Instruction is in line with a recommendation presented in a recent UK Civil Justice Council report
UK justice Joanna Smith, interim deputy president of the UK High Court’s business and property division, has instructed expert witnesses to be transparent with the court and solicitors about artificial intelligence use in reports, reported the Law Society Gazette.
Smith encouraged immediate disclosure at the recent Bond Solon Expert Witness Conference. She warned that experts’ reports could be subject to searching queries during cross-examination if they do not properly indicate the use of AI tools in ways that “may directly or even indirectly generate or influence the content of your evidence,” according to a statement published by the Gazette.
The instruction comes off the back of a Civil Justice Council report recommending the implementation of a rule that mandates experts to disclose if AI has been used to produce or inform a significant chunk of reports. Smith was co-chair of the working group that released this report on AI use in the preparation of court documents last week.
The council called for the rule to be integrated into amendments of guidance for the instruction of experts in civil claims. The guidance dates back to 2014.
“We believe that this declaration will need to provide sufficient information to facilitate effective scrutiny of the expert evidence and envisage that it may include disclosure of the methodology used, confirmation as to the appropriateness of AI use, for that purpose, and - exceptionally although not always - the tool that has in fact been used,” Smith said in a statement published by the Gazette.
The judge reminded attendees at the Westminster’s Church House conference that experts’ credibility rested on their “compliance with their fundamental duties to the court,” per a statement published by the Gazette.
“The advent and rapid development of AI has not changed and will not change those duties. The obligations of independence, objectivity, transparency and professional competence remain exactly the same as they were before the emergence of AI,” Smith said in her keynote address, a snippet of which was published by the Gazette. “At a more philosophical level, the key risk from the use of AI by experts, as I see it, is in the erosion of independent judgment, the outsourcing of your opinions to an AI agent, and thus the loss of expert integrity.”
She highlighted known practical risks of AI use, including inadequate oversight, training, and understanding of AI capabilities. In the matter of Cornwall Council v M & Ors [2026] EWFC 306, an independent social worker instructed as an expert witness used Microsoft Copilot in generating a parenting assessment, assessments of potential kinship carers, and an addendum report. The judge in the case determined that AI use influenced a significant part of the expert’s report; as a result, the judge could not assign considerable weight to the evidence.
Smith recommended that on receiving instructions, experts should confirm whether they can use AI or if intellectual property, data protection, and regulatory compliance issues prevent them from doing so.
“'Even if your instructions do not raise the issue, I think it makes good practical sense for you to disclose your intended use in the first instance to your solicitor and to discuss that use with your instructing solicitors,” Smith said in a statement published by the Gazette. “'The future belongs to experts who understand both the capabilities and the limitations of artificial intelligence, who keep abreast of new technologies, and who use AI thoughtfully, appropriately, and where necessary, transparently in support of their overriding duty to the court.”
