Bar Council: Standards Robust Enough for AI Use
Summary
The Bar Council has published its response to the Civil Justice Council's consultation on AI use in court documents, arguing that existing Bar Standards Board (BSB) regulation of barristers is sufficient without needing new court rules. The response supports prohibiting AI-generated or AI-assisted witness statements and proposes a declaration requirement confirming no AI use. The Bar Council also raises concerns about the Ministry of Justice's study on AI court transcripts, particularly regarding accuracy across all languages and protection of confidential information including rape victims' anonymity and children's identities.
“Barristers are already regulated by the Bar Standards Board (BSB), meaning they must follow its code of conduct. This includes the important duties not to mislead the court, and to act with honesty and integrity. Material produced by AI must therefore be carefully checked for accuracy and completeness.”
Barristers' chambers and law firms using generative AI for court documents should ensure all AI-generated material undergoes manual accuracy verification before filing, as the BSB code of conduct duties not to mislead the court and to act with honesty apply to AI-assisted work. If the CJC adopts the proposed witness declaration rule, legal representatives may need to implement new client briefing procedures to obtain confirmations that witnesses have not used AI to generate or significantly alter their statements.
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What changed
The Bar Council submitted its response to the Civil Justice Council's consultation on AI in court documents, taking the position that no new court rules are needed for AI use by legal professionals because barristers are already regulated by the Bar Standards Board under its existing code of conduct. The response recommends that a rule be introduced requiring witnesses to sign a declaration that AI has not been used to generate their statement, as AI-assisted statements may not reflect the witness's own words or conclusions. The Bar Council also flagged concerns about the Ministry of Justice's study on AI for court transcripts, emphasising the need for accuracy across all languages and strict protections for confidential information including rape victims' lifelong anonymity and children's identities.
Legal professionals and courts should monitor this consultation process as its outcome may influence future guidance on AI use in litigation. Firms should review their AI policies to ensure compliance with existing BSB duties regarding honesty, integrity, and accuracy of materials. Any adoption of AI tools for witness statement preparation or transcript generation should include careful accuracy checking and data protection safeguards.
Archived snapshot
Apr 24, 2026GovPing captured this document from the original source. If the source has since changed or been removed, this is the text as it existed at that time.
The Bar Council has published its response to the Civil Justice Council’s (CJC) consultation on using Artificial Intelligence (AI) when preparing court documents.
Last November the Bar Council updated its well-received guidance to barristers on the responsible use of generative AI, and underlining the risk of potential ‘hallucinations’ – plausible but entirely false information – created by the software.
We agreed with many of the CJC’s suggestions, including that there is no need to add new court rules concerning the use of AI by legal professionals when writing documents like statements of case or skeleton arguments.
Lawrence Akka KC, Chair of the Bar Council’s IT Panel, said: “Barristers are already regulated by the Bar Standards Board (BSB), meaning they must follow its code of conduct. This includes the important duties not to mislead the court, and to act with honesty and integrity. Material produced by AI must therefore be carefully checked for accuracy and completeness.
“Within that framework, the Bar Council encourages the responsible use of modern technologies to help provide access to justice and to assist with the administration of justice.”
However, we believe witnesses should not be able to generate, alter, embellish or rephrase their statements using AI. That would be inconsistent with the courts’ requirement that witness statements are written in the witness’ own words, and they are not asked leading questions.
Many AI tools involve text enhancement or make suggestions about the text, meaning an AI-assisted statement may not be written in the witness’s own words, or could reach conclusions they might not have come up with themselves.
We therefore agree with the CJC that a rule should be introduced, requiring witnesses to sign a declaration that AI has not been used to generate their statement.
Our CJC response comes as the Ministry of Justice announces a new study to explore how AI might be used to produce faster, cheaper court transcripts to improve access to justice for victims of crime.
Improved access to justice is of course welcome, but the Bar Council is concerned to ensure that the study considers the key importance of accuracy across the whole range of languages involved, including those where less training material is available.
It is also important to ensure that there is no use of confidential or restricted information for machine training purposes. This includes the identity of rape victims, who have the right to lifelong anonymity, and the identities of children involved in court cases, who are automatically granted anonymity until their 18th birthday at least.
Read our full CJC AI consultation response.
Related resources
Bar Council response to High Court ruling on the misuse of artificial intelligence
- 6 June 2025
- Press release
New guidance on generative AI for the Bar
- 30 January 2024
- Press release
AI in law: breaking down the latest developments
- 4 July 2025
- Blog See more resources
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