TL;DR

Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy has announced plans to expand AI use in courts across England and Wales, including Microsoft Copilot for transcriptions, judgment summaries, and case scheduling. The Justice AI Unit will receive over £12 million in additional funding for the next financial year.

What’s changing

Speaking at the Microsoft AI tour event at Excel London, Lammy said the Ministry of Justice has been “one of the fastest growing users” of Microsoft Copilot across government. Courts and tribunals are now testing transcription technology already used by the Probation Service, which Lammy claimed has saved more than 25,000 hours by eliminating manual note-taking.

Immigration and asylum judges are using AI to draft notes, while legal advisers and district judges in magistrates’ courts are piloting transcription and judgment summarisation. HM Courts and Tribunals Service will also introduce an AI-assisted listing tool for case scheduling.

Learning from Canada

Lammy pointed to Ontario’s Court of Justice as a model, describing it as “digital by design, purposefully paperless.” He said visiting the Toronto court left him feeling “less like a visitor from another country and more like one from another time catching a glimpse of what could be.”

However, Ontario’s experience with AI has not been entirely smooth. Last year, one of its judges ordered a criminal defence lawyer to refile submissions that included fabricated cases generated by AI, describing the errors as “numerous and substantial.”

Broader justice reforms

The AI expansion sits alongside other measures to reduce court backlogs: more court sessions, “blitz courts” that bundle similar cases, physical upgrades, and greater use of video appearances. Many ideas came from a review by Sir Brian Leveson published earlier this month. Lammy also wants to halve jury trials by removing defendants’ rights to choose them for offences with sentences under three years — a proposal opposed by many Labour backbenchers.

Looking forward

The £12 million investment signals the government’s commitment to AI in justice, but scaling from pilots to production across a creaking court system will test whether the technology can deliver results beyond time savings on individual tasks.