Editorial: why at AGENTE LEX we only publish data we have read in the official source

This is an editorial by the AGENTE LEX newsroom. It expresses the portal's opinion.

A publication for lawyers cannot afford what a lawyer cannot afford: citing a rule it has not read. That is why, from the first article, at AGENTE LEX we apply a rule that is simple to state and demanding to follow: if we have not read a specific piece of data in an official source, it is not published.

What we mean by a specific piece of data

A date, a figure, a deadline, a percentage, an article number, the name of a rule, a venue or an amount. Anything a reader could carry into a brief or into advice to a client.

What we mean by an official source

The Official State Gazette and the official journals, the General Council of the Judiciary, the ministries and their bodies, the Tax Agency, the Spanish Data Protection Agency, bar associations and councils of the legal profession, European and international institutions and, for events, the organiser's own website.

How it shows in each article

• Sources at the foot, with a link and the date consulted, so that anyone can check what we say.
• Express attribution when a piece of data comes from an institution that is not its primary source: if a figure is given by a bar association in a note, we say so.
• Events only with a date and venue published by the organiser. If we cannot find them, the event is not published.
• A clear distinction between information and opinion. Editorials are identified as such.

What we have left out

Applying this rule has a cost: we have dropped topics when we could not read the full official text, removed sentences that sounded good but that we could not substantiate and preferred to say "the source consulted does not state it" rather than fill the gap. When a rule had recent amendments we could not review, we have not summarised it.

We prefer a less complete article to one with a false fact. And when a fact comes from an institutional note that does not cite its primary source, we attribute it to that institution or leave it out, even if it is repeated in other outlets.

Why now

Generative artificial intelligence has made it easier than ever to produce plausible legal texts with non-existent citations. The Spanish Legal Profession itself, in its ethics circular 3/2026, regards filing briefs prepared with AI without verifying them as, in general, a serious offence, and recommends cross-checking against reliable sources and keeping traceability, as we explain in the news item on the ethics circular on AI. The courts have already sanctioned invented citations, as we covered when dealing with sanctions for false case law.

If we demand that diligence of the profession, we have to apply it to ourselves.

What we ask of our readers

That they check. Our sources are linked for that purpose. An AGENTE LEX article is a starting point, not a substitute for reading the rule.

That they correct us. If they find an error, they can write to us through the page to submit news. We will review it under the same rule and, where appropriate, correct the article, noting the correction.

That they mind the date. Rules change. Each article states when its sources were consulted, and it is wise to check that nothing has changed since.

A commitment

All the articles we have published follow this rule. When a topic depends on a rule not yet published, we prefer to wait until we can read it in the official source rather than anticipate its content. We will keep applying it. And when we get it wrong, we will correct it in plain view.

For those who want to apply a similar rule at their firm, we gathered the guidelines of the Spanish Legal Profession's AI decalogue. More editorials in Opinion.