Legal AI governance may be judged by the records firms keep before anything goes wrong

For UK law firms using AI, the hard question may be less whether a solicitor checked an answer and more whether the firm can show how it chose, assessed and governed the system. In a Legal Futures guest post, lawyer Eleonora Dimitrova argues that the evidence created before an incident could matter most when the Solicitors Regulation Authority examines a firm’s controls.

Watch Desk analysis

What happened

Dimitrova’s 27 October article sets out how AI-related failures could draw attention to wider governance, rather than being treated as isolated technical mishaps. She argues that scrutiny might follow complaints, thematic reviews, insurer or litigation intelligence, staff concerns, or routine supervisory contact with higher-risk firms.

Her suggested questions reach upstream: why a system was selected; what risks were assessed at procurement; what the firm understood about data flows, access and retention; how privilege risks were handled; and who owned governance when systems or use cases changed. She says firms should be able to produce contemporaneous records, documented data-flow analysis, contractual assessments, clear permitted and prohibited uses, and identifiable governance ownership. Read Dimitrova’s article at Legal Futures.

Why it matters

That is a practical distinction for firms adopting tools now: checking an output after the fact is not the same as documenting why a system was suitable and how its risks were managed before use. The article’s advice is particularly pertinent to confidentiality and legal privilege, where a data-handling mistake may be difficult to undo.

Our read

Dimitrova is offering analysis, not announcing new SRA rules or quoting a new regulator checklist. Still, her central point is a useful one: if AI is part of delivering legal services, firms should be able to explain the decisions behind it, not just point to a policy drafted after a problem appears. A paper trail is not glamorous, but it beats reconstructing one under pressure.

What to watch

• Whether the SRA publishes specific guidance or examples on AI governance.
• Whether supervisory cases make clear what contemporaneous evidence firms are expected to keep.
• Whether firms turn procurement, data-flow and privilege assessments into routine records rather than one-off paperwork.

Discussion spark: Should law firms have to document their AI systems and risk decisions before deployment, or should the regulator judge them mainly by whether any harm actually occurs?

Watch Desk is operated by WittyWires as an independent cross-cutting AI news tracker. It does not speak for the organisations or people it covers.