Lady Chief Justice warns of growing pressures from litigants using AI in Administrative Court

Baroness Carr of Walton-on-the-Hill said in her annual report for 2026 that both the King's Bench Division Civil List and the Administrative Court had seen growing numbers of litigants in person using AI to construct their claims, with courts often requiring additional case management to establish what remedy the LiPs were seeking.

Carr meanwhile reported a rising caseload across civil courts, but said that the median time between issue and trial continues to fall. "This is a welcome improvement in timeliness that builds on the work of recent years, including a sustained focus on digitalisation," she said.

Family courts, for both public and private law cases, as well as the Court of Protection and the Financial Remedies Court, are all seeing the number of applications increase but, as in the civil courts, this is accompanied by a welcome reduction in time for resolution, her report added.

Commenting more broadly on AI, the Lady Chief justice said the courts are considering carefully the technology's potential uses and dangers.

She added: "While improving access to justice, this also brings its own complexities, but the judiciary is responding proactively with, for example, the Court of Appeal Criminal Division’s guidance for litigants on the use of AI when preparing grounds of appeal. More broadly, while we recognise the potential for AI tools – such as those used for transcription and summarisation – to reduce court backlogs and improve timeliness, the judiciary stands firm that oversight of use and decision-making will remain a human, judge-led function."

The increase in receipts into the Planning Court observed from 2024 to 2025, rising from 369 to 404 is also expected to continue and has resulted in a substantial rise in the live caseload of other planning cases, the report said.

Elsewhere, the report noted that the number of civil claims received in the County Courts has also trended upwards, with 571,250 claims being submitted from April to June 2026, up 11% compared to the same period in 2025.

This increase was driven mostly by money claims, which increased to 495,000 claims between April and June 2026 (up 13% compared to April to June 2025). Compared to April-June 2025, damages claims for April to June 2026 decreased by 4% to 26,000, driven by falls in personal damages and other damage claims.

The Lady Chief Justice meanwhile hailed a number of changes as positive moves, including the consolidation in October 2026 of the Business and Property Courts into a single division – the Business and Property Division.

Adam Carey