Despite his legal qualifications, giving him permission is not in interests of justice, court says
The ACT Supreme Court ruled that a corporate director’s reliance on generative artificial intelligence (genAI) to produce written submissions, including nonexistent legal authority, weighed against accepting his legal qualifications as a factor placing him above a lay person seeking to represent the corporation.
In June 2023, the parties in Geha Enterprises Pty Ltd v Deuteronomy 28 Investments Pty Ltd and Registrar General of the ACT [2026] ACTSC 103, entered into a loan agreement, under which the defendant would secure the loan through a charge over various properties they held.
In October 2024, the parties entered a deed of forbearance, under which the defendant acknowledged a debt of at least $2.1m and the charge over the security properties. The defendant repaid some of its debt.
Before the ACT Supreme Court, in August 2025, the plaintiff obtained orders extending the caveat over six properties owned by the defendant until further court order.
At interlocutory hearings, the defendant’s sole director and shareholder received leave to appear on the defendant’s behalf without legal representation. As a legal practitioner admitted to the ACT Supreme Court in December 2011, he held legal degrees as well as a restricted practising certificate until June 2012.
Under r 30(4) of the Court Procedures Rules 2006 (ACT), the director applied for leave to proceed before the ACT Supreme Court on the defendant’s behalf without a solicitor. He relied on his status as a lawyer, his intimate knowledge of the company and its activities, and his incapacity to pay.
The Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory dismissed the application and ordered the defendant to pay the plaintiff’s costs of and incidental to the application.
The ACT Supreme Court accepted that the submissions of the defendant’s director were initially persuasive. According to the ACT Supreme Court, as the corporation’s “eyes and ears” and a holder of legal qualifications, he likely intimately knew the factual matters of the parties’ dispute.
However, the ACT Supreme Court deemed it inappropriate to grant leave. The ACT Supreme Court held that allowing the director to represent the defendant would not serve the interests of justice or secure or promote convenience, expedition, and efficiency for the following reasons.
First, the ACT Supreme Court pointed to three cases the defendant’s director cited in his written submissions.
The ACT Supreme Court acknowledged that the first case was real. However, the ACT Supreme Court noted that the Victoria Court of Appeal decision was about the exercise of discretion to award security for costs and was thus irrelevant to this application.
The ACT Supreme Court found that the second and third cases were nonexistent and a figment of the imagination of the genAI software, which the defendant’s director conceded he used.
The ACT Supreme Court ruled that the utilisation of genAI assistance to produce written submissions that included nonexistent legal authority highlighted the difficulty arising from the director’s lack of a practising certificate.
According to the ACT Supreme Court, if a legal practitioner holding a practising certificate relied on false authority, they might have faced a disciplinary matter.
Second, the ACT Supreme Court pointed out that this complex case involved interpreting and applying a loan agreement and a deed of forbearance and analyzing any extent of the agreement’s variation by conduct.
Third, the ACT Supreme Court saw no evidence supporting the claim of impecuniosity or financial constraints preventing legal representation. The ACT Supreme Court noted that the company could once secure a line of finance of over $2m and held at least six different landholdings on trust.
