JUDGE 3.0
A concept for Poland’s Ministry of Justice: the court calendar, hearing recordings and a knowledge base in one system for the court’s daily work — with an AI assistant.
§ 01BRIEF
A short exploration for Poland’s Ministry of Justice: how modern software can support the everyday work of the country’s common courts.
The goal was to find the main barriers in the systems courts work in today and to propose solutions that make the courts’ work more efficient, accessible and secure.
It was built on in-depth interviews with court staff — judges’ assistants, court reporters and referendaries. They shaped the first UX sketches of Judge 3.0, and the project combined an audit of three existing tools with a concept for a new digital infrastructure, integrated with AI and e-delivery.
About the project
- For:
- the Polish Ministry of Justice
- When:
- February 2024
- Role:
- UX research, service design: systems audit, interviews, the Judge 3.0 concept and wireframes
- Scope:
- an audit of 3 systems, 5 wireframe screens
The challenge
Turn a highly complex, multi-stage court reality into clear, intuitive interfaces that meet rigorous legal and security requirements.
Reconcile four user profiles and their very different ways of working, and plan a full digitization of case files with mobile access and AI support — in a short time, so in fast iterations: from a map of the existing systems’ pain points, through ideation workshops, to wireframes that had to convince decision-makers that modernization could genuinely shorten proceedings and relieve administrative staff.
Four user profiles
- judges
- judges’ assistants
- court reporters
- referendaries
§ 02SYSTEM
Five screens of Judge 3.0 to click through
The week’s court calendar, hearing recordings, a knowledge base with a cascading filter and a procedure as a flowchart. Point at an annotation and a line shows the element it is about.
The system’s interface is in Polish.
Mobile access
Today’s calendar on the phone, on the way to work.
A modern interface
Intuitive and easy to use, good-looking and functional.
E-delivery & scanned Neolist
Every document reaches the court in electronic form.
Virtual Private Network
Sign-in through the work VPN, also from personal devices.
AI assistant
§ 03AUDIT
Three separate programs for one working day at a court
SĘDZIA-2 (“Judge-2”) keeps the court registers, ReCourt Player plays hearing recordings and the Common Courts Rulings Portal publishes judgments. I reviewed each of them through the eyes of someone who works with them every day.
- RECOURT PLAYER 2010
- SĘDZIA-2 2011–2012
- COMMON COURTS RULINGS PORTAL 2012
the Judge 3.0 concept 2024
SĘDZIA-2
2011–2012
What it does
SĘDZIA-2 is a case-register and back-office system for court clerks’ offices. It keeps more than 90 standardized electronic registers that meet the Ministry of Justice’s requirements and generates more than 90 periodic lists and reports that help monitor and report on the courts’ work. It also creates the ministry’s statistics automatically and exports them to SAP.
- 90+ standardized registers
- 90+ lists and reports
- 200+ courts in Poland
About the program
- Author:
- ZETO-ŚWIDNICA Sp. z o.o.
- Users:
- Staff of more than 200 courts in Poland
- First version released:
- 2011–2012
- Platform:
- Windows
Feedback
Respondent: Milena, 30, judge’s assistant
Despite the updates, this program is terribly outdated.
Letters that come in from a party or their attorney aren’t digitized. They exist only on paper in the case file, and the program’s documents tab only says that a letter with a given name reached the court and on what day. Working in this system, you have no idea what a given letter actually says.
Courts don’t have enough computers (laptops) for staff to use the 24 days of occasional remote work a year they are entitled to.
The lack of proper equipment and security is a huge problem.
Case files that aren’t digitized make remote work hard.
RECOURT PLAYER
2010
What it does
ReCourt Player plays the recordings of court hearings, which are saved in the e-protocol format. It is meant for people who want to follow the course and content of hearings they didn’t attend, or to listen to the recordings again.
About the program
- Author:
- Comarch S.A.
- Users:
- Judges, court staff, parties to proceedings
- First version released:
- 2010
- Platform:
- Windows
Feedback
Respondent: Milena, 30, judge’s assistant
I can only watch hearings from my own division (not even the whole court), or possibly from another court, if that option is checked on the recording to share it with another court. That’s usually the case when another court questions a witness or a party as judicial assistance — then, instead of attaching a disc to our file, you can go into this program and look the recording up.
We should have access to all recordings, except those of hearings held behind closed doors.
There were times when I got a file from the regional court with an appeal and a shortened record of the hearing there, but, say, no disc attached, and I can’t find the recording in ReCourt. Then all that’s left is to ask the regional court to send us the recorded hearing on a disc, which drags out the proceedings — but judges often don’t do that at all, and I have no way to check objections about a witness’s or a party’s testimony. I then have to trust what the court reporter wrote in the shortened record.
COMMON COURTS RULINGS PORTAL
2012
What it does
The Common Courts Rulings Portal is a website that publishes the common courts’ rulings, with their statements of reasons, in criminal, civil, and labor and social security cases. It delivers the public access to court decisions guaranteed by the Polish Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights.
About the program
- Author:
- the Ministry of Justice
- Users:
- Lawyers, law students, anyone interested
- First version released:
- 2012
- Platform:
- Web app
Feedback
Respondent: Milena, 30, judge’s assistant
The trouble with the rulings portal is that judges pick and choose which anonymized judgments with reasons they publish — some do it every now and then, and others never.
My own observations
- The site looks badly dated.
- An unintelligent search — finding anything takes very specific phrases.
- Poor summaries in the search results.
- Filters that behave unintuitively.
- A ruling’s page that is hard to follow.
- A ruling’s text has no structure — I would take the way EU law is published on EUR-Lex as the model. Rulings should have a structured form, for example in LaTeX.
§ 04BARRIERS
From barrier to solution
What hurts in today’s systems — and how Judge 3.0 answers it.
SĘDZIA-2
Judge 3.0 · Calendar
In Judge 3.0: E-delivery & scanned Neolist
Every letter opens in the system — paper ones are scanned by Poczta Polska.
In Judge 3.0: Virtual Private Network
No work laptop needed: sign in from a personal device through the work VPN.
In Judge 3.0: WebAssembly · Web Cryptography API · homomorphic encryption
Isolated code, cryptography in the browser and computing on encrypted data.
In Judge 3.0: A modern interface
Built to the highest usability standards: intuitive, good-looking and functional.
Respondent: Milena, 30, judge’s assistant
RECOURT PLAYER
Judge 3.0 · Hearing recordings
In Judge 3.0: Recordings from every court in one place
Not just your own division — recordings from every court in Poland, for staff with the right access.
In Judge 3.0: AI-assisted search
In Judge 3.0: Hearing recordings
Instead of a shortened record — the hearing’s recording next to its e-protocol text.
Respondent: Milena, 30, judge’s assistant
RULINGS PORTAL
Judge 3.0 · Knowledge base
In Judge 3.0: AI-assisted search
In Judge 3.0: Friendly names generated by AI
Next to the case number, a plain-language name, so you recognize the case in the list without opening it.
In Judge 3.0: All the knowledge the work needs, in one place
One taxonomy — from procedures to news — as a cascading filter.
My own observations
§ 05ACCESS
Work from anywhere, data under lock and key
The answer to missing laptops and missing security: a system you can reach from outside the courthouse, protected from the browser to the cloud.
The lack of proper equipment and security is a huge problem.
Mobile access
Besides the computer, the app will also work on the phone — handy for busy judges, who can check today’s calendar on the way to work. The app will sync the court calendar with the calendar on the judge’s phone.
- judge’s phone
- today’s calendar
- synced with the phone’s calendar
E-delivery & scanned Neolist
Every document is delivered to the court in electronic form. A document sent by post is scanned automatically by Poczta Polska.
- paper letter
- scanned by Poczta Polska
- E-delivery
- Judge 3.0
Virtual Private Network
The service is available only after signing in to the work VPN — which makes it possible to sign in to the system from personal devices.
- personal device
- work VPN
- Judge 3.0
- WebAssembly
- A standard for running code written in different programming languages on web pages. WebAssembly provides high performance, security and code isolation, which limits the risk of attacks and vulnerabilities.
- Web Cryptography API
- An interface that gives web applications cryptographic functions: generating, importing, exporting, encrypting, decrypting, signing and verifying keys and data — for secure connections and communication between the browser and the server.
- Homomorphic encryption
- A technique that computes on encrypted data without decrypting it, so data can be stored and processed in the cloud without being exposed to leaks or tampering.
§ 06AI ASSISTANT
Thirteen questions, one assistant
From the court calendar to the register of experts — just ask.
AI assistant
Searching all the data a given user has access to and answering questions, for example:
- What time is the Kowalski vs Michalak hearing scheduled?
- Find the next free 2 hours in the calendar.
- Find hearing recordings in cases about who owns a dog.
- Find correspondence from attorney Michalak.
- Find judgments in child custody cases.
- Based on previous years, estimate how many cases our division will have this year.
- Draft a motion to appoint an expert witness.
- In the register of experts, find people who specialize in land surveying.
- Who in our division has a birthday today?
- Find cases with a conflict of interest or a judge’s recusal.
- Draft a statement of reasons for the judgment in Kowalski vs Michalak.
- Compare court rulings in similar cases and point out differences or similarities.
- Check whether a document complies with the regulations and standards in force.
§ 07RECORDINGS
A hearing you can actually find
A search that knows what each hearing was about — and a recording that reaches the courtroom screen in one click.
I can’t find the recording in ReCourt.
AI-assisted search
Search by:
- keywords
- the hearing’s subject
- similarity to another hearing
- emotions in the courtroom
- tone of voice
We should have access to all recordings, except those of hearings held behind closed doors.
Recordings from every court in one place
Staff with the right access will be able to search and watch recordings from every court in Poland.
Hearing recordings
Every hearing recording, together with its e-protocol text, will be available right inside one comprehensive system for the court’s daily work, Judge 3.0 — a smooth workflow for staff, with AI support.
Natural language processing (NLP)
Lets computers understand and generate text from audio recordings.
Turns sound into text.
Pulls the relevant data out of text, such as names, dates or case numbers.
Sentiment analysis (SA)
Detects mood or emotion.
Writes short summaries or notes from long texts.
Image processing (IP)
Lets computers analyze and interpret images from video recordings.
Face recognition (FR)
Identifies and verifies people by their faces.
Gesture recognition (GR)
Recognizes and classifies movements of the hands or body.
Detects and recognizes objects in the image, such as documents or items.
Understands the image’s context and meaning, such as the type of room or the number of people.
Google Cast & Apple AirPlay
With one click, a recording plays wirelessly on any screen in the courtroom.
§ 08KNOWLEDGE BASE
A case number you can actually read
Legislation, rulings, commentaries, training and templates in one place — with a search that looks for meaning, not a very specific phrase.
An unintelligent search — finding anything takes very specific phrases.
Friendly names generated by AI
Besides their case number, rulings can have names generated by the rules of plain language — so you can recognize a case in the list without opening the document.
Sąd Apelacyjny we Wrocławiu utrzymuje w mocy wyrok Sądu Okręgowego w Świdnicy oddalający powództwo J. J. przeciwko Powiatowi Ś. o zapłatę odszkodowania i zadośćuczynienia za naruszenie prawa własności
The Court of Appeal in Wrocław upholds the judgment of the Regional Court in Świdnica dismissing J. J.’s claim against the District of Ś. for damages and compensation for an infringement of ownership
Sąd Apelacyjny we Wrocławiu utrzymuje w mocy wyrok Sądu Okręgowego w L. uznający za bezskuteczną czynność prawną ustanowienia służebności osobistej na rzecz pozwanego przez wierzyciela strony powodowej
The Court of Appeal in Wrocław upholds the judgment of the Regional Court in L. declaring ineffective a personal easement granted to the defendant, at the claim of the plaintiff’s creditor
Sąd Apelacyjny we Wrocławiu zmienia wyrok Sądu Okręgowego w Świdnicy i oddala powództwo (…) S.A. w S. o pozbawienie wykonalności tytułu wykonawczego Agencji (…) Sp. z o.o. w G.
The Court of Appeal in Wrocław changes the judgment of the Regional Court in Świdnica and dismisses the claim of (…) S.A. in S. to deprive the enforcement title of Agencja (…) Sp. z o.o. in G. of enforceability
Examples generated by ChatGPT-4
All the knowledge the job requires, in one place
- Procedury
- Akty prawne
- Dz.U. i M.P.
- Dzienniki UE
- Dzienniki resortowe
- Dzienniki wojewódzkie
- Akty korporacyjne
- Pomniki prawa
- Projekty ustaw
- Orzeczenia i pisma urzędowe
- Orzeczenia sądów
- Orzeczenia administracji
- Pisma urzędowe
- Komentarze i publikacje
- Komentarze praktyczne
- Komentarze
- Monografie
- Artykuły
- Głosy
- Linie orzecznicze
- Omówienia
- Poradniki
- Pozostałe
- Strefa szkoleń
- Szkolenia
- Aktualności
- Konferencje
- E-learning
- Wzory i narzędzia
- Wzory
- Zestawienia
- Kalkulatory
- Plany kont i klasyfikacje
- Aktualności
AI-assisted search
Vector and semantic search can index the whole knowledge base in a short time.
A digital briefcase
Gathers the statutes, rulings and other documents useful in a given case in one place.
Alerts on watched documents
Users can watch the documents they care about. When a document is amended, they get a notification.
§ 09PROCEDURES
A procedure as a flowchart, not a paragraph
Every procedure with its current status and version — and its steps and correspondence on one flowchart.
Ustanowienie pełnomocnika z urzędu na wniosek prokuratora przy przestępstwach przeciwko bezpieczeństwu...
- Four boxes on one axis, one below the other.
- Under the first box, a sender node.
- From it, a dashed correspondence loop runs through two nodes and back to the second box.
- The steps continue to the fourth box.
Flowcharts of court procedures
Flowcharts of court procedures map out the steps and decisions a court case calls for along the way. They can help court staff, because they:
- Make the rules of court procedure easier to understand and remember, especially for complex or rarely used procedures.
- Speed up the drafting of procedural documents, because they show what information is needed and in what order.
- Help avoid mistakes and delays, because they show which actions are mandatory and which optional, and what the deadlines and the consequences of missing them are.
- Improve communication and cooperation among court staff, because they unify how court procedures are presented and read.
So procedure flowcharts can raise the quality and efficiency of the courts’ work — and the satisfaction and motivation of the people who work there.
§ 10IDEAS
AI in the service of justice
These ideas date from February 2024. Today the EU AI Act sets their limits: AI that helps a court research and interpret facts and the law is high-risk, and emotion recognition in the workplace has been banned since 2025.
A hint of a possible lie
Based on a witness’s facial micro-expressions, AI could detect possible lies. A camera on the witness could flag the moments when something untrue is said, and the judge’s tablet could then show a suggestion to ask for more detail.
88% accuracy, according to the article — better than a polygraph
The article Detecting deception using machine learning with facial expressions and pulse rate by AI researchers at Tokyo University of Science, published in Artificial Life and Robotics
Such a system can never be the final arbiter — only support for the judge’s work in the courtroom.
An AI court reporter
In the future, automatic transcription could help the court reporter put everything said in the courtroom on record quickly and accurately, without having to write by hand. Generating summaries and pulling out the key information can help write short, concise summaries of the record with the most important facts and the parties’ arguments. These technologies could make proceedings faster and more accurate and save time and money spent on the record.
AI that supports probation officers
AI can generate a report that assesses the risk of reoffending, which a probation officer could use to draw up an individual plan of rehabilitation and supervision of the convicted person. Such a report could also go to the court, which could weigh it when deciding on parole, a break in serving the sentence, a transfer to another prison or another measure.
An example of such a system: Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions, used in the states of New York, Wisconsin, California and Florida
Its shortcomings deserve a close look, too — and lessons drawn from them.
An AI prosecutor
A system used by the Pudong People’s Procuratorate in Shanghai drafts indictments automatically in simple cases such as fraud, theft or traffic offenses. A similar system could support prosecutors in drafting indictments in Poland, too.
97% accuracy compared with indictments written by people
Prof. Shi Yong (Chinese Academy of Sciences), in the article A Prosecution Decision Support and Cases Files Classification Management System Based on Text Mining, published in Management Review
Naturally, at this stage only as an experiment.
AI is not meant to be the final arbiter — only support for the judge’s work.
§ 11MATERIALS