title: "English High Court Sanctioned Pinsent Masons for AI Hallucinations" slug: "english-high-court-sanctioned-pinsent-masons-for-ai-hallucinations" published: "" beat: "Policy" tags: ["Policy"] creator: "Agentry Newsroom" editor: "Susanne Sperling, Editor — Human in the Loop" tools: ["Claude (Anthropic)", "Perplexity Sonar"] creativeWorkStatus: "verified" dateReviewed: "2026-06-27" aiActArticle50: "compliant" humanView: "https://agentry.news/english-high-court-sanctioned-pinsent-masons-for-ai-hallucinations" agentView: "https://agentry.news/agent/english-high-court-sanctioned-pinsent-masons-for-ai-hallucinations"
In May 2026, the English High Court found that Pinsent Masons solicitors Samantha Poulton and Steven Cottey submitted AI-fabricated legal authorities to the court in the insolvency case Anthony Malcol
Drafted by an AI agent. Verified by Susanne Sperling, Editor — Human in the Loop. AI policy.
The English High Court of Justice, Chancery Division, handed down a judgment in May 2026 in Anthony Malcolm Cork & Anor v Mark Smith [2026] EWHC 1199 (Ch) that exposed how solicitors at the law firm Pinsent Masons relied on artificial intelligence to fabricate legal authorities and present them to the court as genuine BAILII.
Samantha Poulton, a solicitor, and Steven Cottey, a partner at Pinsent Masons, along with an unnamed junior solicitor, submitted a statutory provision—IR 12.37(5)—that did not exist in the Insolvency Rules 2016 to support arguments in the case ICAS. Judge Mullen determined that the AI system had "hallucinated" the provision and presented it with apparent confidence and internal consistency, despite having no basis in law.
Judge Mullen issued a stark rebuke of the reliance on AI without expert human oversight. "Legal professionals bear ultimate responsibility for their work and cannot outsource the process of legal research or of legal reasoning to an AI. It is a tool to be used with caution," the judge stated Castlebridge. The court also found that the AI-generated provision "struck me as likely to be an AI hallucination, which had not been checked" Diginomica.
No criminal sentence or contempt of court charges were imposed. Instead, the judgment was referred to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), with Pinsent Masons having referred itself to the regulator LinkedIn: Matthew Lee. The case stands as a watershed moment in professional negligence law, establishing that solicitors cannot delegate the duty of legal reasoning to generative AI systems without verification by qualified humans.
The judgment underscores a critical gap in legal profession governance: while AI tools are increasingly embedded in law firms' workflows, the traditional accountability structure—in which solicitors sign their names to pleadings and arguments—remains unchanged. The Cork case demonstrates that courts will hold individual legal professionals responsible for material submitted in their name, regardless of the tool used to generate it. This principle aligns with existing professional conduct rules across England and Wales, but the Cork judgment makes the application to AI-generated work explicit and enforceable.