Fiona Campbell of Fieldfisher LLP looks at the guidance on generative AI (GenAI) published by the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) in September 2025.
As UK legal practitioners navigate the rise of GenAI, they are 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 Generative AI Best Practice Guide (the GenAI guide) aims to address this challenge.
What is the GenAI guide?
Released by ILTA on 30 September 2025, the GenAI guide was produced by a working group of litigation and disclosure practitioners:
- Fiona Campbell (Fieldfisher)
- Tom Whittaker (Burges Salmon)
- David Morgan-Wilkins (Norton Rose Fulbright)
- James MacGregor (ILTA; Ethical eDiscovery)
- Jamie Tomlinson, Imogen Jones and Jonathan Howell (DAC Beachcroft)
The GenAI guide was prepared in late 2024 as an addendum to ILTA’s well-received Active Learning Best Practice Guide, but the final version was published as a standalone best practice document.
Amid successive rewrites throughout 2025, the working group saw GenAI evolve from a tool used to support active learning, to a technology used independently in court-ordered disclosure under Practice Direction (PD57AD).
The working group considered comments from a two-month public consultation.
It combined those submissions with its own experience of GenAI in legal workflows and wider input from clients, technologists and the profession.
The final version of the GenAI guide was drafted with adaptability in mind.
While it references PD57AD, its recommendations may be applied in full, or separately to suit different GenAI uses in legal practice.
“PD57AD was developed following extensive collaboration between the lawyers and technologists who formed the Disclosure Working Group (DWG),” states James MacGregor.
“This led 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 GenAI guide?
PD57AD permits the use of technology-assisted review (TAR).
However, considering it was drafted before the advent of GenAI, PD57AD does not address how emerging technologies such as GenAI can or should be used in court-ordered disclosure.
The lack of guidance has left many litigation teams hesitant to adopt GenAI particularly given PD57AD’s emphasis on transparency.
Under it, disclosure workflows must be: consistent, auditable and defensible, and therefore open to scrutiny or challenge where disagreement arises.
To address this gap, the working group’s shared goal was to provide fellow practitioners with a practical resource that reflects both the capabilities and the risks of GenAI in court-ordered disclosure, moving litigation teams from theory to action.
“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”, says Fiona Campbell.
“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 for GenAI in disclosure
The GenAI guide outlines core GenAI use cases, while avoiding blind adoption.
It covers use cases ranging from redaction assistance and privilege flagging, to issue classification and relevance prediction.
The guide’s approach promotes clarity, accuracy checks and human-led review, making clear that GenAI should help rather than replace legal judgment.
That position is especially important in light of the Divisional Court’s decisions in Ayinde v London Borough of Haringey and Al-Haroun (June 2025).
Ayinde confirmed that solicitors and barristers remain fully accountable for AI-generated content and may face regulatory sanction if they fail to verify its accuracy.
Recognising differences in how firms and clients are approaching GenAI, the guide offers a flexible set of best practices rather than rigid rules.
It includes suggested workflows for prompt testing, ensuring continuity of evidence and adding GenAI into existing active learning review strategies.
This way, practitioners can apply the recommendations to fit their needs.
“This guide aims to help practitioners turn principles into practice, achieving responsible innovation that is compliant with PD57AD”, Tom Whittaker explains.
“Disclosure as an area of practice is well-suited to benefit from recent advancements in the field of AI and machine learning”, adds David Morgan-Wilkins.
“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.”
How was the guide created?
The development of the guide reflected the principles the working group wanted to promote:
- cross-firm cooperation
- transparency
- collective knowledge-building
From the outset, the working group made sure the drafting process included 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 insights into how GenAI tools behave in review environments, detailed knowledge of procedure and regulation, and first-hand experience of the operational challenges faced by busy litigation teams.”
Imogen Jones adds “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 considered how litigation teams can scale GenAI safely while maintaining consistency and ensuring workflows would withstand judicial scrutiny.
“As legal practitioners navigate the evolving e-disclosure landscape, the key is striking a balance between embracing GenAI innovations and maintaining defensibility”, Jonathan Howell summarises.
“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?
Practitioners using GenAI should consider incorporating the GenAI guide’s principles into case management at an early stage.
By agreeing scope and limits between parties, the chosen approach for GenAI use is more likely to be accepted than disputed.
The Generative AI Best Practice Guide is intended as a living framework, open to adaptation as courts, regulators and professional bodies clarify expectations and guardrails for GenAI.
The working group will monitor judicial and regulatory developments and publish revisions via ILTA as necessary.