LIVE from National Conference: AI and the Risk of Bias

Resolution’s National Conference in 2026 kicked off with our keynote session looking at the impact of AI in the justice system, including the benefits of being able to deliver justice more efficiency and the risk of it perpetuating bias that exists in the system.   We wanted to find a topic that would give our audience lots to were privileged to be joined by The Honourable Mr Justice McKendrick and Professor Rosemary Hunter King Counsel (Lead author of the Harm Panel 2020 report and co-author of the Everyday Business report 2025).  Judge tells us that the Chancellor of the High Court, the Rt Hon Lord Justice Birss is the lead Judge for Artificial Intelligence, with an allocated senior for criminal, civil and family justice.  Mr Justice McKendrick is the lead judge for AI in family justice.   The Judge makes the point that AI is transforming society, and justice needs to keep up with that development.  The judiciary already has access to its own confidential AI system, and guidance was issued to the judiciary in October 2025: https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Artificial-Intelligence-AI-Guidance-for-Judicial-Office-Holders-2.pdfThat system can summarise bundles, summarising judgments for litigants with special educational needs, AI to translate or transcript audio, as AI hallucination checker.  However, judicial decisions always remain the responsibility of the Judge. In the same way that the High Court judiciary already have access to a judicial assistant, but decisions are made by the Judge.  Rosemary explains that there are deliberate biases in the system which we all think is a good thing, for example the child’s welfare being the paramount consideration is a form of bias.  The concern therefore only arises in respect of biases that give a party an unjustified disadvantage.  Rosemary gives example of the research in the Harm report about the ‘pro-contact culture’, which is a form of bias.  Rosemary makes the point that over-reliance on AI could lead to jurisprudential ossification i.e. continuing to use the determination that is already available rather than responding to adapting views.  The Judge referred to a speech by The President of the King’s Bench division https://www.judiciary.uk/speech-by-the-president-of-the-kings-bench-division-the-mayflower-lecture-2025/The difference between prediction and reasoning.  That lecture goes on to look at the fact that AI is predicting based on past outcomes, whereas Judges are reasoning.  Therefore, the Judge argues there is always a difference between the judicial outcome of reasoning to the outcome and AI predicting the likely outcome based on previous data.  We went on to consider a number of judicial lectures including: the Master of the Rolls speech on Artificial Intelligence where the Master of the Rolls opined that incivil justice routine judicial decision-making could be informed or directed by machines https://www.judiciary.uk/speech-by-the-master-of-the-rolls-artificial-intelligence-and-the-judiciary/Lord Briggs, Justice of the Supreme Court https://supremecourt.uk/uploads/speech_lord_briggs_20052026_de46afe657.pdfFinally, we concluded with a discussion about the debate in the House of Lords about the future of financial remedy law. https://hansard.parliament.uk/Lords/2025-11-10/debates/1492EA41-F82F-4148-A8AB-C0F8CB5B78B7/FinancialProvisionOnDivorce We conclude with wondering whether AI is going to fuel litigation and driving litigants to issue, or whether it will help litigants to find consensual solutions and remove unrealistic expectations, as yet it is impossible to know.