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The Civil Justice Council recommends CPR changes requiring AI declarations from fact witnesses and experts, and none of them is yet a rule
The working group would leave advocacy documents to professional regulation and add targeted declarations only where evidence is at stake. The line it draws is between AI that generates or influences substantive content and everything else.
Bottom line: Recommendations only. The report is addressed to the Civil Procedure Rule Committee (CPRC), the CJC itself and the legal services regulators. It changes no rule on its own, and the sources we opened do not say whether or when the CPRC will adopt any recommendation.
Who this affects: Civil litigators in England and Wales, both solicitors and barristers. Fact witnesses and the firms that prepare their statements. Expert witnesses and the firms that instruct them. Litigants in person, whom the report flags for separate and urgent work. The CPRC and the legal services regulators, who are the report's addressees.
Issue date: 29 October 2026. The CJC page is headed with that date and the report's foreword is dated the same day. No implementation date exists because nothing has been adopted in the material we read.
What changed: The working group recommends that the CPR be amended so a witness of fact declares that AI used in preparing the statement has not generated or influenced its substantive content, and so an expert makes a new declaration where AI generated or influenced the report. It recommends against AI declarations for statements of case and skeleton arguments, and against any permission regime.
Analysis: On our reading, the test is wider than whether AI wrote the words. The report defines influence to include affecting the selection, analysis, development or evaluation of content. For a fact witness that is a stricter question than most drafting workflows have asked so far. That is our inference from the definition, not a statement in the report about any particular tool.
Primary sources: Use of AI for Preparing Court Documents: Final Report (PDF), Civil Justice Council · Use of AI in preparing court documents, CJC working group page
- Instrument (EN)
- Use of AI for Preparing Court Documents: Final Report
- Authority
- Civil Justice Council, Working Group on the Use of AI for Preparing Court Documents (co-chaired by Sir Colin Birss and Mrs Justice Joanna Smith, per the CJC page)
- Jurisdiction
- England and Wales (civil proceedings)
- Status
- Final report with 15 recommendations. No rule or Practice Direction adopted in the material we read
- Bindingness
- Non-binding recommendations to the CPRC, the CJC and the legal services regulators
- Issue date / next deadline
- 29 October 2026. The report says the CJC will review take-up of the recommendations in its next Annual Review
- Key recommendations
- Six: fact-witness declaration. Nine: expert declaration. Three: consolidating Practice Direction. Four, Fourteen, Fifteen: no advocacy declaration, no tool reporting, no permission regime
- Outside the terms of reference
- Judicial use of AI, litigants in person (flagged for separate work) and AI used with intent to put false evidence before the court
- Primary source
- https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Use-of-AI-for-the-Preparation-of-Court-Document.pdf
- Editorial Note
- Informational analysis for working professionals, not legal advice. Confirm how any rule applies to your situation with qualified counsel.
What did the CJC publish, and what is its status?
The CJC's working group published its final report on 29 October 2026. The CJC page says the group is co-chaired by Sir Colin Birss and Mrs Justice Joanna Smith. Sir Geoffrey Vos, Master of the Rolls and chair of the CJC, welcomed it, saying: "AI has the potential to support the effective administration of civil justice, but its use must not compromise the accuracy, reliability or integrity of material placed before the court."
The report sets out 15 numbered recommendations. They go to different bodies. Some ask the CPRC to amend the CPR or write a Practice Direction. One asks the legal services regulators to coordinate guidance. One asks the CJC itself to look urgently at litigants in person. The report says the CJC will review how far the recommendations have been taken forward in its next Annual Review.
Its starting point is that regulation of AI use in court documents "should remain with legal representatives and their professional regulators", with a Practice Direction as a supplement. That is a recommendation about where the weight sits, not a statement of the current rules.
Witnesses of fact: the declaration
Recommendation Six is the sharpest change. The report says the CPR should be amended "to require a witness of fact who makes a witness statement to make a specific declaration that AI used in its preparation has not generated or influenced its substantive content." The reason given is to secure the integrity of the witness's evidence and keep it in the witness's own words.
The report defines its terms. Generating substantive content means producing or modifying it, intentionally or not. Influencing it means using an AI tool that, without producing the content, affects its selection, analysis, development or evaluation.
It also says what the declaration is not. It does not ban any tool. In the report's words, "It is a declaration that focuses on the result of such use, not on the use itself or the tool that produces the result."
Where a statement is prepared and signed by a legal representative who is not giving evidence as a witness of fact, no new rule is recommended. Under Recommendation Seven the lawyer stays primarily responsible for accuracy, and the general functional, risk-based approach would apply through the Practice Direction or CPR amendments.
Experts: a new declaration and possible tool disclosure
Recommendation Nine asks for a new, specific AI declaration where AI use generates or influences the substantive content of an expert's report. The declaration would give enough information to allow scrutiny of the methodology, the appropriateness of the AI use and the content, and the report says that includes, where necessary for that purpose, disclosing the AI tool to the opposing party and the court.
The working group treats experts differently from lawyers. Its reasoning is that expert evidence has to be open to testing by the other side, while for legal representatives disclosure of AI use does not by itself help decide whether a document is accurate. It accepts that existing methodology disclosure under CPR PD 35 may already cover some of this, and still prefers a separate and distinct obligation.
Recommendation Ten sends good-practice guidance on expert AI use to the group revising the 2014 Guidance for the Instruction of Experts in Civil Claims.
What the report would not require
The no-change list is long, and for most litigators it is the bigger half of the report. Recommendation Four says no new rules requiring legal representatives to declare AI use in statements of case, skeleton arguments or other advocacy should be introduced. Recommendation Fifteen says no rule enabling the court to grant permission for AI use should be introduced. Recommendation Fourteen rejects a requirement to give the court details of any AI tool used. Recommendation Five says, subject to the Disclosure Review Working Group, no disclosure reforms are currently needed.
Recommendation Four does carry one clarification. The Practice Direction should specify that, where AI use is concerned, current CPR requirements do require identifying the specific legal professional who takes responsibility for the document.
On translation, Recommendation Eight says there is no need for new substantive rules, and that "All translations should be certified by a professional human translator as to their accuracy." AI translations would be accompanied by the original text, and CPR Part 32 and its Practice Direction would be amended to make the certification point explicit.
Recommendation Eleven rejects classifying tools as generative, non-generative, administrative or analytical. The CPR would define scope by function instead.
Practice Direction, sanctions and litigants in person
Recommendation Three asks the CPRC to codify and consolidate the case-law approach to AI use and to sanctions for misuse by legal representatives and litigants in person, in a plain-language Practice Direction. It would also carry the substance of the functional and risk-based recommendations, Eleven to Thirteen.
Recommendation One keeps guidance for the profession with the regulators, including the Legal Services Board, and asks them to explore joint guidance and to include responsible AI use in training requirements. The report notes existing guidance from the Bar Standards Board and the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
Litigants in person were outside the group's terms of reference, but the report says consultation responses supported urgent guidance. Recommendation Two asks the CJC, with the CPRC, to consider the approach as a matter of urgency.
What we did not verify
We opened the CJC working group page and the full text extract of the final report PDF. We read closely the foreword, executive summary, summary of recommendations, the start of the regulatory guidance chapter, the opening of the witness statements chapter and the experts chapter through paragraph 8.14. We did not read chapters 5, 6 and 9 or the annexes in full.
We did not open the interim report or the consultation responses. The CJC page describes a June 2026 update and links an interim report in a July 2026 upload folder, while the final report says the interim report was published on 17 February 2026. We have not resolved that difference and do not state the interim report date.
We did not verify whether the CPRC has taken any recommendation forward, whether any Practice Direction is drafted, or any implementation date. We did not use trade-press summaries. We express no view on how a court would treat any particular AI-assisted statement or report, and this is not legal advice.
Nothing in this report is a rule today. If the CPR change as recommended, the exposure is in witness statements and expert reports, not in pleadings and skeletons. Firms can already ask whether any AI step in evidence preparation touches selection, analysis or wording, because that is the question the proposed declaration would put.
Source File
Open the final report PDF and confirm the foreword date of 29 October 2026, paragraph 2.5 and Recommendation Six on the fact-witness declaration, Recommendation Nine on experts, and Recommendations Four, Fourteen and Fifteen on what is not recommended. Then open the CJC working group page and confirm the heading Final report 29 October 2026.
The CPR should be amended to require a witness of fact who makes a witness statement to make a specific declaration that AI used in its preparation has not generated or influenced its substantive content. ยท CJC Final Report, Recommendation Six, 29 October 2026
FAQ
Does a witness of fact now have to declare that AI did not influence their statement?
Not yet. Recommendation Six says the CPR should be amended to require that declaration. The report is a set of recommendations to the CPRC, and we found nothing showing the CPR have been changed.
Would lawyers have to declare AI use in skeleton arguments?
The report recommends against it. Recommendation Four says no new rules requiring a declaration for statements of case, skeleton arguments or other advocacy should be introduced, though the Practice Direction should clarify that the responsible legal professional is identified.
Would experts have to disclose the AI tool they used?
Under Recommendation Nine, where AI generated or influenced the substantive content of an expert's report, the declaration would include enough information for scrutiny, and that includes disclosing the tool to the opposing party and the court where necessary for that purpose.
Does the report cover litigants in person?
Yes, in part. Although litigants in person were outside the original terms of reference, Recommendation Three includes them in the proposed Practice Direction, and paragraph 7.15 says the proposed fact-witness declaration should apply regardless of representation. Recommendation Two also calls for urgent further work.
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