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SDT strikes solicitor Abhishek Kumar off the Register of Foreign Lawyers after AI-generated false citations in his SRA defence

On 25 August 2026 the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal struck Abhishek Kumar off the Register of Foreign Lawyers after finding proved that his 12 March 2026 Answer to the SRA's Rule 12 Statement contained misleading quotations and citations produced with generative AI — including a non-existent 'SRA v Chan [2020] EWHC 1502' and a miscited 'SRA v James, MacGregor & Naylor [2018] EWCA Civ 1420' that is actually an intellectual-property case — and that his 9 April 2026 email admitting AI use was itself AI-drafted with further errors. The tribunal said it would have struck him off on that allegation alone; the parallel ground was his January 2024 conviction under s.21 of the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006. This is the SDT's first case on a lawyer's use of AI, per the SRA's counsel.

AI System

Generative AI (tool not named in inspected accounts)

Unknown

Occurred

12 Mar 2026 to 25 Aug 2026

Reported

4 September 2026

Event location

United Kingdom

Platform

other

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: supported. Tribunal-found: the 12 March 2026 Answer's misleading quotations and citations were produced with generative AI, and the 9 April 2026 email admitting AI use was itself AI-drafted with further errors (accepted 13 April). The specific tool is not named in the inspected accounts.

AI-to-person relation

  • Communicated with the person

Core relations are communication, acting on someone’s behalf, and depiction or impersonation. Decision and claim relations are retained as contextual cases.

Their own AI use. Settings: Work, Justice.

Claim status: Documented

Allegation 2.1 was found proved: Kumar's 12 March 2026 Answer to the SRA's Rule 12 Statement contained misleading quotations and citations produced with generative AI, including the non-existent 'SRA v Chan [2020] EWHC 1502', the miscited 'SRA v James, MacGregor & Naylor [2018] EWCA Civ 1420' (in reality an IP case) and a misattributed Baxendale-Walker passage.

Causal attribution: Directly established by the tribunal's written judgment; trade press accounts are consistent.

  • Tribunal judgment (supports): SDT judgment, Allegation 2.1 findings and the schedule of false/miscited authorities.
  • Trade press (context): RollOnFriday's listing of the bogus citations.

Claim status: Documented

Allegation 2.2 was found proved: his 9 April 2026 email admitting AI use was itself AI-drafted and contained further errors, which he accepted on 13 April 2026.

Causal attribution: Directly established by the tribunal's written judgment.

  • Tribunal judgment (supports): SDT judgment, Allegation 2.2 findings and the 13 April acceptance.

Claim status: Documented

On 25 August 2026 the SDT struck Kumar off the Register of Foreign Lawyers with culpability 'very high', stating it would have struck him off on either allegation alone; the tribunal invoked Ayinde v Haringey LBC [2025] EWHC 1383 (Admin).

Causal attribution: Directly established by the tribunal's written judgment; the 'first AI case' framing comes from the SRA's counsel and is attributed.

  • Tribunal judgment (supports): SDT judgment, sanction and reasoning passages.
  • Counsel case note (context): Outer Temple's case note confirming the outcome and the 'first SDT case on a lawyer's use of AI' framing.

Claim status: Documented

The parallel ground was his 29 January 2024 conviction under s.21 of the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006 — recorded by the judgment as at the Central Criminal Court (RollOnFriday says Isleworth Crown Court, a discrepancy) — sentenced on 26 April 2024 to a 12-month community order with 150 hours' unpaid work.

Causal attribution: The conviction ground is established by the judgment; the convicting-court discrepancy across outlets is preserved.

  • Tribunal judgment (supports): SDT judgment, conviction allegation and sentence passages.
  • Trade press (contradicts): RollOnFriday's Isleworth Crown Court reference (recorded as a discrepancy; the judgment controls).

What remains unknown

  • The specific generative AI tool is not named in the inspected accounts.
  • The convicting court appears as the Central Criminal Court in the judgment and Isleworth Crown Court in RollOnFriday; the judgment controls but the discrepancy is unresolved in the inspected material.
  • Whether Kumar seeks to appeal the strike-off is not reported.
  • His employment status after the strike-off is not reported; the Law Gazette's employment background predates it.
Source reading, translation and location

Tribunal judgment · en · Source inspected

Judgment PDF read on 2026-09-15 (25 Aug 2026): allegations, findings, sanction, panel, and the Ayinde v Haringey invocation.

Trade press · en · Source inspected

Read in English on 2026-09-15 (4 Sep 2026).

Trade press · en · Source inspected

Read in English on 2026-09-15 (4 Sep 2026, Hyde).

Trade press · en · Source inspected

Read in English on 2026-09-15 (11 Sep 2026). Colour and the specific bogus citations; its 'AI addiction' framing is editorial joking, not a finding.

Counsel case note · en · Source inspected

Read in English on 2026-09-15 (8 Sep 2026). SRA counsel's chambers' note: case number, dates, judgment link, and the 'first SDT case on a lawyer's use of AI' framing; participant-side account, recorded as such.

Event countries: United Kingdom. Affected-person countries: United Kingdom. Court countries: United Kingdom.

Events: his practice and the SRA proceedings in England. Affected person: Kumar, on the Register of Foreign Lawyers in England and Wales. Court: the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal; the parallel conviction was at the Central Criminal Court (per the judgment; RollOnFriday's Isleworth Crown Court is a recorded discrepancy).

Reviewed for publication 2026-09-15: Published under the 2026-09-15 charter as an own-use, work-context adverse consequence with tribunal-found AI misconduct and a dated, career-ending sanction. This applies the charter's individual-review rule to the AI-sanction class; a class-level ruling is not required. Kumar is named in a public tribunal judgment; the parallel conviction ground is recorded for completeness and is not used to inflate the AI link. RollOnFriday's 'AI addiction' framing is recorded as editorial joking.

What Happened

SRA Ltd v Abhishek Kumar, SDT Case No. 12884-2026: hearing 29 July 2026 (panel P Lewis (chair), H Hasan, D Kearney; Joshua Hitchens of Outer Temple for the SRA; Kumar self-represented), judgment 25 August 2026. Kumar, born February 1985, had been on the Register of Foreign Lawyers since 6 December 2018 (SRA ID 655594). Allegation 2.1: his 12 March 2026 Answer to the Rule 12 Statement contained misleading quotations and citations from generative AI — the tribunal identified the invented 'SRA v Chan [2020] EWHC 1502', the miscitation of 'SRA v James, MacGregor & Naylor [2018] EWCA Civ 1420' (in reality an IP case) and a misattributed Baxendale-Walker passage. Allegation 2.2: his 9 April 2026 email admitting AI use was itself AI-drafted and contained further errors (he accepted this on 13 April). Both allegations were found proved, with culpability 'very high'; the tribunal said it would have struck him off on either allegation alone, the other being his 29 January 2024 conviction (the judgment records the Central Criminal Court; RollOnFriday says Isleworth Crown Court — the judgment controls) under s.21 of the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006, sentenced on 26 April 2024 to a 12-month community order with 150 hours' unpaid work. The tribunal invoked Ayinde v Haringey LBC [2025] EWHC 1383 (Admin), the Divisional Court's guidance on AI-generated false citations. RollOnFriday covered it on 11 September 2026 as the 'first lawyer struck off for AI addiction' — the outlet's joke, not a finding. The specific generative AI tool is not named in the inspected accounts.

Reported harm

Career-ending professional consequence for the lawyer who submitted AI-generated false citations in his own disciplinary defence: struck off the Register of Foreign Lawyers on 25 August 2026, with culpability rated 'very high'.

Professional HarmLegal Harm

How Harm Occurred

A self-represented lawyer used generative AI to draft his disciplinary defence; the model produced false and miscited authorities (and an AI-drafted admission email with further errors), and the tribunal's findings ended his registration.

Outcome

Resolved

SDT judgment 25 August 2026 (Case No. 12884-2026): Allegations 2.1 and 2.2 proved; culpability 'very high'; struck off the Register of Foreign Lawyers; the tribunal would have struck him off on either the AI-citation allegation or the conviction allegation alone.

People described

Abhishek Kumar, former Registered Foreign Lawyer (the AI user, struck off); no client harm is reported in the inspected sources

People reported harmed in this case

1 person

1 AI participant · 0 other people harmed

One documented harmed person: Kumar himself, the AI user struck off (SDT judgment). No client or third-party harm is reported in the inspected sources and none is counted.

Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.

Tags

#work#justice#legal-profession#strike-off#fabricated-citations#sdt#own-use#uk

Cite this case

Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.

APA

NOPE. (2026). SDT strikes solicitor Abhishek Kumar off the Register of Foreign Lawyers after AI-generated false citations in his SRA defence. NOPE: AI and people. https://nope.net/incidents/2026-kumar-sdt-strike-off-ai-citations

BibTeX

@misc{2026_kumar_sdt_strike_off_ai_citations,
  title = {SDT strikes solicitor Abhishek Kumar off the Register of Foreign Lawyers after AI-generated false citations in his SRA defence},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {NOPE: AI and people},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2026-kumar-sdt-strike-off-ai-citations}
}

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