Do we have to tell the court if we used AI to prepare a document?

In most cases there is no general obligation to announce that an AI tool was used while preparing a document. What there is, and what matters far more, is the duty not to mislead the court and the duty to take reasonable care that what you file is accurate. Some courts and tribunals have begun to publish guidance touching on AI, and directions in a particular case may ask something specific, so check before you assume silence is correct.

The duty that bites is accuracy, not disclosure

The problems that have embarrassed firms have not been problems of disclosure. They have been authorities that do not exist, quotations that were never said, and figures that do not survive a check. A document that contains those things is a problem whether it was produced by a trainee, a counsel's chambers, a precedent bank or a machine.

So the first question is not "must we tell anyone". It is "have we checked". Before anything goes to court:

• Every authority has been opened and read by the person signing, not just the summary of it.
• Every quotation has been matched to the source text.
• Every date calculation has been reproduced by hand or by your diary system.
• Every factual assertion traces back to a page in the papers.

If you cannot do that, the document is not ready, regardless of how it was produced.

When disclosure may actually be expected

There are situations where the position changes, and they are worth knowing before you are caught out.

Specific directions. A court or tribunal may include a direction or a standard form of wording about the use of AI in preparing documents or evidence. If it does, comply with it on its own terms. Read the directions on each matter rather than relying on what was true in another case last year.

Published guidance for the particular forum. Guidance differs between courts and tribunals, and between jurisdictions. Check the guidance that applies to the forum you are in rather than generalising from something you read about a different one.

Evidence. Witness statements and expert reports carry their own requirements about whose words they are and how they were produced. A witness statement must be the witness's own account in their own words. If a drafting tool has been used to tidy structure, the content must still be the witness's, confirmed by the witness, and nothing in the process should make the statement less genuinely theirs. Experts have their own duties to the court about the work being their own.

Litigants in person and the other side. If material served on you looks as though it may contain invented citations, you still owe duties to the court. Check the authorities relied on before you respond to them.

How to answer if you are asked

If a judge, a tribunal or an opponent asks whether AI was used, answer plainly and without defensiveness. A good answer has three parts.

1. What the tool was used for. Summarising papers, locating a provision, producing a first draft, checking a calculation. Be specific rather than vague.
2. What a qualified person did afterwards. Which authorities were opened and read, who verified the figures, who settled the final text and who signed it.
3. That responsibility sits with the firm and the individual, not the tool.

That answer is easy to give if you kept a short note on the file at the time. It is very hard to give convincingly six months later from memory. One or two lines on the file is enough: what the tool was asked to do, who checked the output, and against what.

What to put in place now

You do not need a policy document running to twenty pages. You need a handful of habits that survive a busy week.

• A standing rule that no authority is cited unless the person signing has opened it.
• A note on the file whenever an AI tool contributed materially to something that goes outside the firm.
• A clear instruction that witness statements are the witness's words and are confirmed as such.
• A check of directions and forum guidance on each matter, the same way you check hearing bundle requirements.
• One named person who keeps track of what guidance has been published and tells everyone when it changes.

The firms that will handle this well are not the ones with the strictest ban. They are the ones who can say, calmly and with a file note to back it, exactly how a document came to be and who stands behind it.

Where Alesis fits

Alesis reads official sources at the source: legislation section by section, official guidance, and Financial Ombudsman decisions in full. Every point names its source, and official sources open in one click, so the person signing a document can check each authority rather than take it on trust. It counts key dates and figures with the working shown, each step carrying the rule that allows it, and says the firm's diary system still governs. It prepares drafts for a qualified person to review and sign off; it does not file, serve or email anything.