Require AI disclosure in court

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 November, the Law Society Gazette, top stories reported that an interim deputy of Business and Property Division urged expert witnesses to start disclosing AI use before new rules mandate transparency. The two developments put disclosure of AI-assisted preparation into the handling of witness and expert material.

That matters because AI does not determine the effect of cheaper legal work on litigation by itself. The court’s procedure can shape what AI use means once material reaches a proceeding. A declaration requirement makes that procedure visible: it can give the court information about how witness statements and expert reports were prepared, while leaving the consequences of disclosure to the court’s own process. The recommendation therefore exemplifies the position that courts, enforcement and party incentives partly decide which effect dominates. It does not show that disclosure will reduce AI use, increase disputes or change litigation spending. It shows that the institutional response is part of the outcome.

The recommendation establishes a proposed disclosure standard, and the later report establishes that an interim deputy urged experts not to wait for the coming transparency requirements. Neither establishes an operative requirement applying to every witness or expert, a defined account of what must be disclosed, or any consequence for failing to disclose. The stronger reading would require the new rules to take effect and a court to apply them to an actual witness statement or expert report. Until then, this is a policy direction and a judicial warning, not a demonstrated change in litigation outcomes. The order of events matters: transparency is being placed between AI use and the court’s assessment, but the reports do not show what the court does with that information.

The next observable fact is the publication of the transparency requirements referenced by the Law Society Gazette, top stories, followed by a court direction applying them to AI use in a witness statement or expert report. The useful details will be the scope of the disclosure, whether it covers preparation as well as the final document, and what the court does when the declaration is absent or incomplete. A requirement without an application would show procedure being stated; an applied direction would show procedure affecting the legal work delivered to the court. We would treat that application, rather than the recommendation alone, as the point at which this institutional effect becomes demonstrable.