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Professionals · code 2612

Judges

AI can research the case law. Deciding someone's fate is still a judge's job.

Six of the seven tasks are mostly out of AI's reach, including researching the law, writing opinions and sentencing. Presiding over trials and hearings it barely touches.

What they actually do (and what else they get called)

Judges preside over civil and criminal proceedings in courts of law. Tasks include - (a) presiding over trials and hearings; (b) interpreting and enforcing rules of procedure and making rulings regarding the admissibility of evidence; (c) determining the rights and obligations of the parties involved, and in cases tried by jury; (d) instructing the jury on points of law that are applicable to the case; (e) weighing and considering evidence in non-jury trials and deciding legal guilt or innocence or degree of liability of the accused or defendant; (f) passing sentence on persons convicted in criminal cases, determining damages or other appropriate remedy in civil cases and issuing court orders; (g) researching legal issues and writing opinions on the issues. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Chief justice - Judge - Magistrate Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Court clerk - 3411 - Justice of the peace - 3411

  • justice of the peace
  • judge

Job titles from the EU's ESCO list. Search for any of them on the jobs page and you'll end up here.

69 / 100

Mostly holds up against AI

AI can take a few chores off your plate, but most of the day is still yours.

Not the odds you keep your job. It's how much of the everyday work still needs a person, out of 100.

← Robot's turf Human's turf →

The ILO's official verdict: Not Exposed

252 of 427 for holding up against AI

Why this score?

The ILO rated each of this job's 7 tasks for how much of it AI could do. They average 31.3 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 31.3 = 68.7.

That's the whole sum. No black box, no secret sauce: you can check it against the ILO's study. ILO group “Not Exposed”: None of this job's tasks scored high enough to count.

This job rates 7.8 out of 100 for how hands-on it is. The score above only looks at AI tools, not robots, but for work this far from the physical that matters less.

from the source Working Paper 140, Generative AI and Jobs 2025 index data 0.8-observed-use

Man v Bot · compare

Who holds up better?

Judges 69

v

Go on, try your partner's job. Or your sibling's. We won't tell.

Man v Bot

Where the bot helps, and where the human wins

Bot

What AI takes

The routine stuff. You may not miss it.

  • Legal research.
  • Drafting judgments and summaries.
  • Case management.

Man

What people still do better

Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.

  • Presiding over trials.
  • Weighing evidence and credibility.
  • Sentencing and taking responsibility.

Both

What's arriving

New work that only exists because the AI does.

  • Rules on AI in courts.
  • Cases about AI-generated evidence.
  • Checking AI-assisted submissions.

Written by a human, from the ILO's task ratings below. Yes, we see the irony. Read it as one person's take.

Meet your two rivals

They're not the same machine. AI software can only reach the parts of a job done on a screen or in words. A chatbot can't climb a ladder. A robot might, one day, if it doesn't fall off.

The AI

Lives in a screen. Never had to fix a boiler.

Threat level: Low

34 could do without you

It could take over very little of the work on its own. It could help with 58 of 100.

The robot

The wildcard. Has hands, still working out stairs.

How much it matters here: Lower

8 how hands-on

Not much of this job needs hands, so the robot can sit this one out.

So could a robot do the physical part?

Less than half of this job is hands-on. Robots still matter, but for a smaller part of the work, so we don't sort it any further.

Robots hate fiddly work in awkward spaces. On that measure, this job scores 4 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.

8 How
hands-on
4 How fiddly
and cramped

Kind of hands-on work Less than half hands-on

The small print

They aren't a robot score, and nothing on this page is. Nobody measures how far robots have got well enough to put a number on it. These are the closest thing we have: how hands-on the job is, and how much fiddly, cramped work it takes, which is what Frey and Osborne found hardest for machines.

From O*NET, averaged across 2 US jobs .

finger skill 7.2 · hand skill 2.7 · cramped spaces 1.8 · averaged · rule: hands-on under 50

estimated O*NET 31.0 BLS occupational crosswalk chain ISCO-08 to 2010 SOC (Aug 2012, rev. Jun 2015); 2010 to 2018 SOC (Nov 2017); O*NET-SOC 2019 taxonomy data 0.8-observed-use measures chosen by Frey & Osborne (2017) · the grouping is a sorting, not a measurement

The job, task by task

Every job is really a bundle of tasks. Here's this one unpacked, with how much of each AI could do, out of 100. The score is the average, and averages can hide a lot.

AI's favourite task here scores 41, against an average of 31. The bigger the gap, the more lopsided the job: some of it wide open to AI, some of it barely touched.

  1. 41

    Researching legal issues and writing opinions on the issues.

    Low
  2. 36

    Determining the rights and obligations of the parties involved, and, in cases tried by jury

    Low
  3. 35

    Instructing the jury on points of law that are applicable to the case

    Low
  4. 33

    Interpreting and enforcing rules of procedure and making rulings regarding the admissibility of evidence

    Low
  5. 33

    Weighing and considering evidence in non-jury trials and deciding legal guilt or innocence or degree of liability of the accused or defendant

    Low
  6. 27

    Passing sentence on persons convicted in criminal cases, determining damages or other appropriate remedy in civil cases and issuing court orders

    Low
  7. 15

    Presiding over trials and hearings

    Very Low

7 tasks · the High to Very Low labels are the ILO's

from the source Working Paper 140, Generative AI and Jobs 2025 index data 0.8-observed-use

Sidekick or replacement?

A tool that makes you faster is a very different thing from one that does the task while you watch. Jobs and Skills Australia measured the two separately, which is handy.

AI helps you
58
AI does it for you
34

Sidekick wins, by 24 points.

How good a match is this?

One Australian job matches, but only partly: not everyone in it does this job. Treat the numbers as a rough guide.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.8-observed-use matched to Australian jobs 2712

So, should judges be worried?

Short answer: not much. Some of the chores will change, and good riddance.

Parts of the work are changing. Researching and writing opinions, determining rights, instructing juries, ruling on evidence, weighing evidence and sentencing all rate Low; presiding over trials rates Very Low. AI will help with research and drafting; judgement and legitimacy stay human.

Worth remembering: we score tasks, not jobs. When AI takes on a task, the job usually reshuffles around it rather than vanishing.

Where this job could lead

None of the new jobs we've written up start from here yet. Could be you're the first. See the jobs AI is creating →

How are the neighbours doing?

There are 92 jobs in the “Professionals” family, averaging 61. This one is above the family average.

Pit this against any other job →