Home / Due process and challenge
What you can produce when a decision is questioned
A challenge rarely turns on whether the outcome was right. It turns on whether the process can be shown, and on who is accountable for each step in it.
What the record shows
Four things, in the order a reviewer will ask for them
Notice went out
Every notice and document served is on the record, with what was sent and when, so there is nothing to argue about later.
The party answered
What each side filed, and when, sits beside the deadline it was filed against, under the rules adopted at the start.
A person considered it
The decision maker's review is recorded as their own act, with what the system proposed and what they changed or refused.
The outcome followed the rules
The rule each step was taken under is recorded with the step, so the path from the rulebook to the outcome can be walked.
Where the AI sits
Assistance, recorded as assistance
Courts that have looked at AI in adjudication have drawn the same line in different words: a machine may assist, and a person must decide. The difficulty for an institution is not agreeing with that, it is showing afterwards that it is what happened.
Settle& records the two halves separately. What the system proposed is one entry. What the person decided is another, attributed to them. A reviewer can see which is which without taking anyone’s word for it, and an institution can disclose AI use precisely rather than in general terms.
Every function has a switch. The institution sets its defaults and the neutral can turn any of them off, and both the default and the change go on the case record.
This describes what the system records. It is not legal advice, and whether a particular decision survives a particular challenge is a question for the institution and its own counsel.
The machine assists, and the record shows it assisted
Walk a challenge through on your own rules
What this rests on is the record, which sits under every line.