Brandon D. Hastings Publishes BarTalk Article on AI-Enabled Fraud and Modern Legal Risk

Northpoint Legal LLP is pleased to share that Brandon D. Hastings has published a new article in BarTalk, the publication of the Canadian Bar Association, BC Branch.

In “Fraudsters in the Age of AI,” Brandon examines how artificial intelligence is reshaping fraud risk for lawyers, law firms, businesses, and anyone who relies on trusted communications to make important decisions. The article explains that AI-enabled fraud is no longer limited to suspicious emails or obvious scams. Fraudsters can now increasingly mimic the signs of authenticity that professionals rely on every day: familiar email threads, polished writing, recognizable voices, video calls, signature blocks, and apparently routine instructions.

For Northpoint, the issue reflects a broader reality facing clients and legal professionals alike: technology is changing not only how legal work is done, but how legal and business risks arise. Good legal service now requires more than identifying problems after the fact. It requires practical judgment, strong systems, and an understanding of how modern risks move through organizations.

Brandon’s article argues that high-risk instructions should not be verified using the same communication channel through which they are received. In an era of compromised inboxes, deepfakes, and increasingly sophisticated social engineering, firms and businesses need verification processes that are independent, repeatable, and resistant to manipulation.

The article highlights practical safeguards such as independent callback procedures, known contact channels, dual approval, limited authority, audit trails, multi-factor authentication, reliable backups, staff training, and incident response planning.

This systems-focused approach is central to how Northpoint thinks about legal risk. Whether advising individuals, businesses, or organizations, effective legal counsel should help clients make better decisions, reduce avoidable risk, and adapt to a changing environment.

As Brandon writes, the professional response is “not panic, and not merely vigilance,” but designing systems that verify high-risk instructions without relying on the signs of authenticity that fraudsters are learning to forge.

Read the full article in BarTalk