Forget probabilistic guesswork – this London outfit promises auditable, flight-simulator precision for rule-heavy work like immigration. Second tech-led firm to clear the regulator after Garfield.Law, but the first to bet everything on verifiable legal logic rather than clever chatbots.
The UK Solicitors Regulation Authority has just done something quietly revolutionary – it has authorised a law firm that doesn’t want lawyers doing the heavy lifting.
LawFairy Services Limited, the SRA-regulated arm, is now officially open for business as what it claims is the first “technology-only” practice in England and Wales.
The twist? It isn’t built on the probabilistic large language models that have dominated headlines (and occasional court embarrassment). Instead, it runs on a fully deterministic legal decision engine, pre-validated statutory rules, eligibility thresholds and codified tests that deliver the same output for the same inputs every single time, complete with an auditable reasoning trail.
Think certified flight simulator, not creative writing assistant.
As founder Raj Panasar, former partner at Hogan Lovells and Cleary Gottlieb, put it on LinkedIn: “At LawFairy, decisions grounded in law are governed by deterministic legal logic, with language models operating inside that structure rather than driving outcomes themselves.
That’s what makes decisions traceable, explainable and suitable for high-stakes legal use.”
Why Immigration First?
The firm is laser-focused on areas where the law is unforgivingly binary: defined statutory tests, salary thresholds, government job classifications, residence calculations. Immigration is the perfect (and perfectly brutal) proving ground.
“Eligibility often turns on precise criteria,” a LawFairy spokesperson told Global Legal Post. “Small factual differences can change the outcome entirely.”
The platform spits out structured eligibility assessments and fully reasoned “decision-ready” packs that clients, be they individuals, advisers or law firms, whocan actually defend.
For consumers, the promise is clarity at the outset and a dramatic reduction in cost and uncertainty. For law firms, it’s a triage engine: get the mechanical rule-application done deterministically, then hand over a clean, audited file for the nuanced judgment work humans still do best.
Where complexity exceeds the rules-based engine, LawFairy says it will generate a structured case file and refer out, changing how matters arrive at traditional practices rather than trying to replace them.
Not the First Tech-Only Firm
LawFairy is the second SRA-approved tech-led outfit after Kent-based Garfield.Law, which LawFuel covered last year when it became the first AI-driven firm cleared to handle small-claims debt recovery up to £10,000. (Garfield uses generative AI with human oversight; LawFairy deliberately distances itself from that label.)
As one commentator noted to GLP, the underlying idea isn’t new – Professor Richard Susskind was trying to encode rules into computers back in the 1990s. What’s changed is compute power, data quality and, crucially, the regulator’s willingness to look under the bonnet.
Panasar again: “The law contains vast areas governed by precise rules – statutory tests, defined thresholds and fixed eligibility criteria. These do not require discretion. They require disciplined, consistent application. Deterministic technology is designed precisely for that task.”
Authorisation, he argues, proves the model can meet the same regulatory standards as any traditional firm – while opening regulated services to people who currently find them too expensive or too opaque.
The Sceptics’ Corner
CM Murray’s Nick Leale welcomed the innovation but issued a measured warning that should be pinned to every legal-tech dashboard in 2026:
“The SRA will no doubt have intricately carved through how clients are informed… and how the advice provided is overseen. Ultimately, law is fundamentally interpretative – apparent legal norms often have to be applied to unforeseen facts. The governance of such an innovative provider will have to constantly have in mind the need to ensure there is a bridge linking the gap between legal text and rules and evolving real-world situations.”
Fair point. Deterministic engines are brilliant for the 80% that is rules; the remaining 20% still needs a human who can spot when the facts don’t fit the flowchart.
Two Companies, One Regulated Service
To be crystal clear (as the SRA undoubtedly required): LawFairy Services Limited delivers the regulated legal services. LawFairy Ltd develops and licenses the underlying technology and is not itself SRA-authorised. Classic NewLaw firewall, executed properly.
AI Is Both Salvation and Headache
This authorisation lands as MD Communications’ What Lies Ahead 2026 report shows legal-sector leaders view AI as simultaneously “transformative” and “high-risk” – with governance, quality control and data protection topping the worry list.
LawFairy’s bet is that by stripping out the probabilistic wildcards and owning the entire legal-logic layer (branded FairyLogic™ and built in-house by a lawyer with three decades at the coalface), it can thread that needle.
Whether it scales beyond immigration, whether insurers price the risk appropriately, and whether the SRA’s confidence proves justified will be the story of 2026 and beyond. But one thing is already clear: the regulator has signalled it is prepared to authorise models that look very different from the partnership structures of the past.
The flight simulator is cleared for takeoff. Traditional law firms might want to fasten their seatbelts.
