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AI rules for lawyers, by country · Australia, New South Wales · Asia Pacific

Australia: NSW Practice Note SC Gen 23

Supreme Court of New South Wales, Practice Note SC Gen 23, Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence · issued 28 January 2025 by Bell CJ, in force 3 February 2025

SC Gen 23 read against the Court’s own PDF, all 26 paragraphs; the Victorian and Federal Court practice notes read on their courts’ own pages. Quotations are from the practice notes.

The strictest and most detailed AI instrument any court has published, anywhere. It bans generative AI outright from evidence, requires a positive declaration that it was not used, and, for expert reports, requires the expert to annex a record of the prompts. No other court on this record asks for the prompts.

What counts, and what does not

The practice note applies to closed-source and open-source large language models alike, and it names them: ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, Llama, Google Bard, Co-Pilot, and the legal-specific tools Lexis Advance AI, Westlaw Precision, Luminance and CoCounsel Core, expressly non-exhaustively.

Paragraph 6 carves out what it does not reach, and this is the part most summaries get wrong:

  • ExcludedSpelling and grammar correction, transcription, translation, formatting, and anything that does not generate substantive content.
  • ExcludedSearch engines such as Google, which return a list of sites rather than a personalised textual answer.
  • ExcludedDedicated legal research software using AI or machine learning to search legislation, judgments of courts or tribunals, and books or articles written for a legal audience.

So Westlaw and Lexis research are outside it. The tool that writes your paragraph is inside it.

The general prohibition, paragraph 9A

Four categories of material must not be entered into any generative AI program: information subject to non-publication or suppression orders; material covered by the implied Harman undertaking; material produced on subpoena; and anything under a statutory publication prohibition. The only exception is where the practitioner is satisfied the information will remain inside a controlled platform under confidentiality restrictions on the supplier, will be used only in that proceeding, and will not be used to train the model.

That is a local-deployment test written into a rule of court. A public chatbot cannot satisfy it.

Paragraph 9B then permits, for the avoidance of doubt: chronologies, indexes and witness lists; briefs and draft Crown Case Statements; summarising or reviewing documents and transcripts; and written submissions, subject to the verification rule below.

Evidence: a flat ban, and a declaration you must make

“Gen AI must not be used in generating the content of affidavits, witness statements, character references or other material that is intended to reflect the deponent or witness’ evidence and/or opinion, or other material tendered in evidence or used in cross examination.”, paragraph 10

Paragraph 11: such documents “should contain and reflect a person’s own knowledge, not AI-generated content.” Paragraph 12 closes the polishing loophole that every other jurisdiction leaves open: generative AI must not be used “for the purpose of altering, embellishing, strengthening or diluting or otherwise rephrasing a witness’s evidence when expressed in written form.”

And then paragraph 13, which is what makes it enforceable. The affidavit must contain a disclosure that generative AI was not used. Not a disclosure if it was. A positive declaration that it was not. Leave may be sought in exceptional cases for annexures or exhibits, and the application must identify the proposed use, the program and version, whether it is open or closed source and what privacy settings it has, and the benefit to be derived.

Submissions: verify in the body, and not with a machine

Paragraph 16 requires that where generative AI was used in preparing written submissions or skeletons, the author must verify in the body of the document itself that all citations, legal and academic authority, case law and legislative references exist, are accurate, and are relevant to the proceedings, and must make similar verification for references to evidence, whether in affidavits or transcript.

“Such verification must not be solely carried out by using a Gen AI tool or program.” (paragraph 17)

That single sentence forecloses the defence offered in Gamez v. County of Fresno, where counsel believed a paid tool had anti-hallucination protection. In New South Wales, checking the machine with the machine is not checking.

Expert reports, and the prompt log

Generative AI must not be used to draft any part of an expert report without prior leave. Where leave is granted, paragraph 22 requires the expert to:

  • 22(a)Disclose in the report which parts were prepared using generative AI or drew on AI-produced material, and which program and version was used.
  • 22(b)“Keep records and identify in an annexure to the report a record of how the Gen AI tool or program was used (for example any prompts used, any default values used, and any variables set)”, unless the Court dispenses with it as voluminous or unnecessary.
  • 22(c)Where a code of practice or principles bind the expert, identify that and annex a copy.

Paragraph 24 puts the burden on the lawyers: practitioners and unrepresented parties “must draw the requirements of this Practice Note to the attention of experts when instructing them.”

Paragraph 22(b) is worth reading twice. A court has required that the prompts, defaults and variables be kept and filed. Most instruments on this record ask for a promise that the work was verified. New South Wales asks for the working.

The rest of Australia

New South Wales moved first and hardest. Two more courts have since written their own rules, both read at source.

Victoria. Supreme Court Practice Note SC GEN 25, The use of Artificial Intelligence by Court users, issued and in force 14 May 2026, replacing the Court’s 2024 guidelines for litigants. AI-produced content must be verified “with meaningful human control”, and checking one AI tool with another is not verification. Court users must be prepared to identify the parts of a court document produced with AI and to explain how the output was verified. Lawyers who rely on unverified AI output may be referred to the Victorian Legal Services Board and Commissioner, and may face personal costs orders.

The Federal Court of Australia. General Practice Note GPN-AI, Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence, Chief Justice Mortimer, 16 April 2026. Everyone is expected to be in a position to tell the Court what generative AI was used, how, and for what purpose. Where it was used to prepare a document, the person responsible is expected to have confirmed that cited authorities exist and support the proposition stated. In the evidence cases the practice note lists, its use must be disclosed at the start of the document.

The Law Society of New South Wales maintains a public index of Australian court protocols on AI.

What to do about it

Or run it across the estate.

Paragraph 22(b) asks for the prompts, the defaults and the variables, in an annexure. That is not a policy question, it is a records question. The same engine either way: a signed record made on your own machine, content-free, and checkable free by anyone, forever.

Or Regulayer™ for enterprise →

See also the attorney certification, the free verifier, and every jurisdiction we track.

Sources

Related

Checked against each court’s own text. Information, not legal advice, and not advice on Australian law.

Information, not legal advice, and not advice on the law of any jurisdiction.

The other jurisdictions we have read in full

Each one read at the issuing body’s own document, not at a summary of it. All twenty-one, including the ones with no rule at all.