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Why AI Isn't Like a Law Clerk

A response to Daniel Solove.

Orin S. Kerr | 4.27.2026 10:58 PM

In response to my two-part series (1, 2) on what to do with AI-generated scholarship, my good friend and former colleague Daniel Solove writes in with a question/comment:

What's the difference between you here and a judge?  A judge directs legal opinions and puts their name on them, so aren't they doing the same thing, just with a human writer vs. AI?

Claude is just a law clerk.

Fair questions.  I disagree, because I think the norms of authorship for legal opinions and scholarship are different.

Judicial opinions are exercises of formal government power, and the fact that one judge signs it is just a convention.  Say there's a federal court of appeals case heard by a three-judge panel of Judge Ay, Judge Bee, and Judge Cee.  If the panel hands down a........

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