The Supreme Court of Victoria Says Content Produced Using AI Must Be Verified With Meaningful Human Control

The Supreme Court of Victoria issued Practice Note SC Gen 25, "The Use of Artificial Intelligence by Court Users," on May 14, 2026, and it commenced the same day. It applies to all court users, a term it defines to include lawyers, litigants, whether represented or not, and lay and expert witnesses. It replaced the court's guidelines for litigants of May 2024. Parts of the note follow, not the whole.

What It Asks of Every Court User

"Court users can utilise AI in the preparation of Court documents if they comply with this Practice Note." And the note says, "Court users are responsible for the content of their Court documents. This is the case whether or not a Court user has utilised AI."

Whether or not.

Court users "must be careful that their use of AI does not directly or indirectly mislead another participant in the litigation process or the Court about the nature of any work undertaken or the content produced by that AI tool." And the note warns that filing a court document which contains inaccuracies "could result in costs orders."

It lists what AI-generated content for court documents may be: out of date, because a model may only have been trained on data to a certain point in time; incomplete, because a tool may not address every argument a party is required to make or every issue in its interests, and its summaries may not contain all relevant points; inaccurate or incorrect, and the note adds that "in some situations, Court users have been adversely affected by placing reliance on made-up cases, legislation or incorrect legal propositions"; and inapplicable to the jurisdiction, because the data used to train the underlying model might be drawn from other jurisdictions with different substantive laws and procedural requirements.

Lawyers, Privacy and Evidence

Lawyers, the note says, have professional duties to act with competence and diligence, and to provide independent advice, which means that "irrespective of the AI tools used, lawyers must exercise oversight and verify the accuracy and suitability of the information provided by any AI system." Lawyers who "rely on unverified AI outputs in Court documents," it says, "may be referred to the Victorian Legal Services Board and Commissioner and may be subject to personal costs orders."

On public AI tools, court users "should not enter any information which is confidential or sensitive (including information subject to a non-publication or suppression order)," and lawyers must comply with their obligations to maintain client confidentiality. For closed tools, a court user putting in private, confidential or sensitive information needs to exercise caution and satisfy themselves, by reviewing the contractual terms or the privacy and confidentiality settings, that the information will be kept within a secure environment.

On evidence, "Particular caution must be exercised if GenAI tools are used to assist in the preparation of affidavit materials, witness statements or other documents which form the evidence or potential evidence of a witness." And the relevant court user "must ensure that Court documents are sworn/affirmed or finalised in a form that reflects that person's own knowledge and words."

The Verification Requirement

In its section on verification, the note says, "Content produced using AI must be verified with meaningful human control."

Court users are responsible for ensuring that content produced by AI is "current, complete, accurate and applicable to the jurisdiction." Where generative AI has been used for material submitted to the court, they should fact-check and proofread it, edit and adapt it to the situation, and verify that any references to case law, legislation, textbooks or articles "exist and stand for the legal positions attributed to them." Extracts and quotes "must be verified as accurate and attributed to the correct source," checked against a source known to have accurate content.

Asking an AI tool to confirm that the materials exist, or contain what generative AI says they do, is "not sufficient verification." In the note's words, "One AI tool cannot be used to confirm the content generated by another AI tool." However, court users "may verify GenAI content by referring to original source material housed within a GenAI tool."

The court may direct court users to provide further information about documents they produced with the assistance of AI. And "Court users must be prepared to identify the specific portions of Court documents which were produced using AI and be able to explain how the output was verified."