# AI, Technology and the Bar: Readers Session

A one hour in-person presentation for Bar readers on how general-purpose AI tools fit into practice, with live demonstrations and a discussion of professional risk.

- Schedule: 22 Sept 2026 · 4:00 pm to 5:00 pm GMT+10
- Format: In person
- Duration: 1 hour
- Location: Owen Dixon Chambers East, McPhee Room
- Investment: $100 discounted from $200
- CPD: Maybe
- Canonical URL: /training/ai-technology-and-the-bar-readers
- Facilitators: Oliver Tod, Cooper Corbett, Isaac Wong

## Content

## Background
AI promises to save hours of research, draft useful documents in minutes, and even complete long running tasks in the background while you do something else.
The tools are useful but not always intuitive, and learning to get good results out of them takes a deliberate approach + dedicated time. 
Many barristers we speak to who hold a subscription to CoPilot (through BCL), LexisAI or CoCounsel have used it once or twice, then returned to familiar methods. Most have experimented with Claude or ChatGPT in their personal lives.
This session focuses on those general-purpose AI tools: Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini. They are generally more flexible, cheaper, better, and increasingly present in the wider world beyond legal work. To the extent that you plan to use legal-specific platforms, the skills in this session should transfer directly. 
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## How the session works
In this one-hour session, we will present to you on the current state of AI in legal work and demonstrate the tools live on real tasks so you can see what competent use looks like.
1. **How AI tools work**
	What legal work they do reliably, where they go wrong, and why.
2. **Worked examples**
	Email triage, research notes, structuring submissions, chronologies, correspondence, and explaining complex concepts to lay clients.
3. **Building an approach**
	AI works from what you give it. Current notes, organised precedents and a clear way of describing the work gets useful output. Readers can build those habits at the start of practice, which is far easier than retrofitting them later.
4. **Risk**
	Confidentiality, accuracy, professional obligations. Which common concerns are overblown, and what safeguards make sense at the start of practice.
We will stay afterwards for questions.
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## Who this is for
Readers on the current course, at any level of AI experience. No prior use of AI tools is assumed.
Note: we are not associated with the Bar Reader program.