Our School Support team have been supporting our clients with an increase in AI use in parental complaints over the last few years. Increasingly, however, this appears to be moving away from the school’s complaints policy and towards legal proceedings being pursued by the parent.
Parents are increasingly using AI to draft emails, complaints and legal correspondence. While AI can help organise concerns and improve presentation, there is a real risk that parents may place too much reliance on it when considering legal action.
Regarding complaints, this is nothing new for our schools and we have written on it previously. However, recently case law shows that the Courts are getting increasingly unhappy about legal documents produced with AI. Such documents can complicate disputes and significantly increase costs. School leaders should be aware of these risks when dealing with complaints, parental communications and potential litigation.
Why AI appeals to parents
It is easy to see why one might use AI during a dispute with a school. For example, a parent may feel anxious or uncertain about how to set out their concerns. AI tools can quickly generate a letter that a parent may feel turns their concern into a detailed and polished claim. They may even feel more confident if their complaint letter points to statutory references in legal terminology.
At first glance, these letters may appear compelling. However, AI is built to generate plausible text, not to provide actual legal advice. A letter that sounds authoritative may still contain incorrect legal principles, misquoted guidance and invented case references.
AI-generated correspondence is often lengthy and repetitive, which can obscure rather than clarify the real issues. It may make complaints harder for schools to investigate and may also undermine a parent’s position. A clear, focused account of the key facts, concerns and desired outcome, often in the form of a conversation, will usually be more effective, and ultimately in the child’s best interests, than a long AI-produced email.
Court’s Concern Is Growing
The courts are increasingly alert to the dangers of unchecked AI-generated legal materials.
In Hancox v Sutherland and others [2026] EAT 139, the Employment Appeal Tribunal criticised a lengthy AI-generated document, a 300-page argument generated by ChatGPT, that had not been properly reviewed by the appellant. The Tribunal observed quite rightly that such material can make it more difficult to identify and understand the true issues in dispute. It didn’t help that the document was submitted one day before the hearing.
The concern is not simply that AI can produce excessive amounts of text. More importantly, it can produce material that is entirely wrong.
In R (Ayinde) v London Borough of Haringey [2025], the court sent a warning out that AI tools may generate inaccurate or fabricated legal authorities. In Taiwo v Homelets of Bath Limited & Others [2025], the court similarly acknowledged that litigants in person, individuals representing themselves in a court case, may unknowingly rely on unreliable AI-generated content if they fail to check it properly. Although some leeway is correctly given to litigants in person, there is still an important duty on them to thoroughly verify the existence and accuracy of cited authorities.
The message from these authorities is straightforward: parties are responsible for the accuracy of anything they place before a court, whether it was drafted by a lawyer, by the party themselves or by an AI tool.
In addition, using AI to issue claims with no legal basis is not without risk for parents and we have been involved in a number of cases where we have applied to the court strike out the claim and obtained a costs order against the parent which can have significant financial consequences for them.
Identifying Possible Legal Claims
Thankfully most parental concerns will never become court proceedings, but we are seeing this trend continuing and therefore the risks identified by the courts are highly relevant to schools. We have had clients come to us having not realised that they are in the middle of a judicial review. We have also seen instances where clients have underestimated the significance of threatened legal proceedings, leading to avoidable escalation of the matter.
AI-generated complaints can be long, confrontational and inaccurate. However, they may contain information that leads to a court claim so school leaders should be alert to correspondence indicating that a legal claim may be contemplated.
Potential indicators include references to a “Letter Before Claim” or “Pre-Action Protocol”. There may be disclosure requests and allegations of legal liability. A school may even be forwarded draft court orders in word documents by the parents themselves. These can still be Court documents. We would also advise you are on the lookout for correspondence which may include compensation demands or deadlines linked to possible proceedings, specifically 14-day deadlines.
Where these features are present, schools should take advice promptly and notify the RPA / your insurers. Early legal input can help define the issues and shape an appropriate response, with the aim that this is done before proceedings are commenced. If you receive correspondence of this kind, we recommend contacting us at an early stage so we can advise on the most suitable next steps.
A Practical Message
School leaders should not discourage parents from seeking support in expressing their concerns. AI is not problematic in itself if used appropriately. Parents should treat it, at most, as a drafting tool rather than a substitute for careful thought and judgement. The difficulty arises when AI is applied without using judgement or checking the content properly.
Schools should continue to ensure that complaints policies are transparent and accessible. It should be made clear to parents that schools genuinely want to understand concerns and resolve them wherever possible. A conversation at the informal stage is far more effective than a lengthy AI-generated document containing unchecked material.
For both parents and schools, the key point is simple: if AI is used, its output must be checked carefully. Otherwise, it may make matters less clear, not more. It can make the previously straightforward conversation, an irresolvable dispute.