The SRA has authorised Garfield.Law Ltd, subject to safeguards for clients and professional standards
AI-driven law firm Garfield.Law Ltd has become the first purely AI-based firm authorised by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) to provide regulated legal services in England and Wales.
The SRA said the firm uses an AI-powered litigation assistant to help small and medium-sized businesses, as well as law firms and other firms, recover unpaid debts. Its service guides users through the small claims court process up to trial.
The regulator said it is encouraging new approaches because of the potential benefits to consumers. It said AI-driven legal services could provide legal services that are better, quicker and more affordable, while stressing that appropriate safeguards must be in place so consumer protections are not diluted.
Before authorising Garfield.Law, the SRA worked with the firm’s owners to assess its processes and whether they could meet regulatory requirements when delivering services through AI.
The regulator specifically sought reassurance about quality-checking work, protecting client confidentiality and safeguarding against conflicts of interests. It also examined how the firm would manage the risk of AI hallucinations.
According to the SRA, Garfield’s system will not be able to propose relevant case law, which it identified as a high-risk area for large language model machine learning.
The firm is also not autonomous. The SRA said Garfield will only take a step where the client has approved it, with supervision and monitoring processes in place. During the initial launch phase, there will be greater oversight of claims so that issues or risks can be identified.
For solicitors, the key regulatory consequence is that the use of AI does not remove professional accountability. Under the SRA’s rules, named regulated solicitors remain ultimately accountable for the firm delivering high professional standards.
That accountability extends to system outputs and anything that goes wrong. The SRA also confirmed that regulated law firms must maintain a minimum level of insurance to protect clients.
SRA Chief Executive Paul Philip said the approval represented the first regulatory approval of an AI-based law firm and said responsible use of AI could improve legal services while making them easier to access and more affordable.
He also stressed the importance of maintaining public trust and confidence in regulated legal services. The SRA said the risks associated with an AI-driven law firm are novel and that it had worked closely with Garfield.Law to ensure the firm could meet its rules and appropriate protections were in place.
The regulator said it expects Garfield.Law to be the first of many AI-driven law firms and will monitor the progress of the model closely. Its stated aim is to manage the associated risks while realising potential benefits for consumers.
The SRA also said it has a dedicated team supporting innovation in the legal sector. This includes working with law firms and technology providers to test ideas and develop new ways of working that could benefit the public.
The development marks a regulatory acceptance of an AI-based model for delivering regulated legal services, but the safeguards described by the SRA make clear that responsibility for professional standards remains with regulated solicitors rather than being transferred to the technology itself.