Most recently, that technology has been AI, which the county is now using for help building timelines, drafting briefs and assembling reports, among other functions. The rapid acceleration of technology in American life over the past two decades has also meant that Miami-Dade — along with many other public defender’s offices — must now handle an onslaught of digital material on top of traditional evidence, making efficiency even more important.
“We have additional workload because of all the digital evidence — whether it’s text, whether it’s audio, whether it’s video," said Carlos J. Martinez, the Miami-Dade public defender. "There’s so much more than there used to be, that we have to figure out a way. How do you get all those things done? How do you review all those things in a way that you’re meeting your professional obligations to be competent and to be diligent?”
And so the office, which balances about 15,000 open cases at any given time, is now using CoCounsel, an AI platform that is backed by a legal large language model. Miami-Dade adopted CoCounsel in 2022 while it was in beta, likely making them one of the first public defender’s offices to use AI in this way.
The platform integrates with document management systems to streamline how agencies and courts handle files, whether those systems are built in-house or provided by vendors. It can scan and convert paper or handwritten documents into digital formats for easier processing. More broadly, it supports workflow automation, helping move legal matters from initial intake to resolution more efficiently. A team of lawyer editors ensures source accuracy, said Patrick Eveland. Eveland is the head of government legal for Thomson Reuters, the company behind CoCounsel.
“When this product came online, we bought into it,” Martinez said. “We were not scared of it. We welcomed it because we know the technology has to be the way we handle additional workload.”
The office includes assistant public defenders, volunteer attorneys and legal interns; administrative technology, budget and finance professionals; mitigation and intervention experts; client interviewers; investigators; and a law librarian. And it handles felonies, misdemeanors, delinquency and a number of mental health commitments. The office handles about 75,000 court cases per year, and each case requires multiple types of documentation, ranging from legal, health and school records; emails and client notes; to various evidentiary materials.
Cynthia Guerra is the office's executive chief assistant public defender for operations, and she oversees its IT team. She said that the AI tools are used to rapidly summarize large volumes of the most complex records — like medical, school and client notes — among other jobs. This automation saves hundreds of hours that would otherwise be spent on manual review, enabling everyone to serve more clients and focus on higher-value tasks like client care and program placement. It's a far cry from previous technology that required staffers to drag and drop electronic documents into a case management system.
Thomson Reuters describes its platform as being designed specifically for legal professionals. The company emphasizes that customer data remains within its secure systems and is not shared externally. A FedRAMP-authorized version of CoCounsel is expected to be available next year.
Looking ahead, the public defender has several ideas on how to continue to apply AI to justice. One that doesn’t seem complicated at first glance is calendaring and scheduling depositions. Guerra said that they coordinate more than a thousand depositions each month, but about half are canceled, often with little notice. The effort could reduce inefficiency by improving communication among defense attorneys, clients, prosecutors and law enforcement — a logistical challenge that consumes significant time and resources.
They have also received many questions from other jurisdictions about the use of this technology, and their advice is to vet vendors, make sure that security is in the contracts and work with the products to see if they offer the right features.
“Use someone with experience, use someone who knows what they're doing, and read your contract,” Guerra said. “Make sure that it shows that everything’s encrypted and that it’s in a ‘black box.’ We need to feel very confident that our vendors are going to keep our information safe and secure, because clearly having client information out there is a little scary.”
But broadly speaking, both Guerra and Martinez recommend the use of this technology to other public defenders.
“We do try to tell the stories of how we’re using AI and how successful it is," Guerra said. "We think there’s a space for AI in every office, no matter how small, because it’s going to give back time.”
