The Civil Justice Council published its final report on the use of AI for the preparation of court documents on 29 October 2026. The report completes the work of a working party established at the Council's January 2025 strategy meeting and co-chaired by Sir Colin Birss, Deputy Head of Civil Justice, and Mrs Justice Joanna Smith. It follows the interim report and consultation the working party issued in February 2026. The report is advisory. It makes recommendations to the Council and does not alter the rules that bind parties today.
The Council's remit rests on the Civil Procedure Act 1997, under which it keeps the civil justice system under review and considers how to make that system more accessible, fair and efficient. Its working party was asked whether rules are needed to govern the use of AI by legal representatives preparing court documents, including statements of case, witness statements and expert reports. Binding change would arrive through amendments to the Civil Procedure Rules and a new Practice Direction rather than through the report.
Sir Geoffrey Vos, Master of the Rolls and Chair of the Civil Justice Council, said the report proposes a proportionate, risk-based approach that maintains professional responsibility while introducing targeted safeguards where they are needed. For solicitors and barristers in England and Wales, responsibility for the content of a filed document stays with the named professional, and the working party's consultation analysis found broad agreement that pleadings, advocacy documents and skeleton arguments need no AI-specific formal requirements at present. Expert witnesses and the parties instructing them face proportionate transparency about AI use in expert evidence. Litigants in person were identified as raising distinct and evolving challenges.
Witness statements remained the principal open question through the consultation, with responses divided on whether added safeguards or disclosure duties are needed, and with the working party weighing whether statements of truth, disclosure obligations and cross-examination already answer the risk that an AI tool reshapes or embellishes a witness's recollection. The report carries no compliance deadline. Timing rests on whether the recommended amendments to the Civil Procedure Rules and the new Practice Direction are made.
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