Civil Justice Council publishes final report on Use of AI for Preparing Court Documents

The Civil Justice Council (CJC) yesterday published its final report on AI use for the preparation of court documents, following on from its interim report and consultation earlier this year (discussed in our earlier blog posts). The key recommendations are outlined below.

Witness statements: The Civil Procedure Rules (CPR) should be amended to require a factual witness statement to include a declaration that AI use has not generated or influenced its substantive content. This should apply whether or not the relevant party is legally represented, but there should be an exception for witness statements prepared and signed by legal representatives for procedural or interim purposes.

Expert reports: The CPR should be amended to require a new declaration concerning AI use where such use generates or influences the substantive content of an expert's report. The declaration should provide sufficient information to facilitate effective scrutiny of the expert evidence, including the methodology used, which may include disclosure of the AI tool used. The CJC should include good practice guidance on AI use by experts in the revised version of its 2014 guidance for experts which is currently being prepared.

Statements of case and skeleton arguments: There should be no new rules requiring legal representatives to make a declaration of AI use in the preparation of statements of case, skeleton arguments or other forms of advocacy. The CPR should however make clear that, at least where AI use is concerned, the rules require the identification of a specific legal professional who takes responsibility for the document.

Disclosure: Subject to any recommendations by the Disclosure Review Working Group, no reforms are needed relating to the use of AI in the disclosure process.

Translation: There is no need to introduce new substantive rules concerning the use of AI translation tools. All translations, including translations produced with AI assistance, should continue to be certified by a professional human translator as to their accuracy, and the CPR should be amended to make that clear.

Permission: There should be no requirement for parties to apply for permission to use AI in the preparation of materials for submission in civil proceedings, nor to provide the court with details of any AI tool used.

Litigants-in-person: The CJC, working with the CPR Committee, should urgently consider the approach that should be taken to the use of AI by litigants-in-person, guided as appropriate by the judicial cross-jurisdictional AI Committee. 

Guidance: The legal services regulators should work together collaboratively to ensure guidance to the legal profession is mutually consistent, and should explore the possibility of issuing joint guidance and ensuring that professional training requirements include suitable guidance on responsible AI use. The CPR Committee should prepare a new Practice Direction which would consolidate the case law on the courts' expectations and approach to sanctions, and complement guidance issued by regulators.