Declare AI use in witness evidence

The Civil Justice Council has recommended that the use of AI in preparing witness statements and expert reports be declared to the court, Legal Futures reports. In a later report, Law Society Gazette, top stories says a top judge urged expert witnesses not to wait for new rules that will mandate transparency, making the conference appeal an immediate request for disclosure alongside the longer-term recommendation.

The development matters because it puts court procedure between AI-assisted preparation and its effect on litigation. The question is not only whether AI can make the preparation of evidence less expensive or faster. It is whether the court can see where AI entered the preparation, and whether professional enforcement gives that visibility consequences. The publication’s position is that the outcome of cheaper AI-assisted litigation is partly institutionally contingent: procedures, enforcement and party incentives help determine whether expanded access produces more useful legal work or a more aggressive litigation contest. A disclosure expectation moves the courts toward measuring that effect rather than allowing the production process to remain invisible.

What happened is narrower than a general finding about AI in law. Legal Futures reports a recommendation concerning witness statements and expert reports. Law Society Gazette, top stories reports an urging directed at expert witnesses, before a future transparency requirement described as mandatory. Those reports establish a proposed disclosure practice and an instruction to begin acting before the requirement arrives. They do not establish that every court already requires disclosure, that every expert complies, or that disclosure improves the accuracy of evidence. They also do not show that AI has reduced litigation costs, increased filings or changed party incentives. For the stronger reading, a court would need to publish the operative requirement, apply it to a proceeding and show what follows when an expert or witness does not disclose AI use.

The next facts to watch are concrete. A court order or published practice requirement should identify whether disclosure covers preparation of witness statements, expert reports or both, and whether it applies before or after evidence is filed. An expert report that identifies AI use, followed by a ruling that addresses that disclosure, would show the expectation operating in a case rather than remaining a recommendation. An enforcement decision would go further by showing that professional accountability changes conduct. A filing or ruling that treats disclosure as irrelevant would cut against the stronger reading. Until one of those events occurs, the development shows courts and judges making AI visibility part of the process, not yet the litigation outcome that visibility produces.