AI forLitigators
Where we are, and where we’re going
What happens when you type into a chatbot?
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TeamsOutlook: Summarize this email.Word: Draft with Copilot.Teams: Transcribe the meeting.Your data already leaves the firm
Sending data elsewhere isn’t unique to generative AI.
Non-AI software
As far as we know, they keep your data separated from others.
AI chatbot
AI chatbots may store what you type and train on it.
Put simply: a lawyer at BLG will never see your iManage files.
With an AI chatbot, they might see what you typed.
Why does AI make things up?
Autocorrect on steroids
It predicts the next word.
It has no sense of right or wrong.
Every piece is plausible, but the entire citation may not exist.
General-purpose
ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot.
Trained on the internet. Answers from memory.
Special-purpose
Legal AI tools.
Built on a legal database. Looks things up before it answers.
Less hallucination. Never zero.
No tool can guarantee it won’t hallucinate.
If it can’t find the answer, it will guess.
How do we prevent hallucination?
Don’t put an AI in between input and output.
Ask an AI chatbot the same question twice, and it may give you two different answers.
Canadians have used our tools since July 2025.
Spot the Fake
15 citations from Canadian courts and tribunals. Real or fictitious?
Live leaderboard
We gave the same test to six chatbots
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ChatGPTClaude
CopilotDeepSeekGeminiKimiWe used free versions of these tools, on new accounts.
Round 1: we asked for a summary.
Fictitious cases summarized as if real, out of 65
Round 2: we asked directly. Real or fake?
Fictitious cases called real, out of 65
Round 3: we asked what happened.
Fictitious cases given a story of what happened, out of 65
Copilot65ChatGPT1Kimi: 17 in round 2. 37 in round 3.
This is why prompting is important.
COPILOT (SMART)Manitoba v. CHRC, 2016 FC 836
Federal Court review of a Canadian Human Rights Commission decision, addressing jurisdictional boundaries and the proper handling of human rights complaints involving a provincial government.
The opposite error: doubting real law
Real cases wrongly doubted, out of 105
Copilot12ChatGPT20Confident tools invent cases.
Cautious tools doubt real ones.
Every failure happened with web search turned on.
You saw Leblanc c. Lacasse five minutes ago. Gemini summarized it.
AI in Canadian courts and tribunals
What judges and adjudicators have caught, and how fast it is growing.
62 courts and tribunals.
What courts caught
Each square is one decision
Decisions by year
2026 has already passed 2024 and 2025 combined.
self-represented
Out of every 100 decisions
For many people without a lawyer, AI is the only affordable path to court.
What happens to those who misuse AI in court?
Largest costs award on record
Mazaheri v Law Society of Ontario, 2026 ONLSTH 112
Legal professionals draw serious sanctions more often, proportionally.
At 89% of Canada’s courts and tribunals tracked, a party can use AI to prepare their case and never has to tell anyone.
Words of wisdom from adjudicators and regulators
AI use by lawyers is an opportunity that comes with all of the associated safeguards our professional duties require. That means checking every authority and every representation to avoid AI hallucinations. The duty to the court is the lawyer’s, whatever tools are used.”
We are tired of dealing with this issue. Hallucinations aside, the irresponsible use of AI has created more paperwork for us to go through. We are now consistently dealing with submissions that are over 100 pages.”
Use AI, or don’t?
Proceed with caution.
Why is legal research the most dangerous place for AI?
When you are doing the research yourself, you carry the whole file in your head.
AI carries one thing: the sentence you typed.
It doesn’t know your client, your case or what matters.
Deepfakes are only the start
Expert report
Transcript
Invoice
Image
Each of these has been filed in a Canadian lawsuit, without prior disclosure of AI use.
AI is a very powerful tool.
Whether it helps you or hurts you is up to you.
TMZTom Macintosh Zheng
Tom Macintosh Zheng is the co-founder of Courtready.ca, which builds practical tools for Canadians who litigate and conducts original research on access to justice issues in Canada. Since its launch in July 2025, more than 22,000 Canadians and over 40 law firms have used its tools.
Tom’s research on the rise of AI-generated case law in Canadian courts and tribunals, available on Courtready.ca, has been cited by Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED), the Court of Appeal of Quebec, Ontario’s Law Society Tribunal, The Economist, CBC News, Global News, CTV News, and the Toronto Star.
Tom is this year’s recipient of the Ontario Bar Association’s OBA Foundation Award, which recognizes exceptional contributions to the improvement of the justice system.