California courts testing AI clerk to assist judges with case prep

Article By Ian M. Giatti

One of California’s largest courts is testing a new artificial intelligence tool that can draft orders and produce research memos for judges, primarily in civil cases. 

Learned Hand, an AI company built exclusively for judges, announced a partnership with the Superior Court of Los Angeles County in March to explore how AI can support judicial officers and court staff across the lifecycle of a case. 

The pilot program, which currently focuses on civil cases, will cost over $300,000 and run through early 2027. However, the program could expand to “limited use in criminal courts in the future,” according to Learned Hand’s website.

According to the announcement, the program will offer select judicial officers tools for “efficient case management” by granting them access to AI technology that promises to utilize “case information, summarization, research, analysis and drafting assistance to assist them as they prepare for and manage cases before them.”

Unlike open-source chatbots like Claude or ChatGPT, Learned Hand is built by former clerks and staff attorneys and relies on a “closed system of authoritative sources” that links all of the system’s outputs to the original source material in the case file.

Learned Hand’s founder and CEO, Shlomo Klapper, is a former judicial clerk for the U.S. Court of Appeals and a deployment strategist at Palantir, who says the AI tool isn’t meant to replace judicial discretion but rather to address the backlogs affecting the bench’s work.

“Judges and court staff do meticulous work under significant time pressure. Learned Hand will assist with the preparation, but as always, judges make the final decisions,” said Klapper in a press statement in March announcing the partnership.

Considered the largest trial court in the nation, with nearly 600 judicial officers serving over 10 million residents across 36 courthouses, approximately 1.2 million cases are filed each year in the Superior Court of Los Angeles County. 

In addition to its deal with the county, Learned Hand’s AI technology is also used by the Michigan Supreme Court and trial courts in 10 states.

The initiative comes as courts nationwide grapple with AI’s emerging role in the legal system, including its application for judges.

A federal judge in Manhattan ruled in February that when a criminal defendant used an AI chatbot to prepare for his legal defense, he waived attorney-client privilege. According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, the judge’s ruling would allow prosecutors access to every input and output linked to the defendant’s use of the chatbot.

Judge Jed Rakoff reportedly ruled that transcripts from the Claude chatbot were not legally protected because “by typing information into an AI platform, the defendant ‘shared’ it with a third party, and because Anthropic’s privacy policy permits data collection and potential further disclosure, no ‘reasonable expectation of confidentiality’ existed,” according to WSJ.

“If this reasoning stands, the consequences will reach far beyond artificial intelligence,” the report added.

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