In his LTN article, David Horrigan highlights the erroneous thinking of a judge, who (as David notes) misses the point on judicial use of AI.
David’s terrific article on Legaltech® News (A Curious Footnote Misses the Point on Judicial Use of AI and Judge Rodriguez’s AI Scholarship, available here) opens this way: “To say U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez (W.D. Tex.) is a scholar on data law generally, and the law of artificial intelligence specifically, would be an understatement.”
Spoiler alert: Judge Rodriguez is not the “luddite judge” in this story. Nor did David ever use the term “luddite judge” – that’s the term I’ve used.
Toward the beginning of the article, David provides full disclosure that he has served as a guest lecturer at Judge Rodriguez’s law school class, Judge Rodriguez has been a guest lecturer for a law school class taught by him, and he has moderated judicial panels featuring Judge Rodriguez. To which I’ll add my own full disclosure that I have participated on multiple panels with Judge Rodriguez and have interacted with him at numerous conferences.
On to the subject matter of the article. The case La Union Del Pueblo Entero v. Abbott deals with election law in Texas, but that’s not the point of this article. As David notes: “it was more than slightly surprising when, in writing a decision in a matter of alleged election ballot harvesting, U.S. Circuit Judge Edith Jones of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals included a footnote insinuating Judge Rodriguez may have outsourced his legal judgment to AI tools.” {link to decision added}
In the ruling, Judge Jones states: “Shoddy hypothetical analysis is not what our federal system requires” and references a footnote which says this (referring to Judge Rodriguez as “the district court”):
“The district court gave an interview to the Wall Street Journal explaining how he had used artificial intelligence as an adjunct to his work on some aspects of a case “involving Texas election law.” Erin Mulvaney, “How Judges Are Using AI to Help Decide Your Legal Dispute,” Wall Street Journal, Jan. 6, 2026. Whether it was this case is uncertain. However, as one distinguished U.S. senator has commented, AI “must not be a substitute for legal judgment,” 171 Cong. Rec. S7751 (daily ed. Oct. 27, 2025) (statement of Sen. Chuck Grassley), nor must the public perceive that federal judges outsource our judgment to AI tools.” {emphasis added}
As David notes, The Wall Street Journal article did state that Judge Rodriguez “uses artificial intelligence to help manage a daunting case backlog in his San Antonio courtroom, deploying it to summarize legal filings, decipher the facts, and write questions to lob at lawyers during hearings,” but that Judge Rodriguez stated “he still always makes the final decision himself.”
The article also noted Judge Rodriguez said that, in the case “involving Texas’ election law,” he and his law clerks “had sifted through hundreds of thousands of exhibits, reviewed testimony from more than 70 witnesses and researched relevant case law” and “The entire process took 10 months before the judge issued a 140-page opinion.”
But – only after this laborious human process – Judge Rodriguez ran the same evidence through an AI tool, adding that, within minutes, the AI tool produced a first draft that had taken his team weeks to produce, adding, “While the final result wasn’t perfect and needed some fact-checking, Rodriguez has been using AI ever since.”
As David notes: “one has to question how Judge Jones could have reasonably come away with the impression that Judge Rodriguez ‘outsourced’ his judgment to AI tools.”
David goes on to detail “The AI Scholarship of Judge Rodriguez”, which is extensive – including being a member of the State Bar of Texas Taskforce for Responsible Use of AI in the Law (TRAIL) participating in the creation of substantial training materials, including this training video and this educational video.
Judge Rodriguez is also the author of the scholarly article published by The Sedona Conference, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Practice of Law (covered by us here) where he provides important guidance of legal professionals beginning their AI journey, including compliance with ABA Model Rule of Professional Conduct 1.6 on Confidentiality of Information as well as compliance with Model Rule 3.3’s prohibition of making false statements to courts.
David points out this quote from Judge Rodriguez in that article: “Although AI tools are vastly improving, attorneys should never file any AI-generated document without reviewing it for accuracy. This includes not only checking to ensure that the facts stated are correct and that legal authorities cited are accurate, but that the quality of analysis reflects good advocacy”.
Does it sound to you like he’s a judge that is inclined to use AI as a “a substitute for legal judgment”? It doesn’t sound like it to me.
So, why am I saying that Judge Jones thinking like a “luddite judge” here? Because she appears to have drawn the conclusion that simply using AI means it is being used as a “a substitute for legal judgment”.
And that (as David says) is missing the point. AI tools provide so many capabilities to us (and continue to add capabilities) that it doesn’t make sense not to use them. There are so many things they can do – analyze documents, draft content, etc. – that enable us to save significant time over having to review it all and draft it all ourselves.
Are the tools perfect? No. The output must be reviewed and fact checked. Failing to do so – as many lawyers and pro se parties have discovered – is tantamount to using AI as a “a substitute for legal judgment”. They don’t get it.
But people who fail to recognize that the proper use of AI (reviewing and fact checking the results) is leveraging the technology – not blindly trusting it – also don’t get it. Using AI tools properly is not a “a substitute for legal judgment” – the legal judgment remains with the legal expert. Just like it has with every other tool we’ve used to be more efficient, when they’ve been used properly. Judge Jones doesn’t get it.
Judge Rodriguez does. That’s the difference.
Check out David’s terrific article here.
So, what do you think? How should judges apply AI to their work? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.
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