At the start of July 2026 the Civil Justice Council published an update on the responses to its consultation on the use of AI in preparing court documents. The council advises on the workings of the civil courts in England and Wales, so its view shapes what judges expect and what rules follow. The consultation opened earlier in the year, after a run of cases in which lawyers put false, AI generated citations before the court and drew sharp criticism for doing so. Firms that have started to draft with these tools have been waiting to learn one thing above all, whether the courts will attach a new declaration to every document that AI has touched. The update gives the clearest sign yet of the working group's thinking, and it points away from that.
No new rule for professional drafting
For documents produced by a legal representative, such as skeleton arguments and statements of case, the working group's emerging view is that no AI specific requirement is needed. A document that bears the name of a solicitor or barrister already carries that person's professional responsibility for its content, and that responsibility does not shift because a tool produced the first draft. The duty you owe the court, to check what you sign and to stand behind it, reaches the AI output in the same way it reaches the work of a trainee or a paralegal. The council treats the existing framework as sufficient for this kind of drafting, which means a firm that reviews its work properly has nothing further to file and no new form to complete. Responsibility was never going to move to the software, and the rules will not pretend otherwise.
Expert evidence and disclosure
The picture is not uniform across every kind of document. For expert evidence the working group leans towards proportionate transparency, on the footing that an expert's independence and method bear on the weight a court gives the opinion, so knowing how a tool was used tells the court something it needs. For disclosure the council found no pressing case to require lists or statements to set out how far AI tools were used, which spares litigators another layer of process on exercises that are already long and costly. The thread running through both is proportion. A requirement is tied to the genuine risk in each setting rather than stamped across every document because the technology is new. That line asks firms to think about where AI genuinely bears on the reliability of what goes before the court.
Witness statements remain open
The one area still in play is the witness statement, and the concern here is particular. A witness statement is meant to be the witness's own account in their own words, and AI used to tidy or reshape that account might put distance between the evidence and the person giving it. The working group is weighing whether the safeguards already in place, the statement of truth, disclosure obligations and cross examination, are enough to catch that risk, or whether some form of targeted disclosure would help the administration of justice rather than hinder it. Litigants in person raise a separate question, because a person acting without a lawyer has no professional responsibility standing behind the document they file. The council has marked both as needing more work before it settles a firm position, so this is the part of the picture most likely to change.
What this means for your firm
The direction of travel rewards firms that already run AI with discipline and leaves the unprepared exposed. Nothing in the update softens the duty to verify, and the cases that prompted the consultation show plainly what follows when that duty slips, criticism in a judgment, a referral to the regulator and a bill for wasted costs. Read the emerging position as confirmation that your own controls carry the weight, not as permission to relax them. Keep a record of which tools your people use and how each piece of output is checked before it leaves the building. Brief your litigators that a named document still means their name and their responsibility, and take particular care with witness statements while the rules there remain unsettled. The final report is expected later in 2026 and will fix the position on the open questions. A firm that drafts carefully now will have little to change when it arrives.
For how the bench itself approaches these tools, see the judiciary’s AI guidance.
If your litigators use these tools, we track where the CJC and the courts are heading so you do not have to. A short conversation keeps your practice ahead of the rules: start here.