Based on hands-on testing of six legal AI systems, this session delivers a practitioner’s honest assessment of where AI can genuinely help barristers — and where it can get you into serious trouble.

Rather than vendor promises or theoretical possibilities, this CPD covers how AI tools can assist on real barrister tasks: research, case analysis, chronology building, drafting, and trial preparation.

Improving Productivity — Where AI Genuinely Helps

The session covers practical use cases where AI can produce real value for barristers, including how to rapidly triage large volumes of material in hearing preparation, building detailed chronologies from thousands of pages of documents in a fraction of the time it takes manually, accelerating legal research by surfacing relevant authorities and identifying arguments you might otherwise miss, first-pass drafting of submissions, advice, and correspondence that you then refine with your own judgement; and streamlining repetitive tasks that consume hours but add no value to your legal work.

Mitigating Risk — Where Barristers Need to Be Careful

Equally important is understanding where AI can create risk. This session addresses how to verify AI-generated research and citations so you never file a hallucinated authority, what the current regulatory landscape looks like and what courts actually expect regarding AI disclosure, how to protect client confidentiality and legal professional privilege when using AI tools, provides insights on weaknesses of the systems tested — and what those failures mean for practice, and how to build a personal workflow that keeps your professional judgement in the driver’s seat.

Why This Session Is Different

Most barristers find CPD presented by a peer — someone who understands the realities of independent practice at the Bar — far more useful than content delivered solely by a software company. This session is built on that principle. It’s a frank, practical assessment from a practitioner who has tested these tools against the demands of actual barrister work, not a sales pitch.

You’ll leave with a clear picture of what’s worth your time, what isn’t, and how to integrate AI into your practice without compromising your standards, your judgment, or your practising certificate.

1 CPD