Fiona Campbell looks at the recently published guidance on generative AI from the International Legal Technology Association
As UK legal practitioners navigate the rise of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), they are increasingly faced with a fundamental problem: how can it be used responsibly in court-ordered disclosure exercises when there is no clear legal or procedural playbook to follow?
The International Legal Technology Association’s (ILTA) newly published Generative AI in Outgoing Disclosure Guide was drafted by working group including a team of litigation and disclosure specialists comprised of Tom Whittaker (Burges Salmon), David Morgan-Wilkins (Norton Rose Fullbright), James MacGregor (ILTA; Ethical eDiscovery), and Jamie Tomlinson, Imogen Jones, Jonathan Howell (DAC Beachcroft), and me.
The GenAI guide aims to offer practical, consensus-based guidance on the use of GenAI in outgoing disclosure exercises within the UK business and property courts, with principles that are readily adaptable across all court jurisdictions. The GenAI guide is a collaborative extension of the ILTA Active Learning Best Practices Guide and offers a pragmatic framework for deploying GenAI tools in a proportionate, transparent and defensible way under Practice Direction 57AD (PD57AD).
James MacGregor states: “PD57AD was developed following extensive collaboration between the lawyers and technologists who formed the Disclosure Working Group (DWG), which lead to the Disclosure Rules Pilot, before this was written into the Practice Direction in late 2022. In the few years since then, the adoption and advancement of AI has been exponential, which has demanded that a new consortium of lawyers and technologists expand on the work of the DWG to ensure the Practice Direction remains relevant in the post-ChatGPT era. The work being done by this group is to enable the English courts to empower those who choose to litigate in this jurisdiction with the ability to select advanced eDiscovery technology, when following the appropriate guidance.”
Why is there a need for the guide?
While PD57AD encourages the use of technology-assisted review, it offers little detail on how emerging technologies (particularly GenAI) can or should be deployed. This vacuum has left many legal teams hesitant or unsure how to engage with GenAI tools in live proceedings, especially where consistency, auditability and defensibility are paramount.
The working group came together in late 2024 with a shared goal: to provide the legal community with a practical resource that reflects both the capabilities and the risks of GenAI, and that builds on the success of the original Active Learning Guide. Drawing on the working group’s varied backgrounds across private practice and legal technology, the aim was to draft something that would help litigation teams move from theory to action.
Fiona Campbell says: “The guide provides a sensible, structured framework for parties to agree the potential use of GenAI tools at the outset, avoiding the need to revisit or amend the DRD further down the line. Even if GenAI is not ultimately used, agreeing the parameters in advance gives both sides clarity and comfort. It sets out a balanced approach that supports transparency, accountability, and defensibility, which are key ingredients for responsible innovation in disclosure.”
Principles and use cases
The guide outlines core GenAI use cases in disclosure, from redaction assistance and privilege flagging to issue classification and relevance prediction. However, it does not advocate blind adoption. Instead, as it is not prescriptive, it promotes principles of explainability, validation, and human oversight, reinforcing that GenAI must augment, not replace, legal judgement.
Tom Whittaker says: “This guide aims to help practitioners turn principles into practice, achieving responsible innovation that is compliant with PD57AD.”
Recognising the variation in how firms and clients are approaching GenAI, the working group was careful to offer a flexible set of best practices, rather than rigid rules. For example, the guide includes suggested workflows for prompt testing, continuity of evidence governance, and how GenAI can integrate into existing Active Learning review strategies.
David Morgan-Wilkins says: “Disclosure as an area of practice is well-suited to benefit from recent advancements in the field of AI and machine learning. However, concerns about the defensibility of such technologies and the absence of standard consensus as to their use has meant they are often avoided in favour of more familiar, manual approaches. Following on from the release of ILTA’s Active Learning guide in 2024, which sought to address these concerns for ‘TAR 2.0’ analytics, this document provides a foundational framework for the use of GenAI in document review. It is hoped that the existence of such a framework at this early stage in the development of this technology will encourage its uptake while ensuring appropriate safeguards are adopted. This is an opportunity to make disclosure cheaper, more effective and more accessible.”
A collaborative effort
The development of the guide itself reflected the principles the working group wanted to promote: cross-firm cooperation, transparency, and collective knowledge-building. From the outset, the working group ensured that the drafting process was neutral, vendor-agnostic, and inclusive of diverse views across legal and technical disciplines.
Jamie Tomlinson says: “This guide is a testament to what can be achieved by lawyers from multiple firms pulling in the same direction. The regulatory lacuna left by the explosion of GenAI requires a practical, future-proof guide to help litigators of all specialisms navigate the new technological landscape. That could only have been achieved with the range of skills and knowledge that this team brought to the table.”
Each contributor brought a unique perspective: technical insight into how GenAI tools behave in review environments, first-hand experience of practitioner and court-rule ambiguity, and knowledge of the operational challenges faced by busy litigation teams.
Imogen Jones states: “The guide emphasises the need for structured testing, validation and proper oversight in the application of GenAI, which is key to ensuring the integrity of the current disclosure process is maintained and to ensure that there are measurable outputs which the court can consider. GenAI relies on non-deterministic algorithms and therefore proper testing and validation allows parties to demonstrate defensibility.”
The working group also discussed the wider strategic context: how litigation teams can safely scale GenAI adoption while maintaining consistency across matters and ensuring that their workflows will withstand judicial scrutiny if challenged.
Jonathan Howell says: “As legal practitioners navigate the evolving e-disclosure landscape, the key is striking a balance between embracing GenAI innovations and maintaining defensibility. From the outset of the project the contributors have recognised that the future scalability of GenAI within legal teams depends not just on the underlying technology itself, but on building workflows that are transparent, auditable and adaptable to regulatory shifts.”
What comes next?
The current draft of the guide is now open for public consultation through June 2025, with a final version to be published in September 2025. The working group encourages feedback from all corners of the legal profession, lawyers, technologists, clients, and regulators, to allow the guidance to evolve in step with both the technology and the legal landscape.
As GenAI capabilities continue to mature, our collective focus must remain on building collaborative workflows that are responsible, explainable, and defensible. This guide is one small step toward that goal.
