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Analysis & commentary

The Autonomous Law Office: Agentic AI in the Practice

Judge Scott Schlegel · 2025 · Written by a sitting appellate judge who writes regularly on legal technology

The futureProductivityVerificationLitigators, and anyone curious what the bench is thinking
Why it is on the shelf. Valuable less for its predictions than for its vantage point. Judges are forming views about AI use in filings right now, and those views become standing orders.

The Institute's reading

Most commentary on agentic AI is written by technologists or by lawyers selling services. This is written from the bench, which makes it worth reading for a reason independent of whether its analysis is correct: the people who will decide what is acceptable in filings are forming their views now, and this is a window into that.

The substance walks through what agentic systems could do across the arc of a matter and where the friction sits, and it is notably unsentimental in both directions — neither dismissive of the capability nor casual about verification. The through-line is that court-facing work carries obligations that do not relax because the drafting was automated, and that the profession's credibility with the bench depends on how it handles the next few years.

For a litigation practice the actionable inference is about trajectory. Standing orders on AI disclosure and citation certification have proliferated because individual judges decided they were necessary. Understanding how judges are reasoning about this is a better guide to where the requirements are heading than reading the orders that already exist.

Key propositions

  • Agentic systems are approaching parts of practice that courts have direct interest in.
  • Obligations attached to court-facing work do not relax because production was automated.
  • Judicial expectations are being formed now and are visible in the spread of standing orders.
  • The profession’s credibility with the bench turns on how verification is handled in the near term.

In practice

  • Track standing orders per judge, and treat it as a filing-checklist item rather than a policy set once.
  • Expect disclosure and certification requirements to spread rather than recede.

Where authorities disagree

This is one judge writing individually, not a court speaking, and judicial views on AI vary widely — some have entered detailed standing orders, others have deliberately declined to on the basis that existing certification rules already cover it. Read it as an informed perspective rather than a statement of what any court requires. Your own judge's orders are the governing document.

AI adoption conciergeorientation · not legal or ethics advice
Happy to dig into it. What would you like to pressure-test from The Autonomous Law Office: Agentic AI in the Practice: one of its propositions, how it applies to your situation, or where it disagrees with the rest of the shelf?