AI can’t replace ‘empathy and judgment,’ chief justice says

The current and former chief justices of California met on a Sacramento stage on Thursday and talked about a range of issues from the court reporter shortage to the state budget and the wisdom of going to law school in the age of artificial intelligence.

But some questions from the audience related to ethical issues being raised about justices on the U.S. Supreme Court, which current California Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero said had the threat of tainting other courts.

“We feel under attack,” Guerrero said near the beginning of the hour-long conversation. “A lot of that is misdirected to the state judicial system. Things that happen at the federal level influence how we are treated and the perception of justice.”

Former chief justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye interviewed Guerrero on behalf of the Public Policy Institute of California, which she now leads. The two women share the distinction of having grown up as daughters of farmworkers, Cantil-Sakauye in Sacramento and Guerrero in the Imperial Valley, and rising to become the first two women of color to lead the nation’s largest judicial system.

Guerrero joked that if most people know anything about the Imperial Valley, it’s “triple digit heat” and “unemployment.” After she became chief justice in January, Guerrero said one of her challenges was overcoming a dislike of “talking about myself.”

But then she quickly said, “It’s not about me. It’s more about my family and my story, and I think that resonates with so many people.”

Guerrero brought up the fact that Cantil-Sakauye’s 12-year term as chief justice was bookended by two global crises, a recession and a pandemic.

“I’m wondering what my pandemic will be,” she said. “I’m hopeful it won’t be a repeat of that or the Great Recession.”

Leading the state’s highest court and a sprawling lower court system has required adjustments, said Guerrero, who was a justice on the 4th District Court of Appeal in San Diego. There’s a range of policy, administrative and budgetary issues to consider.

“What comes to mind is the long-standing issue of court reporters and trying to ensure that we have a verbatim record for all the parties who appear in our courts so that they can actually ensure a meaningful right to appeal,” she said.

Guerrero also addressed an issue relevant to many young attorneys: school debt.

Young people shouldn’t let debt end their dreams of using their law degree for public service, she said.

But she said she empathized with them. Her debt coming out of Stanford Law School “greatly influenced” her decision to go into private practice at Latham & Watkins LLP. But she said she found ways of giving back to the community, working as an assistant U.S. attorney and volunteering for the Immigration Justice Project.

Asked if it will still make sense for young people to take on that debt in a future when artificial intelligence can do much of the work of an attorney, Guerrero said yes.

“Do it,” she said. “It’s a wonderful opportunity. I wish I could convince my sons.”

Guerrero acknowledged she has played with the technology, though not in the course of drafting court opinions.

Cantil-Sakauye joked she used AI to write “a six-paragraph poem about tofu.”

Guerrero said there will always be a place in society for human attorneys.

“It never can replicate the human touch, the empathy and judgment that is required for these positions,” Guerrero said.

Members of the U.S. Supreme Court have come under criticism for taking trips and loans from large donors who might have business before the justices, and for using court staff to arrange and carry out private income-producing events, such as book signings and speaking engagements.

Later in the program, an audience member asked Guerrero, “How soon do you predict there will be a code of ethics of the members of the U.S. Supreme Court?”

“I heard someone say. ‘Take the Fifth,’” she replied. “It’s not my place to tell the federal judiciary what to do, but I will say that I’m proud of what California does.”