Gregory Baker, a computing academic at Macquarie University, won his unfair dismissal dispute at the Fair Work Commission last week using a team of paid AI agents instead of a lawyer. The tribunal ruled Baker should be treated as an ongoing part-time employee after the university declined his request to convert from casual work. It was the first test of Labor's "employee choice pathway" reforms passed in 2024.
Baker represented himself at the tribunal and said he used multiple paid AI tools, including OpenAI's ChatGPT Pro, to assemble his case, follow up references, and anticipate his employer's counterarguments. The Australian Financial Review described it as the first known successful use of technology by a self-represented person in the legal arena.
But the case is less a sign that AI can replace lawyers and more a demonstration of what a highly skilled user can achieve with the right tools, according to the original report. Baker's IT background and ability to optimise AI agents gave him a rare level of expertise in using the technology for legal purposes.
Why this case was different
Several factors set Baker's win apart from typical self-represented cases. His dispute was narrow, focused on teaching he'd done in one specific unit at the university. He kept his legal argument tightly scoped, avoiding the "kitchen sink"-style claims that often overwhelm tribunals when less experienced litigants use AI.
The Fair Work Commission is also designed to be user-friendly, allowing workers to bring claims without a lawyer. Baker's case involved a casual conversion law that had not yet been tested, which kept the legal question contained.
The downside of AI in legal proceedings
Elsewhere, generative AI in legal cases is attracting attention for less positive reasons. Inaccuracies, hallucinations, and "AI slop" are creating new problems for courts and tribunals. While AI has removed traditional access barriers for some litigants, case numbers are rising while case precision and quality are declining.
The Fair Work Commission's workload has reportedly increased by 70% over three years. Some overseas jurisdictions are also seeing litigants embed prompts in digital documents - a technique called "prompt injection" - to manipulate AI-based review systems that courts use to process documents.
Access to justice opportunity
Baker's case shows that AI tools can help people with narrow legal disputes and digital skills achieve successful resolutions at low cost. That matters in Australia, where there is a significant gap between the number of people with legal problems and the funding available for legal assistance.
Most of the community falls into what's called the "missing middle" - people who can't afford private legal help but earn too much to qualify for free legal aid. AI tools stand a good chance of helping those with sufficient legal capability, particularly for cases that fit what AI can offer. For legal professionals, understanding how to work alongside these tools is becoming a practical skill, and resources like the AI for Legal tag track these developments. Paralegals in particular can benefit from structured training on how to apply AI in case preparation and document review through the AI Learning Path for Paralegals.
Why this matters for legal professionals
Self-represented litigants using AI will become more common, and their cases will increasingly test how courts manage volume without sacrificing justice. Legal professionals who understand how AI tools work - including their failure modes like hallucination and prompt injection - will be better positioned to respond to opposing parties who use them, and to advise clients on when AI-assisted self-representation might actually be viable.
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