JusticeText – AI-Powered Video and Audio Transcription for Evidence Analysis
Functionality: JusticeText is an AI-driven platform designed specifically for public defenders. It automatically transcribes police body-camera footage, 911 calls, jail phone calls, and other audio/video evidence, enabling defenders to quickly search transcripts for relevant statements.
Implementation:
- Kentucky Department of Public Advocacy (DPA): Implemented JusticeText to handle the surge of bodycam footage in cases. Kentucky DPA defenders reported that JusticeText reduced time spent reviewing evidence by hours per case, allowing them to find key contradictions in police statements more efficiently. However, funding limitations meant that not all defenders statewide had access to the tool. (JusticeText)
- Santa Cruz County Public Defender (CA): Adopted JusticeText to streamline discovery review, ensuring that attorneys could quickly locate and analyze critical evidence. Public Defender Heather Rogers noted that AI-assisted transcription enabled her office to process evidence faster and spend more time on client advocacy. (Santa Cruz PD Implementation)
Reduct.Video – AI-Driven Transcription and Video Evidence Management
Functionality: Reduct.Video provides AI-generated transcriptions and searchable video evidence management. It includes a human-in-the-loop option for high-accuracy transcription.
Implementation:
- Colorado State Public Defender: Deployed Reduct to transcribe bodycam footage and police interrogations, making video evidence review more efficient. Attorneys could highlight key clips, generate captions, and create court exhibits. Reduct reduced the time required for evidence processing and improved courtroom presentation of video evidence. (Reduct)
Bearister AI
Functionality: Bearister.ai is an AI-powered legal research and smart assistant tool designed to support criminal defense lawyers and public-interest legal work. Its legal research feature provides attorneys access to federal and state opinions, incorporating sources such as CFR and the Federal Register. It also enables attorneys to quickly summarize and analyze uploaded documents, draft motions, and organize exhibits grounded in relevant statutes. (BearisterAI)
Casetext CoCounsel (Thomson Reuters) – AI-Powered Legal Research and Drafting
Functionality: CoCounsel assists attorneys by conducting legal research, drafting motions, summarizing discovery, and preparing deposition questions.
Implementation:
- Miami-Dade Public Defender’s Office: The first PD office in the U.S. to integrate CoCounsel, providing 100 attorneys access to the AI research assistant. The tool significantly reduced legal research time and improved efficiency in drafting motions and trial prep. Attorneys noted that CoCounsel helped generate cross-examination questions and identify overlooked case law. However, due to budget constraints, not all defenders received licenses. (Miami-Dade CoCounsel Implementation)
LegalServer AI Suite – Case Management with AI Integration
Functionality: LegalServer is a case management system widely used by public defenders, now integrating AI for document automation, OCR-based evidence scanning, and legal analytics (LegalServer).
SentencingStats – AI-Driven Sentencing Analytics
Functionality: SentencingStats is a machine-learning platform that analyzes federal sentencing data and generates statistical reports on likely sentencing outcomes based on historical trends.
Implementation:
- Federal defenders have begun utilizing SentencingStats to support sentencing advocacy and mitigation efforts. By analyzing trends in judicial decisions, attorneys can present data-backed arguments for reduced sentences, demonstrating disparities or inconsistencies in sentencing patterns. (SentencingStats)
Westlaw Edge & Lexis+ AI – AI-Powered Legal Research
Functionality: These AI-enhanced legal research tools allow attorneys to quickly identify relevant case law, analyze opposing briefs, and draft legal arguments.
Implementation:
- Larger criminal defense firms and well-funded attorneys have integrated these tools to accelerate legal research and ensure comprehensive case preparation. AI-powered brief analysis features have been particularly useful for identifying missing citations and legal precedents. (Westlaw AI | Lexis+ AI)
Relativity by Justice for Change
Functionality: Offers a broad, end-to-end e-discovery and investigation platform designed to manage diverse data types (text, email, chat, multimedia indirectly via processing/review) across the entire litigation lifecycle, from data collection and processing through review, analysis, and production.11 Its AI capabilities are integrated to enhance these core workflow stages.
(https://www.relativity.com/company/commitments/social-impact/justice-for-change/ | https://www.relativity.com/data-solutions/air/ )
Implementation: Contact the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office for more info on using Relativity for RJA work.
MateyAI
Functionality: A tool that organizes and analyzes criminal eDiscovery—AI built specifically for criminal defense.
Everlaw – Cloud Native Ediscovery Platform
Functionality: Everlaw is a cloud-based litigation and e-discovery platform that helps legal teams streamline the review and production of case materials for investigations and trails. It offers a variety of AI and machine-learning tools that supports advanced data analytics and visualization and faster, more accurate evidence search, review, and production. https://www.everlaw.com/everlaw-for-good/
- Civil Rights Corps: Through Everlaw for Good, Everlaw has partnered with the Civil Rights Corps to streamline litigation efforts. Their e-discovery platform enabled CRC to quickly search through thousands of files while using the Storybuilder feature to track the most critical documents across three defendants, collaborate virtually, and successfully prepare for depositions. Everlaw has saved the CRC months of manual review time and tens of thousands of dollars by reducing the amount of data they had to manually sift through by 50%.
NiCE Justice
Functionality: NiCE Justice is a cloud-based digital evidence management system that helps prosecutors, public defenders, and courts to collect, organize, and analyze large amounts of evidence. The platform also includes automated transcription, redaction, and analytics tools, helping legal teams streamline workflows and build cases faster.
Implementation:
- Alameda County District Attorney’s Office: The Alameda DA’s Office has partnered with NiCE Justice to streamline their digital evidence workflows. This partnership has helped the DA’s office eliminate time-consuming manual processes, such as physical evidence transfer, and allow for greater collaboration over digital evidence via a unified, cloud-based system. NiCE Justice has improved efficiency and transparency across the justice process, enabling faster case preparation and collaboration with law enforcement and victims’ advocates.