Kimberley Bazelais
Senior Associate, Bird & Bird | Paris & New York Qualified
International Arbitration | Technology Disputes | AI & Evidence
Kimberley Bazelais is a dual-qualified international arbitration lawyer exploring how AI can support dispute resolution while preserving the integrity of evidence, procedural fairness and independent judgment.
SCROLL TO EXPLORE ↓About Kimberley
Kimberley Bazelais is a Senior Associate in the international arbitration practice of Bird & Bird in Paris. Qualified in Paris and New York, she acts as counsel in international commercial arbitrations and related court proceedings, with a particular focus on disputes involving technology.
Alongside her practice, Kimberley examines how artificial intelligence is changing the way evidence is processed, presented and assessed in arbitration. Her current study centres on the integrity of arbitral fact-finding, particularly the verification tribunals and counsel should require when contested allegations pass through automated summarisation and analysis.
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Kimberley’s work connects the practical demands of resolving technology disputes with the procedural questions raised by using technology within arbitration itself.
Her perspective recognises the efficiency gains offered by legal technology while emphasising the need for procedural rules and case management to evolve alongside its adoption. She is particularly interested in how practitioners can assess the reliability of AI-assisted work and preserve the safeguards on which a fair evidentiary process depends.
As a Moderator at ArbTech.io, Kimberley contributes a practitioner’s perspective to interdisciplinary discussions involving lawyers, technologists and academics. Her focus is on helping the profession develop an informed understanding of which tools are suited to arbitration, which deserve trust and under what conditions.
At the intersection of AI, evidence and procedural integrity
As AI tools become involved in summarising documents and analysing disputed material, they introduce new questions about how facts are established in arbitration.
Kimberley’s work focuses on the verification needed when technology mediates the relationship between the underlying evidence and the account presented to counsel or a tribunal.
Her perspective is that sustainable efficiency depends on preserving due process. The challenge is to develop procedural rules, case management practices and practical safeguards that allow arbitration to benefit from technology while maintaining confidence in how evidence is tested and decisions are reached.
Areas of Focus
Moderator at ArbTech.io
Kimberley serves as a Moderator at ArbTech.io, contributing to its interdisciplinary dialogue on technology, arbitration and the future of dispute resolution.
She joined ArbTech out of a conviction that the questions raised by AI and legal technology require the combined perspectives of practitioners, technologists and academics.
Through the platform, she hopes to help the profession move beyond curiosity and the adoption of new tools towards a more informed assessment of their suitability, reliability and limits.
Her aim is to support an arbitration community that makes deliberate choices about technology: understanding which tools deserve trust, on what terms they should be used and how their use can serve the particular demands of arbitral practice.
Practice & Contributions
International Arbitration Practice
Senior Associate at Bird & Bird in Paris, acting as counsel in international commercial arbitrations and related court proceedings, with a particular focus on technology disputes.
Paris & New York Qualifications
Qualified in Paris and New York, bringing a cross-jurisdictional perspective to international dispute resolution.
AI & Evidentiary Integrity
Studying the integrity of arbitral fact-finding as AI enters the evidentiary process, including the verification required when disputed allegations are subject to automated summarisation and analysis.
FAQ
What does Kimberley Bazelais specialise in?
Kimberley specialises in international commercial arbitration and related court proceedings, with a particular focus on disputes involving technology. She is a Senior Associate at Bird & Bird in Paris and is qualified in Paris and New York.
What is Kimberley Bazelais’s role at ArbTech.io?
Kimberley is a Moderator at ArbTech.io. She contributes a practitioner’s perspective to interdisciplinary discussions about AI, legal technology and the future of arbitration.
What is Kimberley’s current study focused on?
Her current study centres on the integrity of arbitral fact-finding as AI tools enter the evidentiary process. She is particularly interested in what tribunals and counsel should require by way of verification when contested allegations pass through automated summarisation and analysis.
What topics does Kimberley explore?
Her interests include AI and evidence, technology disputes, procedural fairness, arbitral fact-finding and the practical governance of technology within arbitral proceedings.
What is Kimberley’s perspective on legal technology?
Kimberley considers the efficiency gains offered by legal technology to be real, but believes they will be sustainable only if procedural rules and case management evolve to preserve due process. She advocates an informed approach to selecting, verifying and governing tools used in arbitration.
Featured Thinking
AI, Evidence and the Integrity of Arbitral Fact-Finding
The value of AI in arbitration depends on whether its outputs can be verified against the evidence and fairly tested by the parties.
AI tools offer opportunities to process large volumes of material, summarise documents and support legal analysis. Their use also raises a fundamental question for arbitration: what happens to the integrity of fact-finding when the material on which practitioners rely has passed through an automated system?
A summary necessarily selects and compresses information. When it concerns disputed facts, those choices matter. Qualifications, contradictions and context may be essential to understanding an allegation, even when they occupy only a small part of the underlying record.
An account that reads clearly and confidently still needs to be checked against its sources.
For counsel and tribunals, this makes verification a central procedural concern. What material supports an AI-assisted summary? Does the output preserve the distinction between an allegation and an established fact? Can the relevant reasoning and source material be examined when the account is challenged?
These questions connect the practical use of technology to familiar requirements of due process: a meaningful opportunity to understand, contest and respond to the material relied upon.
The efficiency gains offered by legal technology will be sustainable only if procedural rules and case management develop alongside its use. That requires deliberate choices about the tasks entrusted to automated tools, the checks applied to their outputs and the responsibility retained by practitioners and decision-makers.
Interdisciplinary dialogue is essential to making those choices well. Lawyers need to understand how tools operate and where their limits lie. Technologists need to understand the evidentiary and procedural demands of arbitration. Academic perspectives can help test the assumptions underlying both.
Arbitration’s response to AI should therefore be guided by an informed assessment of suitability and trust. The profession needs to establish which tools serve arbitral practice, what verification their use requires and how procedural safeguards should evolve.
That is how arbitration can adapt to technology on its own terms.