"Identical Drafts from Six Young Lawyers. All AI Generated": Dr Lalit Bhasin Warns Legal Training Is Collapsing
Event: India Law, AI and Tech Summit 2025
Date: 29 November 2025
Speaker: Dr Lalit Bhasin, President, Society of Indian Law Firms (SILF)
"Identical drafts from six young lawyers. All AI generated." That was the moment Dr Lalit Bhasin chose to open with-and it landed. The language was clean, but the reasoning was missing. His point: young lawyers are outsourcing thinking, and the profession is paying for it.
Tech convenience hasn't fixed justice delivery
Dr Bhasin acknowledged the gains from e-filing and virtual hearings. But he asked the question that matters: has disposal improved. Pendency has not gone down; it's gone up.
He referenced sharing a stage with a former Chief Justice who celebrated digital gains during the pandemic. "But what about the disposal of cases," he asked. "Justice, social, economic and political, is the soul of our Constitution. Are citizens receiving the justice they deserve."
Official dashboards have shown crores of pending matters in recent years, crossing five crore (about 50 million) cases nationwide. See the National Judicial Data Grid for the scale.
Structural problems, not just court capacity
The core issues, he argued, sit inside the legal framework itself. Too many laws, overlapping laws, outdated laws, and poor drafting. Good for billable disputes, bad for citizens and the economy.
Drawing from six decades in practice, he contrasted today with the 1960s. Courts then did not face today's crush. "Many tribunals do not have space for litigants or lawyers. Only the files have room."
AI: useful tool, terrible substitute
On artificial intelligence, he was blunt. AI can assist research; it cannot apply judgment. "It can be a research tool. It cannot apply mind."
He warned that open-book exams and AI-written answers are dulling first-principles thinking. If juniors skip the hard work of reasoning, training collapses. That failure compounds over years-and shows up in court.
Litigation is stalling. Arbitration hasn't taken off
"Litigation has failed in this country. Arbitration has failed to take off. There are no strong institutions." Large Indian corporates are choosing foreign seats, especially Singapore, for a reason.
His prescription was direct: revive settlement and mediation culture. "Samjhota is the only answer within the framework of our Constitution."
What law firm leaders and GCs can do now
- Set AI-use guardrails: permit research and first-draft ideation; ban AI for final drafting or legal analysis without human reasoning notes appended.
- Rebuild training: weekly drafting drills from bare facts to final notice; partner-level redlining with a rubric focused on issue-spotting and argument quality.
- Mandate "reasoning memos": every submission must attach a one-page logic chain-facts, issues, rules, application, risks. No memo, no filing.
- Mediation-first protocols: for commercial disputes, require a pre-litigation settlement window with decision-makers present and a cost-shifting clause for unreasonable refusal.
- Arbitration hygiene: adopt a standard clause with seat, rules, timelines, fee caps, and case management triggers. Audit panels for quality and availability.
- Case triage: use dashboards to classify matters by value, urgency, and outcome likelihood. Prioritize disposal, not motion practice.
- Campus-to-court pipeline: pair every fresher with a courtroom mentor and a transactions mentor. Measure growth by briefs argued and drafts cleared, not hours logged.
- Legislative feedback: join industry groups to push for consolidation, sunset clauses, and redrafting of chronic pain-point statutes and rules.
If you're adopting AI, skill up without losing the plot
Train teams to use AI for speed while enforcing human-led reasoning and ethics. For structured upskilling across roles, you can review curated options here: AI courses by job.
The takeaway
Technology should serve judgment, not replace it. Dr Bhasin's message is simple: keep AI in the toolbox, keep the brain at the helm, and fix incentives so matters get resolved-on merit, and on time.
Your membership also unlocks:
