Jennifer's Laws · VI. Transparency & Public Oversight of the Courts
J-Law 47 — Neutral, AI-Authored Orders
Written orders from any status or hearing shall be drafted by AI, producing an accurate, neutral summary of what occurred. Orders shall not be written by anyone with an interest in the case.
One of the system's quietest scandals hides in who writes the orders. After a hearing, the prevailing attorney frequently drafts the order memorializing it — an interested advocate composing the official account of what happened, characterizing rulings and events to the client's advantage. The judge signs, often without close reading, and the advocate's version hardens into the record that controls everything downstream. Litigants routinely discover that the entered order describes a hearing they do not recognize.
Basic conflict-of-interest principles forbid letting a party to a dispute author its official history, yet the practice is standard. Neutral, AI-generated summaries drawn from the actual record remove the distortion at its source: the software has no client, no fee, and no stake in shading a single sentence. Human review can verify accuracy; interest is the disease, and disinterest is the cure.
The expected counterargument: AI makes errors and hallucinates, and official court records are the last place to trust it. Compare instruments honestly. The current drafter is a human with a documented financial motive to distort, operating with no verification step at all — the judge's signature on an unread draft is the entire quality control. AI drafting works from the hearing record, produces text every party reviews before entry, and carries no motive whatsoever; errors it makes are random and correctable, while errors the interested drafter makes are directional and intended to survive. Court reporters already trust technology with the verbatim record, and the summary layer is a smaller leap than the objection implies. Perfection is the wrong standard when the incumbent practice is authored bias. Between a fallible neutral and a skilled partisan, the record is safer with the neutral, and the parties' review closes the gap.