UNC Law Tests AI as Supreme Court Justices

The University of North Carolina School of Law held a mock trial featuring AI justices powered by ChatGPT.

Updated on Oct. 22, 2026 in Artificial Intelligence

UNC Law Tests AI as Supreme Court Justices

Live Poll

Do you trust AI to perform accurate legal reasoning in professional settings?

The University of North Carolina School of Law recently conducted a mock Supreme Court event where participants presented oral arguments to AI-powered justices. The event, titled May It Please the Machine, aimed to evaluate the legal reasoning capabilities of artificial intelligence.

Why it matters

The simulation serves to determine whether AI can effectively function as a reliable legal tool by replicating the complex decision-making processes of the nation's highest court. By stripping the system of internet access, organizers isolated the AI's core reasoning abilities to gauge its professional utility.

The AI justices utilized ChatGPT, operating under strict restrictions that blocked all external internet access. The system was loaded with specific case briefings and individual persona files provided by faculty to simulate Supreme Court dynamics.

The players

University of North Carolina School of Law

This is a public law school located in Chapel Hill that serves as a center for legal education and research in North Carolina.

ChatGPT

This is an artificial intelligence language model developed by OpenAI that is capable of generating human-like text based on provided inputs.

The details

Students delivered oral arguments while the AI processed their inputs to pose follow-up questions during the proceedings. Although the AI justices ultimately reached the same final decision as the actual Supreme Court for the selected case, the system earned a performance score of only 1.5/10.

October 22, 2026: The University of North Carolina School of Law held the mock Supreme Court event.

The Tech Race

This experiment mirrors broader industry efforts to replace traditional legal research methods with automated AI models. It positions the technology against the high-stakes standard set by the Supreme Court's established judicial review process to test the limits of generative AI in complex reasoning.

For law students and legal professionals, these tests signal potential shifts in how future case preparation and courtroom strategy may be assisted by software. However, the low performance rating suggests that AI currently lacks the nuanced reasoning required for high-level legal work.

The takeaway

The mock event demonstrates that while AI can process and mimic judicial outcomes, it currently struggles to meet the high standards of legal reasoning required for complex litigation. Researchers suggest that human oversight remains essential for navigating the complexities of the justice system.