Revolutionizing Access to Federal Court Records: The Launch of SCALES
Kat M. Albrecht, assistant professor of criminal justice and criminology, alongside Adam Pah, assistant dean for digital innovation at the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, is leading an innovative project aimed at transforming the legal system through artificial intelligence (AI). Their initiative, known as SCALES (Systematic Content Analysis of Litigation EventS Open Knowledge Network), recently launched to provide free public access to federal court records for the first time.
Developed over several years by a national interdisciplinary team, SCALES resolves a significant data transparency issue within American courts. Prior to this project, federal court records, though publicly available, were not easily accessible or analyzable. The team consists of legal scholars, data scientists, engineers, journalists, and public policy experts and received over $6 million in funding from the National Science Foundation to create this AI-powered data platform.
The initial offering, The Federal Court Data Explorer, is now available at https://satyrn.scales-okn.org/sign-in, allowing users to explore detailed information about the federal judiciary. In the forward of their collaborative essay, "The SCALES Project: Making Federal Court Records Free," Albrecht and co-authors highlight the persistent lack of transparency in court data and its significance in understanding the legal system’s functionalities, successes, and areas needing intervention to prevent injustices.
As SCALES opens avenues for deeper analysis and understanding of court data, its impact on legal research and public policy could pave the way for significant improvements in the transparency and efficiency of the justice system. Co-authored papers by several prominent scholars detail the project’s foundational principles and visions for future developments, contributing to ongoing discussions about data transparency and judicial accountability.
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