Louisiana Court Buys AI Servers to Build Its Own Legal Technology

Louisiana's Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal has bought two artificial intelligence servers as it begins developing its own AI tools to help judges and court staff manage legal workloads.

The state appeals court in Gretna has purchased two Dell servers equipped with Nvidia chips, each costing approximately $65,000 at the time of purchase. The project will allow the court to experiment with open-weight AI models on its own infrastructure while continuing to use and test commercial generative AI products.

Judge Scott Schlegel and Chief Judge Susan Chehardy said the court decided against committing entirely to either locally operated AI or commercial services, allowing it to compare different approaches as the technology and its costs develop.

The project is being developed with the Institute for the Advancement of Legal and Ethical AI, known as the ALEA Institute. Court employees have been interviewed about their workflows to identify tasks where AI could provide practical assistance.

Initial development will focus on filing compliance and intake. Planned tools could review proposed filings for issues such as excessive page lengths, incorrect pagination and missing attachments before documents enter the court system.

The court also intends to explore AI assistance with document classification and routing. Employees would remain responsible for verifying suggestions and carrying out the official filing review rather than allowing AI to determine how a case should proceed.

Future capabilities could include identifying nonexistent cases or inaccurate quotations in pleadings and detecting hidden instructions designed to manipulate an AI application reviewing a document.

The court also plans eventually to explore whether AI can assist appellate staff attorneys with the preparation of neutral bench memoranda by helping organise records, briefing and legal authorities.

Schlegel and Chehardy have stressed that the technology is intended to augment rather than replace court employees or judicial decision-making.

The experimental AI environment is being kept separate from the court's existing case-management system. Initial applications will produce information for employees to evaluate rather than modifying official court records.

Operating AI locally also creates its own governance requirements. The servers require additional power, cooling, maintenance and cybersecurity protections, and the judges have acknowledged that keeping technology on court premises does not automatically make it secure.

The Louisiana project appears to be the first publicly announced initiative by a US state court to purchase dedicated AI infrastructure for developing its own applications, although other state and federal courts are already experimenting with artificial intelligence.

The project comes as courts across the US consider how AI should be incorporated into judicial work. The federal judiciary has cautioned courts against delegating core judicial functions, including decision-making and case adjudication, to AI and has emphasised that users remain accountable for work produced with its assistance.

One of Louisiana's planned capabilities is particularly relevant to problems already confronting courts: identifying nonexistent legal authorities appearing in filings.

Judges have encountered inaccurate citations and fabricated cases produced through AI-assisted legal drafting, increasing pressure on lawyers and courts to verify authorities before relying on them. An automated citation check could provide another layer of scrutiny, although the Louisiana court says lawyers would remain responsible for their filings and court employees would continue to conduct independent reviews.

The project could also help determine whether courts benefit from developing specialised AI applications around their own procedures rather than relying entirely on general-purpose commercial platforms.

Schlegel and Chehardy have not suggested that every court should purchase its own AI infrastructure. Their approach is experimental, allowing the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal to test costs, accuracy and practical applications while developing internal technical expertise.

The initiative represents a broader shift in the judiciary's relationship with artificial intelligence. Courts have spent considerable time developing rules and safeguards around AI use, but Louisiana's Fifth Circuit is now taking a direct role in designing technology around the work performed inside the courthouse.

If the experiment succeeds, its significance may extend beyond the two servers. It could provide other courts with evidence about where AI can improve judicial administration, where human oversight remains essential and whether building court-specific systems offers advantages over relying solely on commercial technology.