From the Public Safety edition of October 27, 2026
Florida judges use Westlaw CoCounsel for research but not decisions, while AI-generated self-represented filings and records requests swell court workloads
Florida Conference of Circuit Judges / Ninth Judicial Circuit of Florida · Courts / judicial use of AI and court workload · Florida, United States
- Publisher
- The Florida Bar News
- Original publication
- The Florida Bar News, Oct. 27, 2026
- Source retrieved
- 2026-10-28
What happened
The Florida Bar News reports that Florida judges began using generative AI on July 1 when the state offered access to Westlaw’s CoCounsel, after several circuits, including the Ninth (Orange and Osceola counties), launched locally funded pilots in January. Chief Judge Lisa Munyon, who chairs the Florida Conference of Circuit Judges, says judges use it for legal research, not for decision-making, and that it is too early to say how much time it saves or how widely it is used; the Florida Courts Technology Commission is still evaluating models and possible recommendations to the Supreme Court. The larger effect so far is workload: a Commission report shows filings by self-represented litigants have doubled and documents are much longer, one defendant filed 20 to 30 lengthy documents a day, and chief judges face a surge of AI-crafted public-records and ADA accommodation requests. Munyon credits the recently expanded vexatious-litigant law and suggests a page limit for AI-generated documents.
Why it matters
Court administrators see that the operational burden of AI may arrive through the public’s filings before any judicial productivity gain can be measured.
Evidence and measured results
Opened the Florida Bar News article and read it in full.
Limitations and uncertainty
One judge’s account; the doubling figure is attributed to a Florida Courts Technology Commission report that was not opened; no usage or time-saving data; no baseline period stated.
Put this evidence to work
Lighthouse Advisory interpretation, grounded in this source. Enriched 2026-10-28; this does not change the original publication date. Each role follows the same checklist so takeaways compare across sources.
Sales
Role takeaway
- Customer problem
- Circuit courts face more and longer AI-assisted filings and requests from self-represented litigants, while judicial AI benefits remain unmeasured.
- Stakeholders
- Circuit chief judges
- Court administrators
- Clerks of court
- Florida Courts Technology Commission
- Self-help center staff
- Discovery questions
- How have filing volume and document length changed by filer type?
- How many records and ADA requests appear AI-drafted?
- What usage data does the CoCounsel licence provide?
- What guidance is expected from the Supreme Court?
- Value hypothesis
- Interpretation: better intake measurement could let courts target triage and staffing; no savings are demonstrated.
- Potential engagement
- A one-circuit intake volume and length analysis with options for triage under human review.
- Unsupported claims
- That CoCounsel saves judges measurable time
- That AI filings are mostly abusive
- That page limits are lawful or adopted
Pre-sales engineering
Role takeaway
- Fit
- Relevant to state court systems licensing legal research AI and facing self-represented filing growth.
- Architecture and integration
- Closed research platform for judges; separate intake analytics would need e-filing and records-request system data.
- Prerequisites
- E-filing data with filer type and page counts
- Records-request logs
- CoCounsel usage reports
- Constraints
- Judges barred by practice from using AI for decisions
- Supreme Court guidance pending
- Access-to-justice obligations for self-represented litigants
- Security
- Keep chambers research inside the licensed closed platform; any intake analytics must handle litigant personal data.
- Proof of value
- Reproduce the reported doubling from e-filing data
- Measure document-length change over a stated baseline
- Report CoCounsel active-user counts
Delivery
Role takeaway
- Work
- Establish measurement of judicial AI use and AI-driven filing load before adopting new rules or tools.
- Dependencies
- Clerk e-filing data
- Technology Commission recommendations
- Vexatious-litigant procedures
- Ownership
- Circuit court administrator with the clerk of court
- Skills and adoption
- Judges trained on research-only use and hallucination checks; clerks on triage without denying access.
- Governance checkpoints
- Supreme Court guidance review
- Quarterly workload report
- Access-to-justice review of any triage rule
- Acceptance criteria
- Monthly report of filings by filer type and length (proposed)
- Documented judicial usage figures within two quarters (proposed)
- Risks
- Triage that restricts legitimate self-represented access
- Over-reliance on vexatious-litigant tools
- Unmeasured judicial use drifting toward drafting
Implementation considerations
Lighthouse Advisory interpretation across the operating dimensions a public-sector buyer must settle before this evidence becomes a design. Each note answers the question under its heading for this specific source.
Architecture and integration
What must connect, and where does the AI sit in the workflow?
State-provisioned access to a closed legal research platform rather than general chatbots; no integration with case management is described.
Governance
Who approves, reviews and stays accountable for outcomes?
Judges await guidance from the Florida Supreme Court and the Courts Technology Commission; the vexatious-litigant law expansion is the main existing control on AI-fuelled filing volume.
Security and privacy
What data, permissions and controls need testing?
Not discussed beyond reliance on a closed system; confidentiality of chambers work is not addressed in the article.
Accessibility and workforce
Who is affected, and what skills or accommodations follow?
AI is helping self-represented litigants produce filings and ADA requests, raising access-to-justice and staff-capacity questions at once; the article notes only a small minority abuse the system.
Procurement
What should contracts, pricing and exit terms secure?
Statewide licensing followed local pilots funded by individual circuits; usage and time-saving data are not yet available to justify the spend.
Operating model
Which teams own the service once it runs?
Clerks and chief judges must absorb higher volumes and longer documents; Munyon proposes page limits by rule.
Publication history
- 2026-10-27Public Safety · Issue 496 resources
Stable resource ID: florida-judges-cocounsel-ai-research-self-represented-filings-double-20261027