الذكاء الاصطناعي
كيف يتم استخدام الذكاء الاصطناعي في قاعات المحاكم
Every day, various justice system professionals conduct legal research, communicate with clients, manage court cases and interpret the law. Their work is foundational to a safe and functioning society, which is why many are intrigued by the promise of higher productivity. Lawyers — especially public defenders — often have huge caseloads. Judges write dissenting opinions that can muddy the waters for future legal proceedings. Regulations and statutes constantly change. Within this complex system, artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a means to automate time-consuming administrative processes.
Everyday Applications of AI in the Courtroom
Much of a lawyer’s work week is spent on time-consuming administrative tasks, not swaying juries in courtrooms. They spend 80٪ من وقتهم collecting information and just 20% on analysis and implications. To build cases, they must meticulously comb through case law, regulations and statutes. AI could streamline such tasks, saving them countless hours.
AI assistants can help lawyers optimize schedules and manage caseloads, overcoming docketing issues. Generative AI can help them and their staff conduct legal research. Judges can consult algorithmic risk assessment tools when making bail decisions.
The tool can help other legal professionals, too. Natural language processing models can help stenographers with transcription, while large language models (LLMs) can assist interpreters with translation. Generative AI can draft documents, automate client communication or organize case files for paralegals and legal assistants.
Benefits of Integrating AI Into Court Functions
AI can accelerate time-consuming, repetitive tasks, freeing up professionals for more important or time-sensitive matters. This would be particularly advantageous for public defenders, who handle hundreds of cases and appeals each year. On average, they spend anywhere from 13.5 to 286 hours per case representing defendants.
Legal professionals aren’t the only ones who can benefit from using AI. Litigants who are representing themselves in court can seek legal guidance from AI chatbots.
AI can make legal representation more accessible for underprivileged and underrepresented populations. Law firms can use it to offer pro bono legal services to low-income individuals. Since one model can engage with thousands or even millions of people simultaneously, it can scale as the law firm expands.
Legal and Ethical Concerns Associated With AI
Although AI can be beneficial for plaintiffs, lawyers, judges and interpreters, misuse could lead to erroneous legal judgments. In 2024, Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered AI found that state-of-the-art LLMs have a hallucination rate of 69% to 88% in response to legal queries.
LLMs often confidently output flawed or fictitious information. For example, they may cite nonexistent case law or fabricate quotes when conducting legal research. Despite appearing plausible, these hallucinations are inaccurate.
Intentional deception is also possible, given the power of generative AI. A plaintiff could use it to fake a break-in by generating a home security video that depicts the defendant stealing their belongings. This example isn’t entirely hypothetical, as deepfakes have already been used in the courtroom.
في الولايات المتحدة، 80% of court cases hinge on video — including bodycam footage, cell phone recordings or surveillance clips — to some degree. This is why legal professionals are deeply concerned about deepfakes. In September 2025, a judge threw out a civil case after determining a videotaped witness testimony was a deepfake.
Bad actors could target AI legal research tools to disrupt the justice system. Research shows it is possible to poison 0.01% of a training dataset’s samples with existing tools. That may seem inconsequential, but a poisoning rate as low as 0.001% can permanently alter output. Users can access around 30% of the samples in any given LLM, making corruption surprisingly easy.
Real-World Cases Where AI Was Used in Court
AI could be advantageous for legal professionals and individuals representing themselves. However, most real-world examples making headlines are not favorable. Due to widespread concern about the legal and ethical implications of AI in the courtroom, the worst examples get the most attention.
In May 2025, federal judge Michael Wilner wanted to learn more about the arguments some lawyers made in a filing. However, the articles they cited didn’t exist. After being pressed for more details, they delivered a new brief with more inaccuracies than the first.
When Wilner ordered them to give sworn testimony explaining the mistakes, they admitted they had used Google’s Gemini and law-specific AI models to write the document. The judge imposed sanctions totaling $31,000 against the law firm. Even though they didn’t input confidential or nonpublic information, they still wasted the court’s time.
It’s not just lawyers and plaintiffs misusing AI. In 2025, two U.S. federal district judges withdrew rulings after it was discovered their court staff had used AI tools for legal research, resulting in error-ridden, hallucinated case citations. While they blamed the faulty rulings on AI, it is their responsibility to read the case they cite.
These aren’t one-off cases spotlighting small, obscure local law firms — these are big-time lawyers and federal judges making embarrassing, avoidable mistakes. The blame doesn’t fall squarely on intelligent algorithms, either. At the end of the day, AI is just a tool. Whether or not it is beneficial depends on the user.
How the Justice System Should Be Using AI
Publicly available LLMs are accuracy and security risks waiting to happen. Domain-specific retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) models are being promoted as a solution for AI hallucinations because they retrieve relevant data from external, trusted knowledge bases before generating a response.
However, a RAG model is not a silver bullet because the law is not entirely composed of indisputable, verifiable facts. Juries are swayed by charismatic lawyers. Judges write opinions to explain the reasoning behind their rulings. Laws differ between countries, states and localities. There is room for error in this gray area.
The law is often up to interpretation — this is why lawyers and judges exist in the first place. Humans cannot expect AI to be an infallible authority on the subject. While using RAG is a step in the right direction, ensuring continuous oversight with a human-in-the-loop approach is key.
How Will AI Be Used in Future Courtrooms?
Courts rely on relevant documentation supported by accurate citations. Despite being widely adopted by paralegals and lawyers alike to save time and effort on administrative tasks, AI still struggles with retrieving this information.
AI hallucinations are not exclusive to U.S. courtrooms. In one case in the United Kingdom, the plaintiff sought nearly $120 million in damages against Qatar National Bank. The court found 40% their case law citations were entirely fictitious. Even the real cases were filled with fake quotes. Eventually, the plaintiff admitted to using AI tools for legal research.
Even if their case was solid, AI hallucinations damaged their credibility and reputation, potentially influencing the outcome against them. To avoid similar blunders in the future, the law must catch up with AI.
Rules governing AI use and oversight must be detailed and robust. Courtrooms with “verbal understandings” will likely find staff still using AI. As legal professionals know, rules require an enforcement mechanism. Disciplinary measures and sanctions will help professionals understand the gravity of safe, ethical AI use.
The Silver Lining of AI Use in the Courtroom
These high-stakes errors raise further questions about research integrity. Have AI tools inadvertently revealed that lawyers are not verifying legal research and judges are docketing unverified drafts? For better or worse, AI is becoming part of the justice system. Like any other tool, whether its impact is positive or negative depends on how it is used. The silver lining is that even embarrassing blunders provide professionals with a guide on what not to do.
