Automation With Purpose: The Mindset for Confident Justice

In our first article, we explored how courts build confidence through measurement — defining and discovering where court bottlenecks exist and why. This foundational work prioritizes evidence over assumptions and creates a shared understanding of justice operations.

Now, it’s time to act on what those insights reveal.

Step two of The Framework for a Confident Court is all about automation — enhancing and standardizing workflows with practical, data-informed applications. It’s not about investing in technology for the sake of it; it’s about solving real problems for real people with a heightened sense of practicality. Moving from measure to automate, courts should be confident their process improvement strategy will make a positive difference.

The New Court Reality: More Work, Fewer Hands

In the first step of the framework, we looked at case backlogs and document processing as potential starting points for measuring current operations, with an emphasis on the external and internal pressures that influence these bottlenecks. The bottom line is work is increasing, yet the resources or funding are plateauing, or worse, disappearing.

This imbalance isn’t a sign of failure; rather, it’s the new reality for many courts. However, it opens the door for innovation.

From Bottlenecks to Breakthroughs

Measurement shines a light on where bottlenecks occur; automation provides the means to clear them, allowing courts to address the divide between rising workloads and limited capacity.

When courts hear the term “automation”, it’s easy to think of large, complex technology overhauls. But the most successful implementations are often the most practical, focused on solving equitable problems with proven tools.

By embedding artificial intelligence (AI) systems directly into existing court workflows, routine tasks, such as document validation, data extraction, and data entry, can be performed autonomously — often in seconds rather than days. These systems are trained on the court’s data and workflow, so the same rules apply every time. This reduces the potential for errors and ensures filings move smoothly through the system.

When automation is applied with purpose — to address case backlogs and prolonged document processing — it becomes a force multiplier that improves accuracy, increases capacity, and creates a more confident court.

While Automation Assists Justice, People Uphold Justice

The most essential consideration of AI and automation is the need for a mindset shift. Court professionals are the backbone of the justice system. They manage sensitive information, interact with constituents, and make decisions that affect real people. By transferring repetitive, rule-based work to technology, courts can redirect staff attention toward higher-value responsibilities, including those that require empathy, judgment, and direct engagement with the public.

Technology supports justice. But people … real humans will always lead us to justice.

Model of Success: Stanislaus County Superior Court of California

The Stanislaus County Superior Court of California serves as a clear example of how this shift can succeed in practice.

Faced with a growing backlog of criminal cases and limited staffing, the court needed a new approach to manage its influx of repetitive data entry tasks. By introducing automation tools, the court successfully rebalanced its workload, shifting focus from routine case entry to more meaningful responsibilities, such as reporting to state agencies and expediting hearings.

“If we can augment [court staff’s] work, especially repetitive tasks, that will free them up to focus on other important work. That’s a huge victory for us,” explained Anthony Paradiso, the court’s IT manager.

Stanislaus County demonstrates how automation can relieve the pressure on staff, while improving service quality to grant constituents their day in court — a must-have for confident justice.

Looking Ahead: From Automation to Optimization

With measure providing insight and automate driving action, the final step of the framework is optimize — the ongoing process of assessing results and refining strategies.

In our final article in the series, we’ll explore how courts can sustain momentum through continuous improvement and ensure that every decision and investment contributes to confident justice.

Optimizing Justice: Sustaining Confidence Over Time

Step three of the framework explores assessing results and refining strategies to sustain momentum in confident justice.