The ethical and responsible use of GenAI in judicial systems requires balancing technological advancements with ethical principles, such as data privacy, fairness, transparency, and human oversight, to ensure justice and promote public trust
In the rapidly evolving landscape of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), the ethical and responsible use of these new technologies in judicial systems is paramount. The idea of using GenAI in the practice of law and within courts is raising several key concerns around ethics, but just like any other new technology transformations, these ethical dilemmas are not new, according to David Sachar, Director of the Center for Judicial Ethics at the National Center for State Courts.
Decades ago, in fact, the introduction of email and electronic filing systems raised issues around confidentiality and ex parte communications between judges and attorneys.
Check out all the National Center for State Courts’ Education Center regarding GenAI in courts
Likewise, the rise of social media platforms also created challenges for judges in maintaining impartiality and avoiding improper public comments on pending cases. “We’ve seen a lot of technological changes, and I don’t think GenAI is in and of itself different than when we first started dealing with social media — the principles are the same,” Sachar says. “Now, the challenges of GenAI are going to be greater just because of its incredible ability to help or harm.”
Balancing ethical principles & understanding implications
Understanding the ethical implications of GenAI in courtrooms is crucial for ensuring justice and maintaining the public trust. Indeed, blending technological advancements with ethical grounding is essential for leveraging GenAI’s benefits while mitigating its risks in the pursuit of fair and equitable justice.
There are several key ethical principles that judges and court administrators must address, including:
Data privacy — Courts must protect the personal and sensitive information involved in judicial processes. This includes implementing robust data minimization techniques, ensuring user consent for data use, and applying privacy-by-design principles. Those promoting the ethical use of GenAI should prioritize the protection of data and prevent unauthorized access, ensuring that GenAI systems do not compromise the confidentiality of court proceedings.
Fairness — Another key principle is the removal of biases to maintain fairness in court decisions or outcomes in which GenAI was used. These systems must be designed and trained to avoid discrimination against individuals based on inherent or acquired characteristics such as race, gender, or socioeconomic status.
Transparency — Additionally, transparency and explainability are essential to building public trust in any new system. Courts should ensure that the purpose and functioning of GenAI systems are clear and understandable to all stakeholders. Providing detailed user guides and maintaining open communication about the capabilities and limitations of GenAI tools can help in achieving this transparency.
Human oversight — Human oversight remains critical throughout the GenAI lifecycle, emphasizing the need for human validation of GenAI outputs and the ultimate responsibility of legal professionals in making final decisions. GenAI should support human decision-making, not replace it. “It’s an important note that we should not rely on technology to make decisions without any human validation, humans in the loop, or human oversight,” says Carter Cousineau, VP of Data & Model Governance at Thomson Reuters.
Practical steps for embedding GenAI
A structured approach to using GenAI in courts ethically requires embedding such principles at every stage of GenAI development and deployment. Cousineau and Sachar emphasize three primary areas of focus, including:
1. Defining ethical GenAI principles — As stated, clear principles for GenAI use need to prioritize fairness, transparency, accountability, and human oversight to ensure GenAI systems do not discriminate or produce biased outcomes. Ethical GenAI principles for courts should emphasize the need for judges and legal professionals to maintain competence in GenAI technologies, critically evaluate GenAI outputs, and retain ultimate decision-making authority rather than deferring to automated systems.
2. Creating governance frameworks — To establish robust GenAI governance, courts need to first identify potential ethical harms specific to their use cases, such as biases in sentencing recommendations or breaches of confidentiality during case summarization. Based on these identified risks, courts can then develop tailored GenAI governance frameworks, outlining clear principles, policies, and accountability structures to ensure ethical and responsible GenAI implementation.
3. Establishing trusted partnerships — Courts should engage in open dialogue with GenAI vendors and technology providers, asking detailed questions about how the large language models (LLMs) are trained. These inquiries should include documentation for how vendors mitigate risks in their LLMs and how they maintain the strong human oversight measures built into their GenAI systems. Courts should also collaborate with subject matter experts in the legal field to identify appropriate use cases in which GenAI can enhance efficiency while, at the same time, maintain high ethical standards. Courts should also work with those subject matter experts to develop policies and guidelines for responsible GenAI implementation in the courts.
Opportunities & challenges will continue
Opportunities and challenges now and in the future remain for using GenAI in the judicial process, mostly because of how quickly the technology is evolving. On the opportunity side, GenAI has the potential to improve efficiency through tasks like summarizing depositions, aiding in language interpretation, and enhancing access to justice. On the other hand, key challenges include ensuring GenAI systems are properly vetted, maintaining confidentiality of sensitive information, and avoiding over-reliance on GenAI for decision-making.
Properly implementing GenAI ethically in courts will require conducting ongoing education, establishing clear governance frameworks, and fostering collaboration between legal and technical experts to address emerging issues. Realizing the benefits of GenAI in the courts will require carefully balancing new innovation with core ethical principles and human judgment.
The Establishing GenAI literacy in courts series examines how to implement GenAI in courtrooms in order to effectively improve constituent experience while managing key concerns, especially around ethics.
This series is part of the AI Policy Consortium partnership between Thomson Reuters Institute and the National Center for State Courts.
