analysisAI HallucinationsSRA & UK Regulation
Pinsent Masons self-referred to the SRA after AI invented an insolvency rule
In Cork v Smith, a junior solicitor's AI tool fabricated the text of a rule that does not exist. Pinsent Masons self-referred to the SRA.
In the High Court of England and Wales, a Pinsent Masons solicitor quoted to the court the text of “Insolvency Rule 12.37(5)” — a provision that does not exist in that form. An AI tool had written it. ICC Judge Mullen’s judgment in Cork & Anor v Smith [2026] EWHC 1199 (Ch), handed down on 22 May 2026, records one of the largest firms in the country self-referring to the Solicitors Regulation Authority over a fabrication produced by generative AI.
What happened
The underlying matter was a block transfer of insolvency appointments — the administrative reassignment of an office-holder’s cases. Researching the court’s power to release an outgoing office-holder, a junior associate the judgment calls “Lawyer A” relied on an AI system that returned confident text attributed to Insolvency Rule 12.37(5).
That text was presented to the court as a direct quotation in a letter dated 30 March 2026. The rule it purported to quote read, in part: “The court may, in an order made under this rule, make such provision as it thinks fit with respect to matters arising in connection with the replacement, including— (a) the release of the outgoing officeholder”. No such wording exists in IR 12.37(5). A second letter, on 14 April 2026, tried to justify the position rather than withdraw it.
What the court decided
Judge Mullen made the block transfer order by consent on 8 May 2026, then used the judgment to address the fabricated authority in open court. The firm did not contest what had happened. The judge recorded being told that Pinsent Masons “has agreed to pay the additional costs incurred by its former clients as a result of the creation and sending of these letters.”
The firm also referred itself to the SRA. The regulator now holds the details of each lawyer involved, and Lawyer A has confirmed to the SRA that they are the person the judgment anonymises. The court left the disciplinary question there: a public account of the conduct, and a live regulatory file.
Why it matters
The tracker’s earlier UK entries were dominated by litigants in person and sole practitioners. Cork v Smith moves the pattern to a global firm with a full compliance function — the kind of institution whose AI governance is supposed to catch exactly this. The failure was not the use of AI to research a rule; it was presenting the output as a verbatim quotation without opening the rule book.
What the SRA does next is the open question. The regulator last updated its compliance tips on AI in February 2026, and this is among the first tests of how it treats an institutional failure rather than an individual lapse. That disposition, when it lands, becomes the next entry on this record.