Courting AI: Understanding AI in Courts

Courting AI: Navigating Artificial Intelligence in Courts is the National Association for Court Management’s (NACM) 22nd guide. Courting AI is available for download from the NACM Store. The guide is free for NACM members and $10 for nonmembers.

In addition to our quarterly periodicals, Court Manager and Court Express, NACM produces in-depth guides on topics relevant to the court management profession. Each year, the association strives to update an existing guide or, when possible, publishes a new guide. Last year both the Conference of State Court Administrators (COSCA) and NACM, along with the Joint Technology Committee (JTC), made artificial intelligence a priority topic. The NACM Board approved the creation of a guide to help educate its membership about artificial intelligence and its use in courts. Shortly before the 2023 NACM Annual Conference, the board asked the JTC if they would oversee the development of the guide, and the committee accepted the challenge.

The JTC then formed a workgroup that met frequently and worked swiftly to develop content outline, recruit additional contributors, unify the guide’s voice, and ensure its publication in time for the NACM 2024 Annual Conference.

Figure 1: The Courting AI Workgroup

Workgroup Members

Other Contributors

The first version of the guide published in 2024 ended up being 109 pages long. The JTC workgroup understood that court leaders wanted to learn about AI and its use in the courts, but also realized that many may not have the time during busy workdays to read such a substantial amount of material. The guide editors uploaded a copy of the guide to a generative AI resource, ChatGPT 4.0, and asked it to create reading paths for the different sectors of court professionals. ChatGPT was provided with an explanation of who was expected to read the guide. As a result, ChatGPT generated seven different suggested reading paths. Figure 2 identifies the suggested reading paths with links that will take the reader to sections of the guide that may be of interest to different audiences—court administrators, finance directors, human resource directors, judges, NACM CORE® interested audience, supervisors and managers, and technologists.

Figure 2: Courting AI Reading Paths

Reading Paths

The guide is published in Adobe PDF format and readers can quickly navigate through these reading-path topics using a keyboard shortcut. Readers can click on a topic in the reading path which will take them to the first page of that topic. After reading that topic, readers can use the keyboard shortcut alt + < to return to the previous page. Using this keyboard shortcut, readers can return to the suggested reading path to identify the next topic identified for their area of interest.

Figure 3: Keyboard Shortcut to Return to the Previous Page

Navigating the Guide

Artificial Intelligence and the NACM CORE®

The NACM CORE® is intended to promote the interests and further educate court professionals. The 13 competencies are contained within the modules, vision, principle, and practice that define and demonstrate how they integrate into the work of the court. Users of the CORE® can choose to learn by reading each competency curriculum or by participating in the CORE® Champion program. More advanced users can use the curriculum to structure and teach their own sessions in each competency. To learn more about the CORE® Champion Program, visit the NACM website and look for the tab labeled CORE.

Figure 4: The NACM CORE^® Curriculum

Figure 5: Reading Path for the NACM CORE^® Interested Audience

The NACM CORE^® Interested Audience

Generative AI tools can assist court professionals with navigating the CORE® Curriculum. Any of the more well-known generative AI chatbots can be used to suggest how AI tools and resources can enhance the administration of justice. When using generative AI chatbots, it is important to understand that they use technology that predicts (guesses) what should be produced as the desired answer. If the chatbot does not have access to facts upon which to base the answer, it makes the answer up. 

Let’s run an experiment. I’ll provide a generative AI chatbot with some instructions. Another term for these instructions that you’ll read about in the guide is prompt engineering. Here are my instructions to the chatbot:

I am writing an article about the new National Association for court management (NACM) Courting AI: Understanding Artificial Intelligence in Courts Guide. in one section I am giving examples of how AI can be tied to the 13 NACM Core Competencies. These competencies can be found here: https://nacmnet.org/nacm-core/core-competencies/. I am also saying that I could use a generative ai chatbot to not only summarize each of these competencies but actually tie how Artificial Intelligence and generative AI is relevant to each of these competencies. for instance, ai can help automate simple tasks so that court employees can focus on more complicated case filings. The use of AI for this purpose can increase data accuracy which impacts the CORE competencies of Accountability and Court Performance and Cashflow and Workflow. Please use this example and relate various uses of AI to all of the 13 NACM Core Competencies.

Note the typo in one of the competency names—I accidentally typed in “Cashflow” and “Workflow” instead of “Caseflow” and “Workflow.” I gave the chatbot a web address where it could find more information about all the competencies. When it generated an answer, it corrected the title of that competency based on what it found on the NACM website. The chatbot found another link to the National Center for State Courts on the NACM website and used information found on their site to build its answer. It formulated this answer in seconds! Remember the answer being provided by this chatbot is predictive, and the response may or may not reflect an actual AI-use case for courts and may or may not correctly link AI to the NACM CORE® competencies. You can decide for yourself after reading the AI chatbot response:

1. Accountability and Court Performance: AI can automate data entry and case management tasks, reducing human error and increasing data accuracy. This ensures that performance metrics are reliable and that courts can be held accountable for their operations.
2. Caseflow and Workflow: AI can optimize case scheduling and resource allocation, ensuring that cases move through the system efficiently. Predictive analytics can help identify potential bottlenecks and suggest improvements.
3. Public Trust and Confidence: AI can enhance transparency by providing the public with easy access to court information and decisions. Chatbots can assist in answering common queries, making the court system more approachable and understandable.
4. Purposes and Responsibilities: AI can help courts fulfill their fundamental purposes by streamlining administrative tasks, allowing court staff to focus on more critical responsibilities like ensuring justice and fairness.
5. Operations Management: AI can manage routine operational tasks such as scheduling, notifications, and document management. This allows court leaders to focus on strategic planning and improving court services.
6. Public Relations: AI-driven tools can analyze public sentiment and feedback, helping court leaders understand and address public concerns more effectively. Social media monitoring tools can also help manage the court’s public image.
7. Educational Development: AI can provide personalized learning experiences for court staff through adaptive learning platforms. These platforms can identify knowledge gaps and recommend targeted training programs.
8. Workforce Management: AI can assist in recruitment by screening resumes and identifying the best candidates. It can also help in performance management by providing data-driven insights into employee performance and development needs.
9. Ethics: AI can ensure compliance with ethical standards by monitoring court activities and flagging potential ethical violations. This helps maintain the integrity of the court system.
10. Leadership: AI can support leadership by providing data-driven insights and predictive analytics, helping leaders make informed decisions. AI tools can also facilitate communication and collaboration among court staff.
11. Visioning and Strategic Planning: AI can analyze trends and forecast future needs, aiding in strategic planning. This ensures that courts are prepared for future challenges and can adapt to changing circumstances.
12. Information Technology Management: AI can enhance IT management by automating routine maintenance tasks, detecting security threats, and ensuring that court systems are up-to-date and secure.
13. Budget and Fiscal Management: AI can optimize budget allocation by analyzing spending patterns and identifying areas for cost savings. Predictive analytics can also help forecast future financial needs and ensure fiscal responsibility.

By integrating AI into these core competencies, courts can improve efficiency, accuracy, and public trust, ultimately enhancing the administration of justice. If you need more detailed examples or further assistance, feel free to ask!

Source: Conversation with Copilot, 8/22/2024

1. CORE® Competencies — National Association for Court Management. https://nacmnet.org/who-we-are/initiatives/core-competencies/.
2. NACM CORE® — National Association for Court Management. https://nacmnet.org/nacm-core/.
3. NACM — Court Manager I’m a Court Leader—Now WHAT? (aka “I’m a Court …. https://bing.com/search?q=NACM+Core+Competencies.
4. Program Overview | NCSC. https://www.ncsc.org/education-and-careers/court-management-program/overview-cmp.
5. NACM — Court Manager I’m a Court Leader—Now WHAT? (aka “I’m a Court …. https://thecourtmanager.org/articles/im-a-court-leader-now-what-aka-im-a-court-leader-how-can-i-be-successful/.
6. THE CORE IN PRACTICE — nacmnet.org. https://nacmnet.org/wp-content/uploads/THE-CORE-IN-PRACTICE-Guide-2023.pdf.

Revising the Guide

Advances in AI are happening quickly. While creating this guide, the workgroup members shared articles, videos, and podcasts about innovations and changes nearly every day. Because the AI landscape changes rapidly and innovations for its use within the courts are developing, the group needed to find a way to keep the information in this guide current and relevant. Existing NACM guides are typically revised every six-to-ten years. It is not just a fear, but a reality that anything we publish about the understanding and use of AI in courts needs to be updated more frequently than NACM’s other guides. The JTC workgroup and the NACM Communications Committee devised a process to update the guide twice per year.

The guide encourages readers to submit edits and suggestions for additional content via email to NACM@nacmnet.org. Suggestions will be sent to and reviewed by the NACM Communications Committee. The committee will track approved edits, with biannual revisions scheduled in December for publication in January and in June for publication in July.

The NACM Communications Committee will review requests and, if approved, add them to a list of revisions for the next publication cycle. If the approved request is for new content, then a request will be sent to the JTC. The JTC will solicit an author and review the newly written content. The JTC will return the content to the NACM Communications Committee for the next publication cycle.

The Courting AI guide also includes videos. One of those videos is an NCSC Tiny Chat that warns us about the “Sea of Junk.” The video was created and produced by the National Center’s Zach Zarnow and Danielle Hirsch. There are many potential benefits for the use of AI in courts, but we need to keep humans in the loop to make sure that what we develop is useful and not junk. Click on the image below or copy and paste this link into your browser to watch the video: https://vimeo.com/920110405.

NACM is committed to producing resources to educate and support court professionals in adapting to evolving challenges, enhancing the administration of justice, and maintaining public trust in the judicial system. Their dedication to regular updates and creating new content reflects their commitment to staying at the forefront of technological advancements and best practices in court management.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Roger Rand is IT manager for the Multnomah Circuit Court, Oregon, and a member of NACM Board of Directors and the Joint Technology Committee.