An algorithm powered by artificial intelligence can predict how judges will rule in civil cases based on their net worth, political affiliation and law school attendance, providing recommendations to lawyers and plaintiffs on how to best invest their resources. It turns the art of finding sympathetic judges, or "judge picking," into an exact science.

"Judge picking" means finding a judge or replacing an assigned judge to hear a case in the hope of obtaining a more favorable outcome. Although it is an open secret in the legal community, "judge selection" is considered to be an abuse of process for one's own tactical gain and to the detriment of the fairness of the judicial system.

The tactic made headlines earlier this year when reports surfaced that U.S. anti-abortion groups challenged the Food and Drug Administration's approval of an abortion pill in Amarillo, Texas, rather than in Maryland, where the agency is headquartered. The choice of Amarillo as the venue was no coincidence: The small city has only one federal courthouse, presided over by a single federal judge, ultraconservative U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk.

Now, artificial intelligence is making it easier to pick judges. In January 2023, Pre/Dicta, the only litigation analysis platform that can predict the outcome of federal litigation, acquired Gavelytics, a state court judicial analysis platform. 95% of cases in the United States are heard in state courts.

Pre/Dicta compares judges and jurisdictions to predict likelihood of success in civil cases

Pre/Dicta is an AI-powered dataset that predicts how judges will rule in civil cases based on their biographical details — net worth, political affiliation, appointees, education and work experience — as well as their sentencing history, without taking into account relevant law or case facts. Pre/Dicta is designed to help attorneys and plaintiffs decide how best to invest their time and resources, with an accuracy rate of 86%. It is worth noting that Pre/Dicta cannot predict the outcome of criminal cases and jury trials.

"Pre/Dicta helps top litigators understand and apply judicial conduct in a way humans cannot," CEO and co-founder Dan Rabinowitz said when launching the platform in June 2022. "We believe our motion to dismiss prediction tool, along with other tools to come, will become an integral part of any top litigator's overall litigation strategy."

Launched in 2017 and prior to Pre/Dicta, Gavelytics was the market leader in state court litigation analytics and by 2022 had expanded its geographic coverage to 25 U.S. states, collecting data points not only from judges but also from law firms, attorneys and litigants. This information has now been added to the Pre/Dicta dataset.

"This deal is a major milestone for Pre/Dicta and the entire field of predictive litigation analytics," Rabinowitz said of Pre/Dicta's acquisition of Gavelytics. "By acquiring Gavelytics' state court assets, Pre/Dicta significantly accelerates the creation of the litigator's holy grail: a predictive product for every lawsuit nationwide."

Pre/Dicta algorithm provides likelihood of a specific judge granting motion and how long it will take

So far, judges appear to have avoided becoming targets of artificial intelligence. Instead, much of the discussion about the impact of AI on the legal industry has focused on how to make time-consuming manual tasks, such as research or document drafting, more efficient.

So, are AI-driven platforms like Pre/Dicta a good thing? Putting aside the "judge selection" issue, it has some clear advantages. First, litigation is expensive, so letting plaintiffs know whether their money is getting their money's worth is arguably an important consideration. And if more people decide not to litigate based on AI’s win predictions, it could reduce the backlog of cases in an already clogged system.

However, the problem of selecting judges remains, and with the help of artificial intelligence, this phenomenon is likely to become more common. In April 2023, Democratic Senator Mazie Hirono introduced a bill that would provide the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (DC) with exclusive jurisdiction over cases with national impact such as immigration and campaign finance challenges, in an effort to curb judge picking.

"When litigants get to choose their judges, it creates the perception that they can predetermine the outcome of their cases, undermining the integrity of our federal judicial system," Gerrono said in a press release. "Active plaintiffs should not be able to hand-pick individual judges to set national policy, which is why we must address the issue of judge selection in federal courts."

Time will tell what impact Pre/Dicta will have on the practice of selecting judges, especially on issues of national interest. But this phenomenon is unlikely to disappear anytime soon.