Federal Courts

December 28, 2025

AI and the Law/Justice Information Professional: What 2026 and Beyond Will Demand

Introduction.

This posting draws on guidance and analysis from AALL, IFLA, ACRL, the ABA, Thomson Reuters, LexisNexis, NIST, Stanford HAI, and the World Economic Forum, among others. Artificial intelligence is no longer a speculative “future issue” for law and justice information professionals. By 2026, AI will be embedded, sometimes invisibly, into many legal research platforms, court systems, compliance workflows, and knowledge-management environments. The central question is no longer whether AI will affect our work, but how it reshapes professional responsibility, judgment, and value.

From Research Assistance to Research Accountability

November 5, 2025

The Impact of Judge Shopping on Court Decisions in Criminal Cases

by David Badertscher

Judge shopping, the practice of attempting to steer a legal case toward a particular judge perceived as favorable, raises serious concerns in criminal justice. While often discussed in civil litigation, its consequences in criminal cases are profound, influencing bail, evidentiary rulings, trial outcomes, and sentencing.

This posting examines how judge shopping occurs, its impact on judicial impartiality and constitutional protections, and the efforts taken to curb it. Ultimately, judge shopping undermines equal justice, disproportionately benefits well-resourced litigants, and weakens public trust in the courts. Reforms such as randomized case assignment, multi judge divisions, and stricter refiling rules remain essential to preserve judicial integrity. Judge shopping can significantly impact court decisions in both civil and, to a lesser but still important extent, criminal cases by allowing litigants to steer their cases toward judges they anticipate will be more sympathetic to their position or issue more favorable rulings, thus undermining the principle of judicial impartiality and affecting case outcomes.

How Judge Shopping Influences Criminal Decisions

July 10, 2025

H.R. 1605 SOPRA

by David Badertscher

Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Cost Estimate July 9, 2025.

In the context of the US Congress, SOPRA refers to the Separation of Powers Restoration Act. It’s a legislative proposal aimed at amending the Administrative Procedure Act to change how courts review agency actions. Specifically, SOPRA seeks to eliminate the practice of “Chevron deference,” where courts defer to an agency’s interpretation of a law if it’s deemed reasonable, and instead require courts to review legal questions de novo, meaning without deference to the agency’s interpretation.

COST ESTIMATE LETTER JULY 9 2025