Scrutiny Comes for Court Tech: May 2026 Industry Roundup
A Yale Law Journal critique of privatized court infrastructure, judges adopting AI with caution, and a court chatbot that stumbled. This edition is about accountability: who controls court technology, and what happens when it falls short.
Alicia Moffatt
· 4 min read
The mood this edition is scrutiny. After a year of breathless AI adoption, the court community is asking sharper questions: who owns the systems that run the courtroom, what happens when a homegrown AI tool fails, and how should judges use these tools responsibly. TheRecordXchange® reads the coverage so you can stay oriented. Below are the stories worth your time, ranked by relevance to the courts we serve and by the authority of the source.
The stories that matter most
Yale Law Journal
Enterprise Justice: Tyler Technologies and the Privatizing Court
This Yale Law Journal article examines how courts' growing reliance on a single private technology vendor is reshaping public justice into something closer to enterprise software. It raises hard questions about transparency, control, and accountability when the core infrastructure of the courtroom is proprietary. For anyone weighing who should own the systems that run the record, this is essential reading and the most authoritative analysis in this edition.
Thomson Reuters
Reimagining justice: How judges are using AI thoughtfully and responsibly
Thomson Reuters looks at how judges are beginning to use AI deliberately, with attention to where it helps and where it should not reach. The value is in the framing: adoption guided by judicial caution rather than vendor enthusiasm. It is a useful counterweight to coverage that treats courtroom AI as either inevitable or reckless.
NBC News
Alaska's court system built an AI chatbot. It didn't go smoothly.
NBC News reports on AVA, a chatbot Alaska's court system built to help residents navigate probate, where a planned three-month project stretched past a year. The tool kept hallucinating outside its knowledge base, at one point steering a user toward a law school alumni network in a state that has no law school. For any court weighing a homegrown AI tool, the lessons here are worth more than a dozen success stories.
More from this edition
Inside Time
A concrete access-to-justice angle on automated transcription: making the official record more available and affordable could help prisoners pursue appeals.
Government Technology
The federal deadline for digital accessibility compliance is moving back a year, a timeline shift that affects how courts and public agencies plan their accessibility work.
Why we publish this
TRX serves the court community, and part of that service is helping you stay oriented as AI and private technology reshape the record. We read widely, rank by relevance and source authority, and pass along what is worth your attention. This roundup is curated and published when enough worthwhile stories accumulate. If you have a story we should consider for the next edition, send it our way.