SingaporeProfessional services2025DL Law Corporation
Generative AI used in legal research for court submissions
A Singapore High Court registrar ordered a lawyer at DL Law Corporation to pay S$800 personally after an AI-generated case that did not exist appeared in submissions
Problem
Lawyers for the claimants needed authority for a point under the Moneylenders Act in written submissions filed on 1 June 2025. The firm's junior lawyer used an AI app for the research.
Approach
The submissions cited a case that did not exist. Opposing counsel could not find it on 18 July 2025. The claimants' counsel then filed amended submissions without leave and called the error clerical. He admitted at the hearing that the junior had run the point through an AI app and that the case was a placeholder. On 29 September 2025 the court issued grounds finding the conduct improper, unreasonable and negligent, and ordered a personal costs payment of S$800 to the defendant.
Results
Takeaway
The court treated an unverified citation as the lawyer's responsibility whether or not AI produced it. The sum was small, but the ruling named the firm's counsel in a published judgment.
Categories
- Size
- Small business
- Industry
- Professional services
- Business function
- Internal work and knowledge managementFinance, risk and legal
- Innovation type
- Process innovation
- AI technology
- Generative AI
- Adoption
- Off-the-shelf tool or platform
- Evidence
- Regulator, audit or court
Sources
Source summaries
Grounds of decision by an Assistant Registrar of the High Court. It records the fictitious authority in the claimants' submissions of 1 June 2025, the timeline in July 2025, and counsel's admission that a junior lawyer had run the research through an AI app. It orders counsel to pay S$800 personally to the defendant.
Full details are in the original sources.
