Can AI help us review an expert report on a case?

Yes, for the mechanical work. An AI assistant can summarise a long report section by section, list the documents and assumptions the expert says they relied on, pull out the dates and figures, and show where the report and the papers on the file do not match. What it cannot do is tell you whether the opinion is sound, how much weight a judge will give it, or whether you need an expert of your own. That part belongs to the fee earner, and usually to counsel.

What the mechanical work actually involves

Expert reports are long, structured and repetitive, which is why reading one properly takes a morning you often do not have. The tasks that lend themselves to an AI assistant are the ones you would give to a careful paralegal:

• A section by section summary, so you know what is in the report before you decide where to read closely.
• A list of every document the expert says they were given or saw, with the page of the report where each is mentioned.
• A list of the assumptions and instructions the expert records, separated from their conclusions.
• The factual chronology the expert relies on, drawn out of the narrative.
• The figures and calculations, with the page they appear on, so you can check whether the same number is used consistently throughout.
• Internal inconsistencies: a date in the body that differs from the same date in an appendix, a conclusion that does not match the reasoning above it.

None of that requires judgement about the subject matter. All of it saves time, and all of it is checkable, because each point should name the page it came from.

Checking the report against the file

This is where an assistant earns its keep. An expert works from the material they were sent, and the material they were sent is not always the whole file. Ask the tool to compare the expert's account of events against the papers on the matter, and flag where the two diverge.

Typical findings: a meeting the expert dates to one month that the attendance note puts in another; a document the expert lists as reviewed that is not in the bundle you hold; a figure that differs from the invoice it is supposed to come from.

Two cautions. First, a divergence is a question, not a conclusion. The expert may have had material you do not, or may have had a reason you have not yet seen. Second, absence from the file is not the same as absence from the case. If the assistant tells you the papers do not say, that is a prompt to look further, not a finding.

And the comparison is only as good as what you give it. If half the correspondence is sitting in an email folder rather than on the matter, the comparison will be half a comparison.

Drafting questions to the expert

Questions to an expert are governed by the Civil Procedure Rules, which set limits on what questions are for and when they must be put. Those limits are yours to apply; the tool does not know the procedural posture of your case unless you tell it.

What it can do is produce a first list. Grouped by topic, each question tied to the page of the report that prompted it, each one short enough to put without argument. That list will be too long. It will contain questions that are really submissions, questions you would not want answered, and questions counsel will cut on sight. Treat it as raw material: you edit, you discard, you check the list against the rules and the timetable, and you decide what actually goes.

The same applies to a note comparing your expert's report with the other side's. An assistant can set the two side by side on each issue and show where they agree, where they differ and where one is silent. Whether the difference matters is a judgement call.

What you must keep for yourself

An AI assistant is not an expert and must never be used as one. Do not ask it whether the clinical reasoning holds up, whether the engineering is right, or whether the valuation method is the one the court would expect. It has no standing to say, and an answer that sounds plausible is worse than no answer.

Keep these for the fee earner:

• The weight and credibility of the opinion.
• Whether the expert has stayed within their expertise and their duty to the court.
• Whether to seek permission for further evidence, or to instruct your own expert.
• What to put to the expert and what to leave for cross-examination.
• Anything you would want to defend to a judge, a client or your insurer.

Record on the file what you asked the tool to do and what you checked yourself. If a summary or a list of inconsistencies informed your advice, the file should show that a qualified person read the report behind it.

Where Alesis fits

Alesis answers questions about a matter from the matter's own papers and names the page each answer came from; if the papers do not say, it says so. Documents are read page by page, so citations point at pages, and any page it could not read is flagged rather than skipped. It prepares drafts, including a first list of questions, for a qualified person to review and sign off, and when it cannot find support for a point it says what is missing instead of guessing. It assists qualified professionals and does not replace them, and it does not provide legal advice.