Courts Explore More AI Use as Lawyers Take the Lead, Judges Say

Federal judges are increasingly exploring generative AI tools for tasks such as drafting jury instructions, procedural histories, and questions to ask during hearings, despite courts lagging behind attorneys’ adoption of the technology.

“I myself have become, I guess, a little bit of a power user compared to others,” Magistrate Judge Anthony Porcelli of the US District Court for the Middle District of Florida told attendees Thursday at an American Bar Association conference on employment law and technology.

He recently used an AI tool in the middle of a court hearing to quickly research a question that arose, and he’s exploring ...