California's Los Angeles and Riverside superior courts are piloting an AI clerk developed by Learned Hand to assist judges with civil case research and memo drafting, with plans to expand into criminal and family law. The initiative faces scrutiny over bias, accuracy, and the potential erosion of public trust in the judiciary.
California courts are piloting a new artificial intelligence clerk to assist judges in reviewing and drafting legal documents, with a focus on civil matters and potential future use in criminal proceedings.
In Los Angeles and Riverside counties, judges have authorized the use of a proprietary tool developed by Learned Hand-a startup that blends language models from Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google. The innovation is intended to streamline case research and memo drafting, thereby helping courts manage growing backlogs and improve decision‑making efficiency.
Riverside County has signed a $10,000 agreement to trial the system, while Los Angeles County's Superior Court entered a $314,000 contract that outlines a roadmap for integrating the AI into its criminal, family, and probate divisions. The AI clerk has been deployed primarily for civil and probate law. Attorneys in these jurisdictions use the program to generate research memoranda that support judges in shaping rulings.
The Los Angeles Superior Court is testing the system on motions that have already been decided, keeping it out of active case proceedings for now. In Riverside, the same approach applies: the AI helps attorneys draft memos, but it is not yet used in live criminal cases. The eventual goal, however, is to expand the tool's application to high‑stakes criminal matters, where people's liberty and access to justice hinge on accurate legal analysis.
The technology combines datasets from multiple providers to train its models, and the company claims rigorous testing for bias and accuracy-although no definitive results have been released. Learned Hand's CEO, Shlomo Klapper-who previously clerked for a federal appellate court and worked at Palantir-maintains that public confidence in the judiciary will not be eroded by AI, provided courts adopt stringent policies.
He argues that human and machine collaboration can reduce backlogs and prevent mistakes that arise when lawyers and judges use less reliable generative tools. Nonetheless, several judges remain skeptical. One Los Angeles judge, speaking anonymously, warned that AI could someday be used to evaluate appeals alleging racial bias in convictions, a town that has seen a surge in claims following the enactment of California's Racial Justice Act in 2020.
The judge cautioned that AI cannot fully grasp complex social dynamics that shape criminal justice outcomes, and he feared that reliance on such tools could erode public confidence in the fairness of the courts. California's judiciary has responded to growing concerns about generative AI by requiring every superior court to develop use policies before integrating the technology.
A public‑records review revealed that the majority of the state's superior courts have adopted frameworks that govern their use of AI, which include disclosure requirements for documents produced entirely by generative systems. The policies aim to balance innovation with safeguards against the well‑known pitfalls of AI, such as the generation of false citations or partisan language.
The Los Angeles and Riverside courts have yet to clarify whether litigants will be informed that their cases are being examined by an AI tool. Their spokespersons emphasized that the current trials involve motions that have already been decided, but the contracts do allow for future testing in live cases. The broader context is that California legal professionals are increasingly turning to AI for research and drafting.
Roughly a dozen of the 51 superior courts that responded to requests for information indicated that they are already using commercial AI platforms from LexisNexis, Thomson Reuters, and Microsoft's Copilot. The adoption of such tools is a controversial move, as precedent shows AI systems can produce hallucinations-citations that do not exist-and inadequate analysis.
Legal scholars from UCLA Law School have warned that while AI can augment legal work, it is not a substitute for human judgment, especially in the legal domain where nuance and precedent matter. Meanwhile, the California Supreme Court's Judicial Council has enacted a statewide mandate for AI use policies, requiring courts undertaking AI assistance to report on safeguards, oversight, and impact.
The continuing experimentation with AI clerks reflects a broader struggle within the California judiciary to address backlogs while maintaining public trust. Critics worry that an overreliance on machines could not only lead to factual errors but also amplify existing biases embedded in training data. Proponents argue that, with proper testing and oversight, AI can relieve judges of routine tasks, allowing them to devote more time to complex legal reasoning.
The outcome of the Los Angeles and Riverside experiments may set a precedent for other jurisdictions, potentially reshaping the legal profession's interaction with artificial intelligence across the state. Ultimately, the courts are at a crossroads: embrace AI to improve efficiency while implementing rigorous safeguards, or resist the technology to preserve the primacy of human legal judgment.
The upcoming phases of testing in criminal and family courts will likely reveal whether AI can meet the high stakes of these cases without compromising the integrity of the judicial process.
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