Expert AI Attestation Agent for Melbourne Litigation Lawyers: Get a Defensible AI Disclosure From Your Expert Before You File
Your expert report lands in your inbox the night before the directions hearing. The methodology section reads cleanly, the conclusions are tight, and your expert has signed the Code of Conduct declaration. Then a junior asks the obvious question: did the expert use any AI in preparing this report — and if so, where, how, and on what data? You don’t have a written answer. The Administrative Review Tribunal expects expert evidence to be transparent about how it was prepared, and opposing counsel will ask the same question in cross. The Expert AI Attestation Agent produces a structured, signable attestation that answers it once, properly, before the report is filed.
The problem
Expert witnesses in Australian litigation now routinely use AI tools — for literature review, transcript summarisation, data analysis, draft structuring, even prose tightening. Most experts are not lawyers and do not track which steps of their workflow touched a model, what data went in, or what the model returned. When the brief reaches the Administrative Review Tribunal or a Victorian court, the practitioner carries the risk: an undisclosed or vaguely disclosed AI use can undermine the weight of the evidence, invite an adjournment, or in the worst case lead to the report being excluded.
The Federal Court’s GPN-AI sets the tone for AI disclosure obligations on practitioners filing material in proceedings, and the Australian Solicitors’ Conduct Rules (Rules 19 and 17) require candour and competent supervision of the evidentiary record. The ART’s practice directions for professionals and practitioners set expectations on how expert evidence is to be prepared and presented before the Tribunal. Drafting an attestation that satisfies all three, in your expert’s voice, from a transcript of “I used ChatGPT a bit”, is not a five-minute job.
What the Expert AI Attestation Agent does
The Expert AI Attestation Agent takes a structured intake from your expert — the tools used, the inputs provided, the outputs accepted or rejected, the verification steps performed — and produces an attestation document formatted to ART and superior court expectations. It is part of the RuleCheck by Exegesis stack: deterministic, local-first, no transmission of report content to external models. The agent does not generate expert opinion. It documents how the opinion was assisted, in a format that holds up under cross-examination and aligns with the disclosure framework already in play under GPN-AI and the ASCR.
How it works
- Intake. You or your expert complete a short structured questionnaire covering each AI tool touched during preparation: what model, what version, what data was input, what output was used, what was discarded.
- Classification. The agent classifies each AI use against the categories that matter to the Tribunal and the court — substantive analysis, drafting assistance, administrative summarisation, fact extraction — so the attestation distinguishes load-bearing AI use from incidental use.
- Attestation draft. A signable attestation document is generated, in the expert’s voice, covering tools, scope of use, verification steps taken by the expert personally, and confirmation that the opinions remain the expert’s own.
- Cross-check against the report. The agent flags inconsistencies between the attestation and the report’s methodology section — e.g., a literature review claim in the report that the attestation says was AI-assisted but unverified.
- Sign and archive. Final attestation is delivered as a markdown and PDF artefact for filing alongside the expert report, with an audit log entry suitable for matter-file governance.
Why this matters in Melbourne
Melbourne litigation lawyers run a high volume of matters through both the Administrative Review Tribunal (migration, NDIS, veterans’, social services) and the Victorian Supreme Court commercial list — both forums where expert evidence is routine and AI-assisted preparation is now common but rarely disclosed cleanly. The ART’s practice directions and other guidance for professionals make clear that the Tribunal expects expert evidence to be properly prepared and presented; once an opponent raises the AI question, “we didn’t really track that” is not a survivable answer. A pre-filed, structured attestation closes that exposure for the practitioner instructing the expert, not just the expert.
The risk is sharper in Melbourne because of the density of expert-heavy practice areas — medico-legal, forensic accounting, valuation, engineering — clustered around the Victorian courts and ART registry. The volume of reports filed monthly means an undisclosed-AI problem, when it surfaces, will surface across multiple matters in the same firm at once.
Sources
- Administrative Review Tribunal — Practice directions and other guidance: https://www.art.gov.au/help-and-resources/professionals-and-practitioners/practice-directions-and-other-guidance
- Federal Court of Australia — Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence Practice Note (GPN-AI): https://www.fedcourt.gov.au/law-and-practice/practice-documents/practice-notes/gpn-ai
- Law Council of Australia — Australian Solicitors’ Conduct Rules: https://lawcouncil.au/policy-agenda/regulation-of-the-profession-and-ethics/australian-solicitors-conduct-rules
- AustLII (Australasian Legal Information Institute): https://www.austlii.edu.au/
Exegesis capability references:
Join the waitlist
The Expert AI Attestation Agent is in build. We’re shaping the intake flow with practitioners who run expert-heavy lists in the Victorian Supreme Court and the ART. Join the waitlist and we’ll show you the intake questionnaire before it ships — what you push back on will change what your expert sees.