HR Teams Are Drowning in Slop Grievances

Workplace grievances that once fit in a single email are now ballooning into 30-page documents stuffed with irrelevant historical detail, made-up legal precedents, and citations to laws from the wrong country — and UK employment lawyers say generative AI is the likely culprit. Anna Bond, legal director at Lewis Silkin, says the complaints she now sees sometimes cite Canadian legislation or fabricated case law.

Sinead Casey, employment partner at Linklaters, calls such filings “confidently incompetent” — superficially persuasive even to lawyers. The flood of bloated claims is compounding pressure on an already stretched tribunal system: Ministry of Justice figures show new employment cases rose 33% in the three months to September, even as concluded cases fell 10% year over year.

Investor Marc Andreessen, quipping on X: Overheard in Silicon Valley: “Marginal cost of arguing is going to zero.”