecycle governance.
- Judicial AI guidance, October 2025 — judicial guidance on AI risks including bias, hallucinations, confidentiality and personal responsibility.
- SRA: Solving legal issues through technology — ODR and access-to-justice project material.
Closing point
Legal tech can make the law more navigable. It can reduce cost, shorten routine work, support litigants in person and help people identify the right route earlier.
But technology does not make justice automatic. A tool can mislead at scale. A portal can exclude. An AI output can sound authoritative while being false. A system designed around efficiency can miss vulnerability, nuance and urgency.
The Legal Lens point is simple: responsible legal tech must be judged not only by speed, cost and novelty, but by whether it preserves accuracy, accountability, confidentiality, human judgment and fair access to justice.
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Independent Legal Lens consultancy. Legal Lens is not a regulated solicitors’ firm. A preliminary assessment is not a substitute for regulated legal advice where that is needed.