How do judges use large language models? Evidence from Shenzhen
Journal of Legal Analysis 16(1), 235–262; 2024 issue, published online 2 January 2025
What it adds
Connects observation of a Shenzhen court's AI workflow with a vignette experiment involving experienced judges, examining how reasons generated after an initial decision may affect deliberation.
Read with this limitation
The experiment was exploratory and unregistered, using fixed GPT-3.5 outputs in a simulated case. Its judges were not from Shenzhen. Evidence that AI amplifies bias is mixed and statistically inconclusive; this is not a causal evaluation of the deployed court system.
- Jurisdiction tags
- China
- Language
- Chinese
Research artifacts
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Follow the source
Selected statements located in the linked primary sources. These results have not been independently reproduced here.
The observed workflow begins with the judge's decision, followed by AI-generated supporting reasons and judicial revision.
Abstract and introduction: observed judge–AI interactionThe analysis includes 139 judges and finds at most mixed evidence that AI assistance aggravates bias.
5. Experiment Results
Connected research
Related question
FairLex: A Multilingual Benchmark for Evaluating Fairness in Legal Text Processing
Both examine bias in legal AI. The Shenzhen study examines interaction with judges, whereas FairLex evaluates disparities in model performance. No citation is implied.
Entry status, source edition & rights
- Index entry
- Source-linked summary, prepared with agent assistance. Independent scholarly review is pending.
- Archive admission
- This bibliographic entry does not confer admission to the versioned archive.
- Edition inspected
- 10.1093/jla/laae009
- Reading coverage
- Final publisher HTML inspected for author affiliations, publication date, descriptive court study, experimental design, results and replication link. Year follows online publication; the volume carries 2024. Chinese denotes the experimental materials; the article is English. Linked Dataverse files were not retrieved or executed.
- Rights
- External source and artifact links only. No full text or research data is mirrored; original-host terms apply. An artifact link does not establish access or reproduction.
- Entry updated
- 2026-10-15
Source-linked summary · independent assessment pending.