🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

A multi-million dollar contract follows years of digitization

• The rollout follows years of digital work. More than 90% of civil lawsuits in South Korea now go through the electronic litigation system from filing to processing 1.
• The National Court Administration runs the effort. The platform uses an in-house AI platform on the court’s internal infrastructure, so it does not rely on external large language models (LLMs) or public AI services 2.
• Other agencies are also upgrading shared systems. The Ministry of Justice, Prosecutors’ Office, and National Police Agency opened the Next Generation Criminal Justice Information System (KICS), a shared IT platform for handling criminal justice data and workflows, on Sept. 19, 2024 3.

The court’s AI becomes a test case for rules and niche AI vendors

• The pilot will serve as a real-world test for South Korea’s AI Framework Act. The law passed in January 2025, it takes effect on Jan. 22, 2026, and it requires transparency for high-impact and generative AI 3.
• The private, secure design mirrors a wider push to balance new tools with accountability. A Korean judge set “red lines” that bar AI from making final decisions or judging credibility 4.
• Results will hinge on data quality. Earlier automated tools used by the court to prepare legal data for release reached only 8–15% overall accuracy 5.