Legal AI citations: checking that a case or statute exists

Checking a citation against a primary source for the relevant jurisdiction is more reliable than asking the tool to verify itself. The England and Wales Administrative Court guide addresses legal representatives and litigants in person (or those assisting them) using AI to draft judicial-review documents and calls for reasonable care over citations, legal propositions and facts. Separately, the New Zealand courts’ guidance for non-lawyers warns that chatbots may invent cases, citations, quotes or legislation. This article applies each passage only to its stated jurisdiction and audience; the excerpts do not assess any named AI product.

Why an existence check fails in the first place

The New Zealand guidance lists the failure modes directly. A generative AI chatbot may produce inaccurate, incomplete or out-of-date information, and that information may be based on overseas law that does not apply in New Zealand. It may invent cases, citations and quotes, or point to legislation, articles or legal texts that do not exist. It may get facts wrong, and it may confirm that information is true when asked, even when it is not.

The part that defeats casual checking is the last one in that list: fabricated material can look as though it has been taken from a real source, even when it has not. A citation that is well formed, in the right style, with a plausible year and court, tells you nothing about whether the decision was ever reported.

The England and Wales guide puts the same point in one clause: those using AI tools are reminded that AI chatbots may well be prone to error.

What England and Wales expects in judicial review documents

Paragraph 2.3.1 of the 2026 England and Wales Administrative Court guide addresses legal representatives and litigants in person (or those assisting them) when they use AI tools to draft documents in judicial-review proceedings, including pleadings, witness statements and skeleton arguments.

Reasonable care is required in particular over three things:

• the accuracy of any citations to legal authorities;
• the accuracy of any statement of legal propositions or principles said to be derived from those authorities;
• factual matters.

The second item is the one that is easy to drop. A citation can resolve to a real judgment while the proposition attributed to it is not in the judgment. Verifying that the case exists is a separate step from verifying that it supports the sentence you have written.

What happens when the check is skipped

Paragraph 2.3.2 says that failure to take reasonable care with the use of AI tools may result in:

• costs sanctions;
• the striking out of a case;
• referral to a professional regulator;
• the initiation of contempt proceedings;
• referral to the police.

The authority given for that list is R (Ayinde) v The London Borough of Haringey [2025] EWHC 1383 (Admin). Paragraph 2.3.3 adds a separate, procedural point: people using AI tools in judicial review remain subject to page limits for documents produced for the Court, and should not include irrelevant materials. An unverified bundle of authorities is a page-limit problem as well as an accuracy problem.

Where the check is actually done in England and Wales

The guide does not leave you to guess at primary sources. Paragraph 1.1.5 states that references to UK legislation can be viewed at www.legislation.gov.uk, references to case law at caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk, and British and Irish case law and legislation at www.bailii.org. Civil Procedure Rules references sit at www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/rules. The electronic version of the guide itself is published at www.judiciary.uk/courts-and-tribunals/high-court/administrative-court/.

Two limits on the guide matter when you rely on it. It must be read with the CPR and the supporting Practice Directions, and litigants and advisers must acquaint themselves with those rules. It also has no force of law; it is described, in a quotation from R (DVP) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] EWHC 606 (Admin), as essential reading for all those who practice in the Administrative Court, and R (AB) v Chief Constable of Hampshire Constabulary [2019] EWHC 3461 (Admin) is cited for the proposition that those engaged in proceedings should have regard to it. Where a point is relevant, parties should draw the Court's attention to the particular rule or case, and not merely rely on the guide.

One more condition: the guide's contents, including websites, email addresses, telephone numbers and addresses, are correct at the time of publication, and it will be updated from time to time.

What New Zealand tells self-represented users

The New Zealand guidance is written for non-lawyers — self-represented litigants, McKenzie friends and lay advocates who represent themselves or others — and applies to the courts and tribunals listed on page 6 of that document.

Its framing is different from the England and Wales guide because the audience is different. GenAI chatbots are not a substitute for a qualified lawyer and cannot give tailored legal advice; unlike chatbots, lawyers have professional obligations and must uphold ethical standards to clients and to courts and tribunals. Within that New Zealand court-and-tribunal setting, non-lawyers should not rely on a chatbot as their sole or main source of legal information.

Users remain responsible for ensuring that all information they provide to the court or tribunal is accurate, and must check the accuracy of anything they get from a GenAI chatbot before using it in proceedings. Where possible, legal information from a chatbot should be checked with a lawyer. Free legal resources are signposted on the Ministry of Justice, Citizens Advice Bureau, Community Law and New Zealand Law Society websites.

Where this guidance stops

The England and Wales excerpt addresses AI-assisted drafting in Administrative Court judicial-review proceedings; the New Zealand excerpts address non-lawyers in the courts and tribunals listed by that guidance. This article does not transfer either passage to another court or jurisdiction, evaluate a named AI product, or provide primary sources for other jurisdictions.

The England and Wales guide is also explicitly procedural. It explains the practice and procedure of the Administrative Court in judicial review; it is not intended to address the substance of administrative law or public law generally, and for that it refers readers to academic and practitioner texts.

A working check, in order

The steps below are a practical check drawn from the two scoped documents; they are not a universal court procedure.

1. Copy the citation exactly as the tool produced it, including year, court and paragraph number.
2. Look the case up on the official case law source for that jurisdiction.
3. If it does not appear, treat it as unverified and remove it from the document.
4. Open the judgment and read the paragraph you intend to rely on.
5. Confirm that the paragraph supports the proposition you have written.
6. Look up each statute on the official legislation source and read the provision itself.
7. Check the CPR and any relevant Practice Direction where the point turns on procedure.
8. Check factual assertions against their source, not against the tool's summary.
9. Record the source and the date you checked it.
10. Cut anything that does not support the argument, and stay within the page limit.

Step 9 is worth keeping even when everything checks out. Passage text, legislation versions and reported citations all move, and a dated record is the difference between a check you performed and a check you remember performing.

Sources

• The Administrative Court Judicial Review Guide 2026, Courts and Tribunals Judiciary of England and Wales
• Generative artificial intelligence in courts and tribunals: Non-lawyers, Courts of New Zealand