“I have no problem at all with AI tools being used to draft a motion or a brief. An AI tool is just that: a tool," said Judge Xavier Rodriguez of the Western District of Texas. Rodriguez was speaking at this week's Sedona Conference and was joined by other judges who sought to defend the use of AI in legal work.

Courts “shouldn’t assume everything about AI is nefarious and not helpful,” Chief Magistrate Judge Helen Adams of the US District Court for the Southern District of Iowa added, notes Bloomberg Law. “I don’t think this is any different than relying on an associate or an intern to draft the brief."

The growing adoption of AI in court documents and even in court itself has been met with skepticism and concern. Last year, New York lawyer Steven Schwartz famously filed a court brief generated by ChatGPT and full of hallucinations—a term for made-up or incorrect information generated by AI.

The judges at the Sedona Conference panel warned against using AI so blindly, and drilled down the point that AI should be used in early drafts and with a heavy dose of verification. Louisiana State Court Judge Scott Schlegel continued his concern over a distinction between generative AI and AI tools more broadly: “I think we do the bar a disservice when we do general orders like this."

Chief Justice Roberts

For his 2023 annual report, Chief Justice John Roberts paid particular attention to the issue of AI in the legal profession. The technology “obviously has great potential to dramatically increase access to key information for lawyers and non-lawyers alike,” Roberts wrote, cites SCOTUSBlog. However, “any use of AI requires caution and humility” because of the risk of “invading privacy interests and dehumanizing the law.”

Writing about the future of the field, Roberts said he predicts "that human judges will be around for a while. But with equal confidence I predict that judicial work — particularly at the trial level — will be significantly affected by AI."

THE VERDICT:

We are still in the early stages not only of AI itself, but of the technology's adoption in the legal profession. As with any technology, it is just a tool, not a replacement or substitute for human work. That being said, the caution mentioned by these judges should be heeded—it's hard to recover your reputation after a gaff like blindly submitting AI documents that were never verified.