Lawyers and algorithms: the Court of Cassation introduces a disclosure obligation for artificial intelligence 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of the hottest topics in the world today when it comes to tools that help people perform a wide range of tasks in a variety of careers - including law, where AI is already being used to analyse documents or generate text, but is still buggy and inaccurate enough to work without human supervision.

The Supreme Court of Lithuania (SCL) has recently announced an important innovation: in cassation appeals in criminal cases, it is mandatory to disclose if generative artificial intelligence was used to prepare the document.

The Court's guidelines state that where a cassation appeal or a part of a cassation appeal submitted to the Court of Cassation has been prepared by means of generative artificial intelligence tools, such fact should be disclosed at the beginning or at the end of the document by stating that the cassation appeal or part of a cassation appeal submitted to the Court of Cassation has been prepared by means of generative artificial intelligence and that its content has been carefully checked by the person who prepared or submitted the cassation appeal.

This suggests that lawyers are striving to keep pace with technological progress by recognising the value of IoT for drafting documents, but that the tool has not yet lived up to expectations due to the errors it makes. Lawyers will therefore have to wait for the flawless assistance of the IoT in their work, especially as mistakes in law can be very costly.

Will legal professionals even be needed once the 'infallible' DI is in place?

Here I would like to mention one idea from case law: the modern concept of law is based on a clear distinction between law and a statute or other legal act, recognising law as more fundamental than a statute or other legal act. The mere formal application of the provisions of laws and regulations can lead to a legal decision, which may not always be correct, and therefore it is not just any legality that must be recognised, but only the legality of justice. In a case where it is clear from the facts of the case and from generally accepted principles of law that the solution to a particular social conflict will be formal but unjust, it is necessary to give priority to the general concept of law.

Law and justice is therefore not just a formal process of applying the law, but a pursuit of justice, for which formal and dry legal arguments are not enough if they conflict with a sense of justice.

Dainius Antanaitis, Attorney at Law of the Law Firm AVOCAD