The UK government is considering whether temporary regulatory exemptions could accelerate autonomous technology. The proposed AI Growth Lab would act as a cross-economy sandbox, allowing selected firms to operate outside certain rules for a limited period.
The Law Society does not accept the premise that old regulation is the central barrier in legal services. Two-thirds of lawyers already use AI tools, and the professional body argues that the existing framework can support further innovation. The problem is uncertainty about how familiar duties apply when software generates, recommends, or acts.
That distinction matters. Removing a rule and explaining it produce very different forms of confidence. Legal firms need enough certainty to innovate without discovering after deployment that an experiment compromised client confidentiality or professional responsibility.
Lawyers Need Answers About Data, Supervision, and Liability
Solicitors handle confidential information that cannot be placed casually into external AI systems. Firms need clear guidance on whether client data must be anonymised, where it may be stored, how providers use prompts, and what security evidence is required.
Responsibility becomes harder when output causes harm. Is the solicitor accountable for relying on incorrect advice, does liability sit with the firm that approved the system, or can responsibility move toward the developer and insurer? Existing professional duties still apply, but ambiguity about their practical interpretation discourages deeper integration.
Supervision is another unresolved area. A lawyer may use AI to summarise a document, prepare research, or automate part of a workflow. Firms need to know when a human must review every result and when risk-based sampling is acceptable. Reserved activities such as court representation, conveyancing, and probate make that boundary especially important.
Economic Ambition Does Not Remove Consumer Risk
Ministers estimate that faster AI adoption could add £140 billion to national output by 2030 and identify legal services as a sector where removing unnecessary barriers may create substantial value. The Law Society supports innovation but warns against treating client protections as obsolete friction.
Professional regulation underpins trust in the legal system. A time-limited exemption may still expose a person to lasting consequences if an automated process mishandles a property transaction, court matter, or estate. Speed should therefore be tested against clearly defined safeguards, not measured only by the number of products reaching market.
The government says its sandbox would retain red lines for fundamental rights and safety. The important design question is whether those boundaries include enforceable accountability, transparent participation, and remedies for people affected by experimental systems.
A Legal Sandbox Should Clarify Practice Rather Than Bypass It
The Law Society is open to a legal-services sandbox if professional standards remain intact. Such an environment could help regulators and firms examine specific uses, publish interpretations, and build shared protocols for security, storage, supervision, and recordkeeping.
Parliamentary oversight is essential when changes affect protections established through legislation. A sandbox should not become a private route around duties that apply to other practitioners. Results need to produce guidance the wider profession can use, rather than advantages reserved for participating companies.
Clarity can itself be an innovation policy. Standard expectations reduce duplicated legal analysis, help insurers price risk, and allow vendors to design products that meet professional requirements from the beginning. Firms can invest when they understand the conditions of acceptable use.
Practical guidance must also evolve as systems change. A fixed list of approved tools will age quickly, while principles tied to confidentiality, competence, supervision, recordkeeping, and remedies can be applied to new capabilities. Regulators can pair those principles with examples that show how compliance looks in common workflows.
The Law Society’s position is not that AI needs no governance. It is that the UK already has a foundation and should make it operational for the technology. Legal innovation will move faster when lawyers know where responsibility sits—not when responsibility is temporarily removed.
