Expert Witness Journal Issue 65 February 2026 - Flipbook - Page 69
AI - the expectations for
expert witnesses
by Fay Water昀椀eld, Associate
AI tools have been used by the legal profession for
a signi昀椀cant time without di昀케culty, for example,
Technology Assisted Review in electronic disclosure.
Over recent years and with the advent of large
language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, the use
of generative AI in dispute resolution has increased.
Whilst AI can potentially be useful for summarising
large bodies of text and performing administrative
tasks, care needs to be taken to ensure that the
information obtained through AI tools is accurate.
•
Ensure accountability and accuracy:
Judicial guidance
The Courts and Tribunals Judiciary has recently
issued updated guidance1 for Judicial O昀케ce Holders
on the use of AI and the need for independence,
impartiality and integrity. Setting out key issues
and risks, and suggested ways to mitigate those,
the guidance highlights (among other matters) the
need to:
•
“The accuracy of any information you have been
provided by an AI tool must be checked before it
is used or relied upon.”
•
“AI tools may “hallucinate”, which includes….
making up 昀椀ctitious cases, citations or quotes,
or refer to legislation, articles or legal texts that
do not exist”.
Take responsibility:
•
“Judicial o昀케ce holders are personally
responsible for material which is produced in
their name.”
•
“Judges must always read the underlying
documents. AI tools may assist, but they
cannot replace direct judicial engagement with
evidence.”
Understand the limitations of AI:
•
AI tools “are a poor way of conducting research
to 昀椀nd new information you cannot verify”.
•
“Even with the best prompts, the information
provided may be inaccurate, incomplete,
misleading, or biased. It must be borne in mind
that “wrong” answers are not infrequent.
•
Lawyers
“The currently available LLMs appear to have
been trained on material published on the
internet. Their “view” of the law is often based
heavily on US and historic law”.
The Law Society issued similar guidance on 1
October 2025 (Generative AI: the essentials). The
guidance highlights the need to make sure that any
information or documents that a solicitor submits
“to the court are accurate and from genuine and
veri昀椀able sources.” The guidance also provides
that “misuse of any tool, leading to inaccurate
information being presented” will breach the SRA
Code of Conduct.
Uphold con昀椀dentiality and privacy:
•
“Do not enter any information into a public AI
chatbot that is not already in the public domain.”
•
“Any information that you input into a public
AI chatbot should be seen as being published to
all the world.”
EXPERT WITNESS JOURNAL
“In the event of unintentional disclosure of
con昀椀dential or private information you should
contact your leadership judge and the Judicial
O昀케ce. If the disclosed information includes
personal data, the disclosure should be reported
as a data incident.”
Unfortunately there have been several recent cases
where legal professionals have been censured by
67
FEBRUARY 2026
