Module 7

Exhibits, ethics and AI-made visuals: using pictures responsibly

The earlier modules treated visuals as a matter of skill: choose the right form, draw it honestly, put numbers in a form people can understand, build slides that carry an argument. This one is about responsibility. A lawyer’s pictures leave the room: they go to clients who forward them, to regulators who test them, to opponents who attack them and to courts that may rely on them. A chart in a settlement meeting can become an exhibit, and a diagram sent to a client can be read out in a hearing. The lawyer who made it answers for its accuracy and for what it implies. This module covers the difference between evidence and an aid to understanding, the fact that rules on demonstrative and summary exhibits differ by court and country, the duties of accuracy and candour, reproducibility, confidentiality and privacy in what a visual reveals, and the use of AI tools to draft charts and images, which is convenient and dangerous. It ends with a checklist to run before any visual goes out. It describes principles, not the rules of any particular court, which you must check.

General education on visual communication for lawyers, using invented organisations, people, data and cases. It states common practice in simplified form and does not describe any one country's law or court rules, which differ and change; rules on exhibits, demonstrative aids, disclosure, candour and confidentiality in particular vary. The tools apply simple rules to descriptions and text that you supply. It is not legal advice, and it does not replace advice from a qualified lawyer on a real matter.