Date of Award

5-4-2026

Document Type

Honors

Degree Name

General Beadle Honors Program

First Advisor

Kurt Kemper

Abstract

Evidence is the means by which arguments are presented, supported, and challenged in the United States court of law. With the recent emergence of consumer AI-systems in 2023 and their unprecedented growth since, U.S. courts are facing the greatest disruption in evidentiary procedure since the introduction of photographs over a century ago. Yet despite widespread acceptance of this fact, there exists no discussions regarding how US attorneys are being prepared to uphold the right of U.S. citizens’ to proper representation in court by properly challenging and defending the admission of AI-enhanced evidence. This project examines how U.S. courts and legal practitioners are responding to the emergence of AI-enhanced evidence, as well as the role law firms play in preparing attorneys to engage with such materials during discovery. This project addresses that gap by conducting comparative historical analysis of judicial responses to prior evidentiary technologies, alongside an exploratory survey on urban firm training practices. This project found that the judicial response to AI-enhanced evidence does not represent a departure from historical patterns but rather represents the beginning of a new iteration of the recurring process of institutional adaptation. This suggests that AI-enhanced evidence will continue to disrupt court procedure for some time yet as courts must develop new admissibility traditions from scratch. Within this process law firms play a critical and underexamined role by facilitating doctrinal development through consistent exposure and experimentation of novel technologies in court. Additionally, as US legal education remains oriented toward doctrinal reasoning rather than practical and technological competence, firms bear primary responsibility for equipping attorneys with the skills necessary to challenge and authenticate AI-based evidence. Understanding how legal firms prepare attorneys to engage with AI evidence is therefore essential not only for evaluating the fairness of individual trials, but also for assessing how the legal system as a whole adapts to technological disruption. This project aimed to contribute to the practical insight into the mechanisms through which firms prepared their attorneys but failed due to a lack of availability and interest. Further studies must be conducted to determine how firms prepare their associates to encounter novel tools on an individual level.

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