Digital judicial assistants: The Baden-Württemberg judiciary plans to use AI to provide support

AI is intended to help ease the workload of judges in the social courts by simplifying and speeding up the organisation of case files. This is the aim of a recently launched project involving the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Justice and Migration, the companies Materna and Infora, and GovTech Campus Deutschland. The research project is called AKIRA (‘General AI Judicial Assistance’) and examines the extent to which the vision of an AI assistant capable of organising extensive court files can be realised using a large language model, that is, by utilising modern technology from the field of artificial intelligence. The project aims to lay the foundations for a phased development towards a comprehensive AI judicial assistant that will significantly ease the workload of judges across all jurisdictions in their day-to-day work.

In social justice proceedings, court files and the documents referred to from the preceding administrative proceedings often comprise hundreds or even thousands of pages. Judges must be familiar with the contents of the entire file in order to rule on the case. Manually collating the facts and the state of the dispute is very time-consuming. AKIRA’s vision is to simplify and accelerate this process with the aid of an AI solution, so that the increased workload can ultimately be better managed using existing staff resources. Judges will be enabled to take targeted procedural measures, such as taking evidence, and to focus on legal issues or on dialogue with the parties involved in the proceedings. Practitioners from the Ulm Social Court are participating in the project and contributing their expert knowledge. The project is also testing the new generative AI technology, PhariaAI, from Aleph Alpha.

“In this project, we want to think one step ahead and lay the foundations for reducing the workload of judges in their day-to-day handling of complex cases. Our vision is to develop AKIRA in the long term into an AI assistant that can be used in all courts,” says Elmar Steinbacher, Director-General at the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Justice and Migration.

“We are delighted to be collaborating on this forward-looking AI justice project and to be helping to further digitise the justice system in Germany,” explains Michael Hagedorn, CEO of the Materna Group.

“The requirements are challenging in several respects. The factual circumstances and elements of offences are highly diverse. The structure of the input documents also varies – in some cases significantly – depending on the competent authorities in each area of law. In addition to technical insights, the project also provides valuable practical experience for a systematic approach to complex AI use cases in the justice system,” explains project manager Tobias Pelster from the Materna Group.

“Artificial intelligence has the potential to fundamentally revolutionise government and public administration – and thereby address the diverse challenges facing public administration,” says Ammar Alkassar, board member at GovTech Campus Deutschland. “The AI judicial assistant is a good example of how modern technologies make the work of public administration more efficient. A capable and effective judiciary is essential for the competitiveness of the German economy. We are delighted that, with this platform-based approach, we are laying the foundations for further use.”

Materna, Infora and Aleph Alpha will be providing information on the topic of legal tech and AI at the EDV-Gerichtstag conference from 11 to 13 September in Saarbrücken.