SRA warning notice on the misuse of AI

Status

• 17 Aug 2026Warning notice issued by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
• StandingA warning notice, not a new rule or legal requirement. It states how the SRA reads existing obligations, and the SRA will have regard to it in exercising its regulatory functions.

Who and what it covers

• PeopleAll firms and individuals regulated by the SRA.
• The failuresAI tools producing “hallucinations”: fictitious cases and false citations reaching courts and clients. And client confidentiality: confidential information entered into AI systems without the risks being considered and mitigated.

What it says

• AccountableSolicitors remain accountable for all work and advice delivered to clients, whether or not AI has been used.
• CitationsCase citations must be genuine, relevant, and carry a verifiable citation. The check is the solicitor’s, not the tool’s.
• ConfidentialityAppropriate contractual, technical and organisational safeguards must protect client data before it enters an AI system. The notice warns that entering confidential information into public AI tools risks permanent waiver of privilege.
• OversightAppropriate human oversight and informed professional judgement over what the tools produce.

What non-compliance costs

• Discipline“If you fail to have proper regard to this warning notice, you are at risk of disciplinary action.”
• EnforcementThe SRA states it can and will act where it finds evidence that solicitors, firms or their employees contravene its rules.

Why it is on this list

A warning notice sits below a rule and above a suggestion. It does not change what solicitors owe their clients and the court; it tells the profession, in advance and in writing, how the regulator will read the obligations that already exist when AI is in the work. That is why it belongs on a page of instruments rather than commentary: the SRA has said it will have regard to this notice when it exercises its regulatory functions.

The two failures it names are the same two seams running through the sanctions record: invented authorities reaching courts, and confidential material reaching tools that were never engaged to hold it. Ireland wrote the verification duty into a practice direction the same summer; see Practice Direction HC142, in operation from 1 September 2026.

Sources

• Solicitors Regulation Authority, Misuse of AI, warning notice, read 20 August 2026 and quoted above

Related

• The law library · AI rules by country · England and Wales
• Ireland, Practice Direction HC142, the verification duty written into a court’s own direction
• The sanctions record, what courts have done about invented authorities

Checked against the source 20 August 2026: the warning notice as published by the SRA. Information, not legal advice.