Judge Scott Schlegel of the Louisiana Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal joins The Geek in Review for a candid, funny, and unflinchingly practical conversation about AI inside the judicial system. Schlegel wears multiple hats, appellate judge, former prosecutor, reform-minded builder, plus a podcaster and Substack writer who speaks plainly about what works and what fails when technology hits real people on real timelines. The throughline stays consistent, courts do not need more hype, courts need competence, guardrails, and a process mindset.

Judge Schlegel tackles the messy reality of AI disclosures, certifications, and uneven court rules across jurisdictions. His core message lands fast, judicial authority lives with the judge, not an AI system. From there, he outlines why chambers guidance matters, along with a structured, step-by-step approach for responsible drafting support, including prompt discipline and workflow thinking. The goal stays simple, faster decisions without surrendering judgment to “bot overlords.”

The discussion then shifts to constraints judges live with every day, budgets, procurement rules, security anxiety, and the gap between shiny vendor demos and courthouse reality. Schlegel argues for a scrappy, process-first approach using small pilots, one chambers, one workflow, one measurable result. He compares the moment to early “cloud” adoption lessons, pay for the right security, avoid free tools where the user becomes the product, and treat sensitive records with strict care. Courts will see broader adoption as enterprise-grade options become attainable and baked into trusted platforms.

Then comes the part that lingers in your head after the episode ends, deepfakes and voice cloning as a near-term threat to due process, especially in domestic violence and protective order contexts. Schlegel explains why judges tend to err on the side of safety, and why “damage done” shows up long before expert testimony arrives. His practical recommendation focuses on pretrial practice, require disclosure, surface manipulation concerns early, and reduce surprises at trial. He even shares a simple family safety habit, a private “secret word” to confirm identity during urgent calls, since voice cloning tools lower the barrier for fraud.

Finally, Schlegel offers a sharp warning about confirmation bias, large language models often aim to please the user, which benefits advocates and harms neutral decision-making. His answer: an “AI alignment test” mindset, deliberate prompting, and refusal to outsource the white-page moment to a model. For the future, he points toward structural change courts rarely receive funding for, true legal technologists who redesign case management and public-facing guidance at scale. If courts stop printing emails and living in wire baskets, progress follows, and yes, somewhere in a parallel universe, Schlegel still wants a hologram machine.

Links

Judge Schlegel, his court, and his work

AI-in-courts guidance, plus his newsletter

Deepfakes, provenance, and content credentials

  • C2PA, Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity, “About” page. C2PA

Listen on mobile platforms:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ |  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

[Special Thanks to ⁠Legal Technology Hub⁠ for their sponsoring this episode.]

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Transcript

Marlene Gebauer (00:00)
Hi, I’m Marlene Gebauer from The Geek in Review and I’m here with Cheryl Wilson-Griffin from Legal Technology Hub. She’s going to tell us a little bit about vendor readiness offerings. So tell us a little bit about that, Cheryl.

Cheryl Wilson Griffin (00:15)
Thanks Marlene. So if you’re a legal tech vendor, have you ever thought about how your demo is being judged by buyers? I’m here to talk to you today about the critical factors that separate successful demos from the ones that never make it past procurement. So when law firms and corporate legal teams evaluate products, it’s becoming more more common that they’re using very structured scorecards to capture feedback. Some of those score codes are actually created by Legal Technology Hub themselves and provided through our premium service to those buyers.

That means vendors are being judged on very specific criteria, and the looks remarkably consistent across all buyers. So here are the big themes that we’re seeing. Company fit. This seems logical, but be ready to talk about who your clients are, have some references, and demonstrate that you understand the buyer’s strategic challenges, not just your tech. Remember, it’s about them, not about you. Think about solution and differentiation.

Make sure that they understand clearly what your product does and how it stacks up against your competitors without being negative. Tailor your demo to the folks in the room. Next, think about workflow impact. show real use cases that show how people are using your platform today to solve their business issues. Think about integration and security.

You’re going to get very detailed questions on integrations, API, SOC 2, GDPR, regional data requirements. Have that document at hand or be ready to follow up afterwards. And finally, think about implementation and support. Buyers want to understand everything from timelines, onboarding, training, and long-term client success structures. Come ready and you’ll prove that you’re the right team for the job. The bottom line, buyers are looking for partners they can trust, not products.

If you walk into a demo unprepared on these fronts, you will not make the cut. So check out our vendor readiness checklist to ensure your demos are aligned to your buyer’s expectations on legaltechnologyhub.com and learn more about how we help vendors by checking the LTH solution menu on our homepage. Thanks, Marlene.

Marlene Gebauer (02:22)
Thank you, Cheryl.

Marlene Gebauer (02:30)
Welcome to The Geek in Review, the podcast focused on innovative and creative ideas in the legal industry. I’m Marlene Gebauer

Greg Lambert (02:37)
And I’m Greg Lambert and this week we’re really thrilled to welcome a guest who’s not just participating in the conversation of the future of justice, he’s actually building it directly from the bench and working in the press and on the airwaves. We have with us today Judge Scott Schlegel of the Louisiana Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Marlene Gebauer (02:58)
And what makes Judge Schlegel truly unique is his multifaceted approach to innovation. He’s not just a judge who uses technology. He’s a former prosecutor who founded criminal justice reform programs to reduce recidivism. He’s a thought leader serving on National AI Task Force. And in a move that really sets him apart, he’s a content creator in his own right, hosting Tech & Gavel podcasts and writing.

the Schlegel Tech newsletter on Substack, where he explores the deepest ethical and philosophical questions facing our legal system in the age of AI. He is in short, the ultimate judicial geek. So Judge Schlegel, welcome to the Geek in Review.

Judge Scott Schlegel (03:36)
You know, I’ve been called a legal rebel, but now a legal geek. think I’ve made it.

Greg Lambert (03:40)
Yeah. Well, that is

Marlene Gebauer (03:40)
It’s high honors here.

Greg Lambert (03:42)
the true ultimate compliment on this podcast at least. Well, Judge, we saw you at TLTF a few weeks ago, so I know you’re highly engaged in everything that’s going on. So let’s kind of back up a little bit. Courts across the country are taking very different approaches to AI disclosures and certifications.

Judge Scott Schlegel (03:45)
Yeah.

Greg Lambert (04:06)
From where you’re sitting, what would be a workable kind of uniform baseline that all judges and attorneys could be working from today?

Judge Scott Schlegel (04:16)
Yeah, I I appreciate the very small question right out the gates. ⁓

Greg Lambert (04:19)
Yeah, yeah. Usually we throw like multi-part questions on there. So just be glad we got that.

Marlene Gebauer (04:23)
It’s like very, very compound questions here.

Judge Scott Schlegel (04:26)
Yeah, hey, we’re

the day after the third year anniversary of ChatGPT being released into the wild, and so it’s a great question has started off and you know, hopefully by now people have played with the tools, whether it’s you know, ChatGPT is just now the Kleenex of LLMs, but hopefully you’ve played with LLMs over the past three years. Yeah, sound bite. So so hopefully you’re now somewhat.

Marlene Gebauer (04:43)
you

Greg Lambert (04:45)
There’s a thought I can’t get out of my mind now.

Marlene Gebauer (04:49)
Sound bite right there.

Judge Scott Schlegel (04:54)
competent or at least comfortable with the tools where you’re starting to figure out the strengths and weaknesses of whichever LLM you’ve chosen to use so that you can, to your point, start building your own personal box. You know, we’ve heard about the whole hallucinations and all that. I can’t believe that we’re still having this conversation. Stop it. How about that? Just do your job and stop it.

Marlene Gebauer (05:00)
you

Judge Scott Schlegel (05:19)
And once we’re past that point of the hallucinations still existing in our pleadings, I think that’s when we’ll start, you know, focusing on positive aspects of the tools. Cause all you hear about is the negative aspects of folks using LLMs in the legal space. And I think that’s an unfortunate reality based upon people, you know, not becoming competent with the tools. Once you develop that competence, there are some, you you just mentioned TLTF.

I go to conferences like that because you find out how lawyers are using the tools properly and it’s amazing to see what people are thinking through these days.

Marlene Gebauer (06:00)
So Judge, you’ve been a clear voice on how courts should handle AI in filings and also using it in chambers. So recently you put out some formal guidance and I’m curious, you know, what were you seeing that made you say, you know, we need these rules right now?

Judge Scott Schlegel (06:19)
Well, the first guidelines came out I think in February of this year, and those guidelines were more of a general guidelines. We put those out through the Sedona Conference. were a number of judges and a professor, true technologist, saw over and over again all these guidelines being put out for lawyers.

we are all on a number of these national AI task force. And we came up with the idea of putting out a short non-technical guideline for judges to start thinking through and their clerks to start thinking through of how can we start using these LLMs in chambers. And so it’s really just an overview. And the first overview or the first statement that we try and make is that the judicial authority exists in the judicial officer, not the AI bot. Full stop.

Marlene Gebauer (07:04)
Thank

Judge Scott Schlegel (07:09)
So if you’re gonna use these tools, it is about human judgment first and foremost and owning the responsibilities necessary to use these tools. So never turn over the judicial authority or the judicial decision-making to the bot overlords. That is not part of the social contract. That’s not what we’ve discussed. You wanna do that, go mediate and arbitrate. There are plenty of tools out there that you can turn it over to the bot overlords. But I always say I never want somebody finding out that they lost their children.

Marlene Gebauer (07:32)
Thanks

Judge Scott Schlegel (07:38)
in a custody battle because somebody used one tool versus the other tool. And if you would have used, you know, Grok or Claude or Chachi PT, you would have had your children this weekend. That is not part of the social contract. And I push back heavily upon that thought process. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be using these tools to make us more efficient, effective so that we take maybe a six month process down to six weeks so that you can ⁓ get that answer to that critical question that you have.

in a timely fashion because if you’re in the court system, every day is a tough day for you. We talk in weeks and months and, look, all right, I had oral arguments two months ago, the opinion’s coming out. That’s a long time for somebody to be thinking through. And so that is definitely a reason to use these tools. And then the other tool, Marlene, that I drafted or the other guidelines that I drafted was

I assumed, like every other lawyer, I assumed that judges are using an LLM, ChatGPT Just it’s the first one that’s what everybody, it’s the ubiquitous tool that everybody uses. So I just assumed that judges are starting to use it to draft orders and to draft opinions. And so what I did was I kind of walked through, if you’re gonna use it, that’s your decision. If you’re gonna use it.

here is a responsible way to use it. And that includes sample prompts. And I really just tell everybody it’s a 10 step process. Just use the prompts that I have, cut and paste them, walk through it. And at the end of the day, that 10 steps will probably be three steps for you because you’ll no longer need all steps because it’s now rote for you. But before it becomes rote to you, I wanted to ensure that judges had a guidelines to use it responsibly and to ensure.

that they understood the strengths and weaknesses of the tools so that they don’t get in hot water like those two federal judges who were hailed before Senator Grassley ⁓ in the judiciary.

Marlene Gebauer (09:36)
I was just curious if you’ve gotten any feedback from other judges or other courts.

Judge Scott Schlegel (09:44)
Yeah, the feedback’s been very positive. Again, I don’t know how to scale myself. I’m not a true legal geek, so I don’t really have a network to scale these things. So I don’t see wide adoption by every judge and judicial officer across the country, but those who have read it have been very positive.

Greg Lambert (10:02)
Have you found that there’s been any of the legal specific AI tools that you’re using or other judges are using? is that, because I know I worked in courts for many years. I understand budgets and things as well. Are those available to judges or are they still outside the reaches?

Judge Scott Schlegel (10:17)
Yeah, right.

No, they’re starting to come down. that’s, you know, to your point, two years when I was writing about this, I always said it’s not going to have wide adoption within the judiciary until it becomes part of our trusted tools, whether that’s Westlaw or Lexis, whether that’s Office 365 or Co-Pilot, until that occurred. And, you know, we’re obviously very sensitive about our data. So, you know, on-prem solutions, but

I don’t know that many judges know the difference between on-prem and off-prem, and we certainly don’t have the budgets for legal technologists to come in and build on-prem tools at the moment. I’m sure that you all could come do it in a heartbeat, but we just don’t have the budgets for that. And so now we’re starting to get the enterprise tools, whether that’s Claude or ChatGPT or Gemini, they’re starting to roll out enterprise tools, but enterprise tools have minimum users and typically the courts can’t afford those minimum user requirements.

Marlene Gebauer (11:02)
Thank ⁓

Judge Scott Schlegel (11:16)
It really just depends on your use case. And that’s why I tell everybody, you know, that’s why I wrote the guidelines to help everybody walk through that and say, look, don’t put CSAM, don’t put anything that’s secure or private or sealed in these, you know, off the shelf LLMs, unless you have an enterprise level tool. And even then I would not put CSAM or sealed records necessarily in

in them. I try and remind everybody, you remember 20 years ago or 25 years ago now when Dropbox came out and you had that crazy lawyer that walked up to you during that CLA and they handed you the laptop and said, I got my client files in the

And we’re all saying, what is the cloud? And you’re like, yeah, my client files are up there. And you’re like, you’re going to jail. You’re losing your law license. What are you doing? Yeah, right? And what we’ve learned from that is you’re the one that’s going to lose your law license if you don’t have cloud-based storage. But we learned over the process, don’t use free, because if you’re using free, you’re the product.

Marlene Gebauer (12:04)
Cloud.

Greg Lambert (12:07)
Yep. That’s somebody else’s computer that’s on.

Marlene Gebauer (12:13)
Yeah.

Judge Scott Schlegel (12:25)
Make sure that you buy the one with the right security levels. If you’re going to use medical records, make sure it’s a HIPAA compliant cloud based storage. And so if you use those kinds of concepts in the same breadth of these LLMs, make sure the chat, you know, the training feature is turned off. Make sure you have the right security levels. Make sure that what you’re putting in there is, you know, safe and secure. You’ve done this before. We can do it again. It’s okay, but you have to play with the tools to get to the comfortable.

level so that you can make these decisions to your point, Greg. And some of the tools are just too expensive. And then from a government perspective, you’ve got procurement laws and procurement, all these things that get in the way of progress intentionally. I always tell everybody, look, it’s the court’s job to get it right. It’s not our job to be first. And so now that we’re seeing these tools being built into the tools that we commonly use and trust, you’ll see a greater and greater adoption by the courts, I believe.

Greg Lambert (13:03)
the fun stuff.

So I think you follow along the same line in that innovation does not necessarily equal technology. And we’ve watched your career, and it’s really these two parallel tracks of innovation. The first being improving court processes with technology, but then improving human outcomes through regular programs like your reentry court. So many people might see these,

almost as separate types of initiatives, but in your mind, how are these things really connected?

Judge Scott Schlegel (13:57)
Well, that’s why I always go back to you are the expert. Whether you’re the lawyer or the judge, you are the expert. There are so many nuances in the justice system and it’s not just one size fits all. I’m obsessed with the justice system and I like tech. The justice system means lives and people and human tragedy and wonderful and terrible things all at the same time. And so when you look step back,

I give, I used to give this speech and now I’m starting to give it again because I think it’s very appropriate in this time. Greg, Marlene, how long, how much do you think my roadways?

Greg Lambert (14:36)
Five pounds.

Marlene Gebauer (14:37)
Yeah, I’d say about five, six pounds.

Judge Scott Schlegel (14:39)
Yeah, normally people yell, you know, 12 ounces, two pounds. There’s normally a dry cleaning joke in there. And I always I always say you have no idea how much my roadways because until you put it on, you don’t understand the weight of it. And if you’re not prepared for that, it will crush you. And if you misuse it, you are going to hurt somebody. And so if you step back before using your tools and remember how much your roadways, you’ll take an appropriate approach to these tools to go, all right.

Maybe I’ll use an LLM to draft a quick writ and dispo and get it out, but I’m not going to use it to draft a 30 page appeal, opinion to an appeal because the context windows are not good enough yet. But in a small, quick hit of writ denied, the evidence isn’t there, use it all day every day and train it off of your old writs. But you’re not going to turn it over to the wrong tools and the wrong parts of your job to the wrong tools if you always step back and remember how much your roadways.

Marlene Gebauer (15:40)
So I want to pull on this thread a little bit about different types of tools. So during your decade on the trial court, you gained national reputation for modernizing the courtroom. So like not with massive multi-million dollar systems, but with accessible off the shelf tools, know, online forms, chat bots, digital calendars. You know, you have said, you know, now it’s about the process, not the product. You know, we’re talking about this.

So in a world dominated by these expensive AI solutions, is the scrappy process first philosophy still more important than ever? I I think about what you just said is that maybe firms, these large providers can help with pro bono projects to help the courts on these things. What advice would you have for the court

administrator who’s got a limited budget who feels kind of overwhelmed thinking they can’t innovate without buying expensive tools.

Judge Scott Schlegel (16:42)
Yeah, I mean, that’s the sad reality is there are the tools are expensive. Thankfully, the prices have come down where you can afford it and, you know, never make money the reason you can’t do something. I’ve always said, you know, the first rule of Fight Club is there is no Fight Club. The first rule of advancing then modernizing the justice system is money is not an issue, because as soon as you focus on that, you will go, I can’t afford it. I can’t do that. No, go at

All of these companies will give you a product to play around with. mean, it’s just, they’re going to do it. So, you know, always start small and start with a pilot. Pick one judge in one chambers, in one jurisdiction, and then you’ll see they can work through all these issues and grow it. And by the time that you’re there, then you can go and have a real conversation with your local council or your local legislator and show them how there are.

tremendous cost savings involved with using these tools properly. And not only cost savings, but an actual positive impact and positive outcomes on the citizens of our communities. so, you know, it’s just, it’s hard work, it’s difficult. There’s no two ways about it. And you’ve got to deal with many, many different

⁓ agencies and elected officials and different budgets and different kings and queens and different everythings. It’s very challenging. So you do one thing, one small thing every day, and you’ll find out in 10 years where you want to be.

Greg Lambert (18:12)
I’m curious on that because I.

Yeah, I’m going to ask a follow up on that one because I know everything just went smooth perfectly as you were introducing these changes in technology and advancements. ⁓ How do you or what’s your advice for other judges about dealing with the court administrator or the court clerk or the politician?

Judge Scott Schlegel (18:23)
Hahaha.

Marlene Gebauer (18:29)
⁓ Okay.

Judge Scott Schlegel (18:30)
yeah, simple.

Marlene Gebauer (18:39)
you

Greg Lambert (18:44)
that is pushing back and saying that’s not your place to be doing this, because I’m sure you heard that.

Judge Scott Schlegel (18:50)
all day every day and that’s okay. Again, it’s our job to be right, not to be first, and I can appreciate the pushback. it’s frustrating at times, but it’s also necessary. I got a budget for a hologram machine. I wanted my hologram machine and I couldn’t get the votes on my bench to get it, even though I found the money and I found the hologram machine. They wouldn’t let me do it. I’m very upset about this, Greg.

Look, what I tell everybody is I ran for judge in 2013 because I understood that only judges, in my opinion, could make these massive changes within the justice system. There’s a thing about having judge in front of your name. People pick up the phone, they return your phone calls. It’s a lot easier, not that it’s easy, but it makes it possible. And that’s really why I ran for judge. And so I would tell every judge, you are king or queen of your domain. So go change your own chambers.

Marlene Gebauer (19:13)
you

Judge Scott Schlegel (19:42)
And what you’ll find are that there’ll be those that follow because they realize, oh, that’s what you were talking about? Oh, I can actually send text and email reminders that cut down on failures to appear and actually cut down on silly motions to compel hearings because the lawyers picked up the phone and talked to each other just because a text went out to them. Oh, that’s only $150 for a year.

Okay, I’m gonna take that one. Can you build it for me? You know, I these are not things that you need true technologists for. You just need the will to do it. So I would say just start small, start within your own chambers because you can control that. And then hopefully, whatever the number of your benches, you just need plus one over that 50 % to get that rolling. So, you you’re not gonna win everybody and that’s okay.

Greg Lambert (20:28)
And the words of advice, I think, that work well beyond the bench as well. So speaking of kind of taking an unusual approach for a judge, it’s really unusual for a sitting appellate judge to have their own podcast, the Tech and Gavel podcast that you have, and write a substack newsletter. You know, on one of the episodes, you talked about the need for ⁓ education over regulation regarding AI.

Um, are, are these platforms with your podcast and, Substack, is that your way of putting the, your philosophy into practice? And, um, you know, why, why did you decide to take this type of approach?

Judge Scott Schlegel (21:12)
Yeah, again, we talked about it earlier, you the ability to scale. I don’t I’m not in the legal tech space. You know, my name’s been misspelled so many times that schlegel is E-L, but everybody spells it A-L. So it was a fun pun on lawyering. You’ve S-C-H in the these words. These letters don’t exist. So it’s schlegel tech. ⁓

Greg Lambert (21:32)
We go.

Judge Scott Schlegel (21:33)
And then

my middle name is you. So my parents didn’t know this, but it’s Scottis if you take my first name and the last two. So I mean, it’s all it’s meant to be Greg Marlene. It’s just meant to be. And so. I know how difficult this is, and then I know how important the justice system is to all of us. So why are we not doing this together? Why? You know, I put it out there so that people can start going, huh, that’s possible.

Greg Lambert (21:42)
Hahaha

Marlene Gebauer (21:44)
Just so perfect.

Judge Scott Schlegel (21:58)
How can I do that? How can I change that? And hopefully people call me and say, that’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard. Give up on your hologram. That’s not helpful. Can you help? Can you move on to this? And so to me, I don’t believe in not in my backyard. It’s our backyard. It’s our justice system. And your justice system improving is great for our country. And so I’m going to do everything that I can. again, we are all

Marlene Gebauer (22:15)
Thank

Judge Scott Schlegel (22:25)
all given a unique opportunity to serve the community in this capacity. And I’m going to use what the Lord has provided me to help everybody out. if it scales, it scales. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. I’ve got AI to help me do it. I can’t spend time doing all this, writing these articles. It’s an idea or a thought or a concept that I have based upon my years of experience in the justice system. I tell whatever tools I’m using,

to start the first draft for me. spent 30 minutes editing it and I send it out. I don’t have time to actually write articles to do all of that.

Greg Lambert (23:01)
I’m curious ⁓ for your hologram machine, which Supreme Court justice do you bring back first?

Judge Scott Schlegel (23:07)
can’t answer that one, you know. ⁓ yeah, not going to happen.

Greg Lambert (23:10)
Thought I’d sneak that one in.

Marlene Gebauer (23:12)
questions.

So I want to talk a little bit about deep fakes. You know, you’re now serving on the ABA and the Louisiana State Bar AI Task Forces. And on your podcast, you’ve repeatedly raised alarms about the risks of deep fakes and voice cloning, particularly in contexts like domestic violence cases. So from your perspective on the bench, you know, what’s the single greatest

Judge Scott Schlegel (23:19)
Yes.

Marlene Gebauer (23:41)
threat AI generated evidence poses to the integrity of court proceedings and what would be the first most practical step that trial judges should be taking now to prepare themselves for this?

Judge Scott Schlegel (23:54)
The first most practical step is to realize it’s here and appreciate that and start building before your legislature passes a law and we’ll talk about that in a minute. Start building that into your pre-trial practice, both on criminal and civil. Just start adding it in your orders, requiring disclosure of any potential uses of these tools or any concerns that you have of your opponent regarding any evidence that they may have that

We say manipulated or manufactured, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes they use AI to enhance evidence and it’s not being done for nefarious reasons. It’s here’s evidence that I’ve enhanced using, or here’s a demonstrative exhibit that I’ve used gen AI to create. It’s fine, but let’s put it out there first so we don’t live, you know, have all these things, issues pop up during trial because no one wants to try a case twice.

And so my biggest concern you just you just talked about it is domestic violence and protective orders today. I mean tomorrow it’ll be something new, but today the videos you can still kind of tell. I mean, they’re still kind of wonky. You still have some weird head shakes and some stick. You know that the eye movement and the mouth movement. It’s still you could still tell. ⁓ Photographs yeah, it’s getting better every day photographs. I don’t know that you can tell much anymore. I mean, that’s really that’s really hard and then.

Greg Lambert (25:06)
It’s getting better every day.

Judge Scott Schlegel (25:14)
The voice cloning scares the heck out of me. I I own you at Greg and Marlene’s now because you’ve spoken to me and I can go and clone your voice in five minutes using the software that I use and put any bad words in your mouth and walk into any courtroom and play that and have it protectable or issued because you’re threatening me. And every judge is gonna sign it because they are always gonna err on the side of caution. You know, if my wife…

walked in the door, you we’ve been together for 30 years. If she walked in the door with the threatening phone call, every judge is going to sign it. And I’m going to lose the cats, the dogs, the firearms, the house. I’m going to lose it all. Now, look, at the end of the day, I might win a year later, six months later, but you’re going to have your hearing in 10, two weeks and you’re going to walk in and every judge is going to say, she has played the tape. She has authenticated your voice. She’s known you for 30 years.

Marlene Gebauer (25:58)
Damage is done.

Judge Scott Schlegel (26:07)
admit it. That goes to the weight of the evidence, not to the admissibility of it because authentication by a known person makes it admissible. Most of these things are self-represented litigants, so we’re not going to have experts. When I have these conversations with lawyers, I always laugh because they’re like, I’m going to hire this expert. I’m going to look at all the metadata. That’s not how the trial court typically works, especially in these types of cases. Again, you might win in six months

because now you have the experts, now you’ve subpoenaed the phone records, now you’ve done all these things, but it’s too late. It’s six months, we talked about this earlier, six months of not being able to see my kids or not being able to carry the firearm because you cloned my voice, that’s a long time. And so that’s what keeps me up at night. And now you have the elder abuse cases where you have…

their grandkids calling the grandparents or the parents and saying, can you bail me out? Can you wire me some money? And they’re doing it. You have these issues of bank fraud where if you’re still using the voice authentication with your bank, they’re now cloning your voice to do that. so, you know, make sure your family has a, as a secret word where even if there’s an LLM conversing with you in the voice of your loved one, you can say, all right, sweetie, hang tight real quick. Give me the family word. And that

at least will break the mold so that you know that it’s a ⁓ fake. So that’s what keeps me up at night is the cloud voices.

Greg Lambert (27:41)
So now you’re going to keep me up at night thinking about that. ⁓

Marlene Gebauer (27:43)
I was going to

say, I mean, are there particular things that you’re aware of that either the courts or the attorneys for the parties can do to check?

Judge Scott Schlegel (27:56)
Yeah, all the experts that I’ve heard, that I’ve been told, there’s no like, you know, I wish somebody would develop a piece of hardware that I could put a piece of digital evidence into it and that says 70 % chance of deep fake and then we can have a hearing right then and there. I’ve been told that there aren’t any deep fake finders that are accurate enough, you know, kind like the polygraphs, you know, we use them, we do them, the police use them, but they’re not admissible because of the…

because of the unreliability. I hope it comes to that. I hope they find an AI hunter, deep fake hunter that figures it out for us. And that’s why I say handle it pre-trial. it, you know, if you’re, the feds are looking at modifying the federal rules of evidence. We in Louisiana took a different approach last year. We passed act 2025 that put it on the lawyers and said, look, if you have a reasonable suspicion of deep fake evidence being used by your opponent, bring it up pre-trial.

and you actually have to exercise reasonable diligence before offering evidence as opposed to it used to be. You shall not knowingly offer false evidence. We modified that to say you must use reasonable diligence before offering evidence so that you at least have to step back and say, all right, Marlene, when did you take these pictures? Where’s the phone? What did you do with the? Ask the five to 10 questions that raise your BS meter so that you can then make a reasonable effort.

before you offer that evidence. And so I think if we do that and handle it pretrial and get help from officers of the court, i.e. the lawyers, I think we’ll be in a much better position than just modifying the rules of evidence.

Greg Lambert (29:31)
Do you think that the companies that are developing these tools have also a responsibility to help courts identify or is that kind of, has the horse left the barn on that one?

Judge Scott Schlegel (29:44)
I mean, they all are adding, apparently they’re all adding all these watermarks and everything. But my appreciation from the experts I’ve spoken to, I’m not an expert, but my appreciation from speaking with them is they can remove the CP2A or a C2PA and take out the watermarks and then recreate the same digital file. So I wish I had better answers, but

You know, look, we’ve done this before and that’s why I’m saying the first step is to, that’s why I write and speak about this. The first step is to be aware. That way when they come into your courtroom, you can say, hey, we’re not just gonna let you put your phone on the Wolf camera and just swipe through your photos and play audio anymore. Where’d you, you know, ask a few questions before.

Marlene Gebauer (30:09)
All right.

Greg Lambert (30:32)
So I wanted to talk about a fascinating post that you had on your sub stack where it was titled, When the Tool Shaped the Thinking. And you wrote that generative AI’s tendency to confirm a user’s assumption, quote here, can make attorneys stronger advocates, but it can make judges worse decision makers, unquote. You know, that’s a…

Judge Scott Schlegel (30:53)
Yes.

Greg Lambert (30:55)
That’s a pretty profound and cautionary insight. Do you mind expanding a little bit on that?

Judge Scott Schlegel (31:01)
Everybody talks about bias and the notion of the tools are biased and that’s not what I’m referring to there. I’m talking about the confirmation bias where I always say that the LLMs are a man’s best friend today. It wants to please you. It wants you to say, good grok, good grok. It wants to tell you what you want to hear. so based upon the questions that you pose, it’s going to take you down a certain path. And that’s fine if you’re a lawyer.

Greg Lambert (31:19)
You

Judge Scott Schlegel (31:30)
You’re trying to tighten your argument. You’re an advocate. You’re trying to make the most compelling, most persuasive argument on this point in this direction that you want to go. Great. Fine. But a judge does not want the tail wagging the dog. We want to direct where it goes. And so if you’re not, one of the steps in my guide is what I call AI alignment test.

And so what you’re doing is making sure it’s not back to center and making sure that you are the one directing the path as opposed to being led down the path by the AI because it is so convincing and so good now. You know, you might go down a road that you’re unwittingly and unwillingly going down just because you don’t understand the weaknesses of that tool. And so it’s really important. I always use the white page problem.

on a writ. Again, I make a big distinction between the size of the record and what you’re trying to accomplish. And so I never want people to get past the white page problem by getting a first draft from the LLM. You need to tell it. I need you to do this. And here’s the relevant case law. Here’s the relevant facts. Here are the relevant. Here’s the answer. Here’s everything. And if you want to do it that way for a small writ dispo, great. But never say,

here are the briefs and the pleadings from the parties, give me a first draft. That is not what we want to do with these tools because then you are handing over the human judgment, human decision making to the bot overlords and I’m not for it. And I always ask, I get in these arguments all the time with technologists and academics, who singularity are we building for here? I’m sorry, this whole notion of consistency and

singular thought process. Whose singularity we building for? Because I guarantee you each one of these has the bias of its creator. And that is not who they elected. They didn’t elect Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk or Satya Nadella. They didn’t elect these people. These are the designers of the tools. And I’m grateful to have these tools. But it’s a tool. And we have to always remember that. And so be very, very careful if you’re a judge.

not to let the tail wag the dog.

Marlene Gebauer (33:56)
So Judge Schlegel before we get to our crystal ball question, we would like to know, aside from your own excellent podcast newsletter, what are some of the go-to resources that you rely upon to keep up with all the rapid changes in technology and the justice system?

Judge Scott Schlegel (34:11)
I literally just look at all the blog posts and LinkedIn and everything else and just follow. I don’t really have a hard set thing. If you just live on the internet, you’re going to find something interesting. But I mean, look, formal resources, you’ve got the National Center for State Courts, you’ve got the Sedona Conference, you’ve got Bolch Institute. mean, there’s plenty of formal.

Greg Lambert (34:26)
Alright, well.

Judge Scott Schlegel (34:37)
things that you can follow.

Greg Lambert (34:40)
And it’s nice that you inject yourself into those settings as well.

Marlene Gebauer (34:44)
the conversations.

Yeah.

Greg Lambert (34:46)
All right, well now it’s time for the crystal ball question. a judge would feel pull out your crystal ball and look a few months, a few years into the future with us. What do you think is going to be kind of the big structural change that technology, particularly AI, will kind of force the judicial system in the United States to address and that we should be getting prepared for?

Judge Scott Schlegel (35:14)
think the biggest crystal ball, if you will, moment will be when courts receive budgets that they can hire a true legal technologist. Because again, we talk about all these Gen. tools and how it can help you do research and how it can help you draft a quick order or these quick-rit dispositions. But the real magic is going to be when we are able to redesign our case management systems that does

heck of lot of things beforehand so that when we get the record, we have the record in a digestible format where we can shrink that six month timeline to six weeks. That’s really gonna be the real change. And when we can use these tools to provide information to the public so that, again, we’re not talking about UPL, that’s a different, that’s a whole nother four podcast that we can have. But when we can just help people walk through the justice system.

you have a name change. Here is the form. Here is a guided form. Here’s how you do it. We can use all of these different AI avatar videos in different languages and different sexes, different races, different everythings. can take our forms and make them readable so that everybody can read them and how to do it. How we can send out jury notifications and help jurors. It’s cold. Park here. mean, simple, basic things.

that can just make the justice system more efficient and stop acting like we’re the DMV. It’s much more important than a driver’s license. I mean, if you walk, if you try and get anything out of a court, it doesn’t need to be so painful. Run your business better. And so I think these tools are gonna help us run our business better. And then you just start layering on top. You know, you talk about process changes. mean, everything starts with the foundation.

Marlene Gebauer (36:41)
Thank you.

Judge Scott Schlegel (37:03)
And so, you know, if we stop printing emails and using wire baskets, we’re going to be okay.

Marlene Gebauer (37:10)
Okay.

Greg Lambert (37:10)
This sounds very much like things that I was hearing courts need to do 25 years ago.

Judge Scott Schlegel (37:16)
Yeah, thankfully we’re not there. We’re much further

ahead and it’s not that simple to make these changes. It’s very, very difficult.

Greg Lambert (37:19)
Good, good, good.

Marlene Gebauer (37:24)
change management is a tough thing. So I think that’s a good point to leave it on. So Judge Scott Schlegel of the Louisiana Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, thank you so much for this fascinating and absolutely vital conversation.

Judge Scott Schlegel (37:26)
Yes.

Greg Lambert (37:38)
Absolutely, thanks.

Judge Scott Schlegel (37:39)
Thanks

for having me.

Marlene Gebauer (37:40)
And thanks to all of you, our listeners, for taking the time to listen to the Geek & Review podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a colleague. We’d love to hear from you on LinkedIn and TikTok.

Greg Lambert (37:51)
And Judge, we’ll put some links on our page for your podcast and website and all the other places that you show up. for the listeners who are listening, what’s the easiest place for them to go to find out more about what you’re doing?

Judge Scott Schlegel (38:05)
JudgeSchlegel.com

Marlene Gebauer (38:08)
Easy peasy. All right. And as always, the music you hear is from Jerry David DeCicca Thank you so much, Jerry.

Greg Lambert (38:14)
Thanks, Jerry. All right, bye, everyone.

Marlene Gebauer (38:16)
Bye.

Judge Scott Schlegel (38:16)
See you.