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Courts on AI / topic

The court's own use of AI

Opinions, concurrences and orders in which a court says it used a generative-AI tool, or discusses whether courts should. 6 decisions from 5 courts, newest first; 5 read in full from the court's copy.

compiled by the Cognesio LLP editorial teammethodas of 2026-09-07v0.1.1coding CC BY 4.0JSON Hugging Face GitHub

  1. Smith v. P.A.M. Transport, Inc.

    · U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit · court used AI

    On 2025-09-25, the Sixth Circuit remands hostile-work-environment claims for trial. The majority notes the concurrence’s ChatGPT inquiry into a workplace slur and warns that ChatGPT consolidates text patterns without verifying sources; the concurrence cites the ChatGPT response among context-specific interpretive materials.

    The concurrence cites a ChatGPT inquiry asking, “What does monkey ass mean?” Conc. op. at 22. ChatGPT functions as a consolidator of information, synthesizing patterns from a vast body of text, but it does not independently verify the accuracy of any material or its unknown sources. The information provided in the concurrence’s permalink to Urban …
  2. Ross v. United States

    · District of Columbia Court of Appeals · court used AI · provisional

    On 2025-02-20, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals reverses an animal-cruelty conviction for insufficient proof. The majority and dissent both discuss ChatGPT responses: the majority questions its value as a proxy for common knowledge, while the dissent uses it as a limited check in nonprecedential reasoning.

    We, like the dissent, harbor doubts about whether ChatGPT is “a good proxy for what is, and what isn’t, common knowledge.” Post at 37 n.4. But to the extent the dissent relies on ChatGPT’s degree of certainty as to whether leaving a dog in a hot car is harmful, we note that ChatGPT expresses similar …
  3. Illinois Supreme Court Policy on Artificial Intelligence

    · Supreme Court of Illinois

    The Illinois Supreme Court policy authorizes responsible AI use by court users, lawyers, judges, and staff while stressing accuracy, bias, confidentiality, and accountability. It states that AI use should not be discouraged and generally should not require pleading disclosure.

    Embracing the advancements of artificial intelligence (AI), the Illinois Supreme Court remains steadfast in its commitment to upholding the highest ethical standards in the administration of justice. We acknowledge the rapid development of generative AI technologies capable of producing human-like text, images, video, audio, and other content. The integration of AI with the courts is …
  4. In re Interim Policy on the Use of Generative AI by Judicial Officers and Court Personnel

    · Supreme Court of Delaware

    The Delaware Supreme Court adopts an interim policy governing generative-AI use by judicial officers and court personnel. The order emphasizes that GenAI may assist official work only under a policy designed to protect judicial, legal, and professional judgment.

    WHEREAS, the DCLT has recommended adoption of the attached interim policy for the use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (“GenAI”) by judicial officers and court personnel; WHEREAS, the Interim Policy is intended to ensure the safe and appropriate use of GenAI by judicial officers and court personnel, but not be used as a substitute for judicial, …
  5. United States v. Deleon

    · U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit · 116 F.4th 1260 · court used AI

    On 2024-09-05, the Eleventh Circuit affirms a robbery sentencing enhancement. Judge Newsom concurs to revisit ordinary meaning and explains that he queried ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude repeatedly about “physically restrained,” using the variation in responses to discuss LLMs and everyday speech patterns.

    This is a sequel of sorts to my separate opinion in Snell v. United Specialty Insurance Co., 102 F.4th 1208 (11th Cir. 2024) (Newsom, J., concurring). There, I floated the following suggestion, which I suspected (rightly, as it turns out) would be fairly provocative: “Those, like me, who believe that ‘ordinary meaning’ is the foundational …
  6. Snell v. United Specialty Insurance Co.

    · U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit · 102 F.4th 1208 · court used AI

    On 2024-05-28, the Eleventh Circuit affirms summary judgment in an insurance coverage dispute. Judge Newsom concurs and discloses that he asked ChatGPT and Bard ordinary-meaning questions about “landscaping,” then discusses potential uses, disclosure practices, and risks of LLMs in textual interpretation.

    And that’s when things got weird. Perhaps in a fit of frustration, and most definitely on what can only be described as a lark, I said to one of my clerks, “I wonder what ChatGPT thinks about all this.” So he ran a query: “What is the ordinary meaning of ‘landscaping’?” Here’s what ChatGPT said …