2024年法院状况报告

As concerns over caseloads and backlogsrecede, GenAI makes its presence felt Executive summary In his year-end Report on the Federal Judiciary for 2023, U.S. Supreme Court Chief JusticeJohn Roberts devoted much of his annual letter to the impact that artificial intelligence (AI)and specifically generative AI (GenAI) will most certainly have on the justice system, the legal While Chief Justice Roberts said he doesn’t see a future in which AI robots replace judges, hedoes acknowledge that the nation’s courts and its system of dispensing justice to its citizensmay be dramatically altered by AI. For example, he noted that Rule 1 of the Federal Rules of Civil While acknowledging the risks to privacy and other concerns, Chief Justice Roberts also notedthat AI may also aid in improving access to justice for all citizens. “For those who cannot afford alawyer, AI can help,” he said, adding that AI can allow for new technology solutions that all citizenscan access to get answers to basic questions or find court forms to proceed with their cases — all Clearly, Chief Justice Roberts is not alone in seeing the potential sea change that GenAI could bringto the nation’s courts. In the second annual State of the Courts Survey Report, published by theThomson Reuters® Institute, we surveyed judges and court professionals from state, county, and Not surprisingly, our survey respondents in this year’s report showed some uncertainty andreluctance about the use of GenAI in the court setting. Indeed, while 15% said they think generativeAI can be used in the court setting, only 9% think it should be used. And much larger portions As one staff attorney at a state courthouse said of the potential use of GenAI in the courtroom,“The technology is being pushed too fast and hyped too far.” Also not surprisingly, nearly two-thirds (65%) said their objection had to do with risk concernsabout generative AI, with the strongest concerns relating to accuracy and quality of data sources(51%); and how GenAI lacks the human judgment, reasoning, and emotion that is critically inherent Indeed, one county court clerk of courts said her concerns were that GenAI use in court proceedingscould make “the process less humanizing and dignified for litigants.” Beyond generative AI, our survey showed that judges and court professionals at all levels said theyare still managing many of the challenges that they had cited in our previous survey, conductedin 2022. These concerns were strongly reflective of how courts have had to navigate through the Yet, while these concerns were still reflected in our latest survey, many of these challenges havereceded, making room in many respondents’ minds for a clearer path toward more positiveoutcomes. For example, while increasing caseloads continue to be the biggest change that And even though more than half of respondents (56%) said they expect to experience staffingshortages in the coming 12 months, that was down from the past 12 months when almost two- Overall, it seems that courts and their workers are enjoying broader engagement with technologysolutions, especially around such critical areas as evidence collection and storage as digital It’s as if both the easing of the pandemic-induced stasis in the courts and the slow, albeit steadymovement toward new technology solutions to improve court operations have melded withthe great expectations of GenAI to make today’s survey respondents more conscious of their Top findings •When asked about the biggest change that they’ve experienced over the past two years, 40% ofrespondents said increasing caseloads; however, this is down from 45% in 2022. •All other aspects of work also are less likely to have increased since our previous survey, withincreased case delays being cited by 27% of respondents, compared to 45% in 2022; and increased •Respondents also said they are participating in fewer hearings per week on average (35 per weekcompared to 43 in 2022). And while there was a slight increase in hearings being delayed by morethan 15 minutes in our latest survey, the incidence of these delays always or often impacting other •Most respondents (82%) said that virtual courts increase justice opportunities for litigants — asentiment that has risen from 76% since 2022. And nearly all of those respondents (90%) say thatvirtual courts increase justice opportunities by removing the geographic and financial barriers that •More than one-third (35%) of respondents say they now use a digital evidence management system— an 8-percentage point increase since the last survey. However, nearly three-fifths (58%) of thosewho say they are not using a digital evidence management system think that having one would be •Similar to last year, a large majority of respondents (72%) said they are very confident or somewhat •Further, one-third of respondents (33%) said they do not welcome the use of generative AI by caseparticipants in the courtroom, although a larger majority (59%)