CLA News / AI and the Law: Why Readiness Must Precede Expansion – A St. Christopher (“St. Kitts”) and Nevis Case Study By Edisha K. Greene
Introduction
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly being introduced into Caribbean justice systems as a tool to enhance efficiency, accessibility, and institutional reform. A 2026 LexisNexis survey reported that 78% of Caribbean attorneys use AI tools and that 75% feel more confident using AI systems grounded in trusted legal sources.[1] These findings confirm that the question is no longer whether AI can be useful—it plainly can be. Rather, the more pressing issue is whether public and private legal institutions are implementing AI in ways that produce meaningful improvements in the administration of justice, rather than merely signaling technological progress.
This article contends that, for Caribbean nations to realize the transformative benefits of AI in the administration of justice, AI adoption must be accompanied by institutional readiness and sustained investment in digital literacy. Although this article focuses on St. Christopher (“St. Kitts”) and Nevis, the challenges it examines are equally relevant to courts, municipal agencies, and public institutions operating with limited budgets or small legal teams both regionally and internationally.
The publication of the UNESCO Caribbean Artificial Intelligence Policy Roadmap (the “Policy Roadmap”) in 2024 intensified regional discussion on AI in public administration, private enterprise, and justice systems. The Policy Roadmap identifies four priority pillars for responsible AI adoption: (1) culture and creativity; (2) governance and transformation; (3) education and upskilling; and (4) resilience and sustainability.[2] For justice systems, these pillars are particularly significant because courts and legal institutions must balance innovation with legality, integrity, accuracy, and public confidence. At the 126th Special Meeting of COTED-ICT, the UNESCO Office for the Caribbean presented the Policy Roadmap, following which UNESCO reported:
“Members of COTED-ICT endorsed the roadmap, sending a significant and strong signal of the region’s shared approach to AI.”[3]
In the Federation of St. Christopher (“St. Kitts “) and Nevis, recent initiatives—including the Law Commission’s AI-powered legal information chatbot and the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court’s AI-assisted court transcription system—demonstrate the potential of AI to improve public access to legal information and reduce court delays in the Caribbean. Although this adoption of AI is both timely and commendable, implementing AI without first assessing a country’s AI readiness may ultimately frustrate the very objectives the technology seeks to achieve.
Accordingly, the central concern is not simply whether Caribbean institutions should adopt AI, but whether they possess the governance, infrastructure, human capacity and digital literacy necessary to use it responsibly and effectively.
Emerging AI Initiatives in St. Kitts and Nevis
In March 2024, the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court (“ECSC”) soft-launched an AI-driven court transcription system at the St. Kitts High Court.[4] The software, developed by For the Record (FTR), converts courtroom audio into text. The pilot was introduced in response to a longstanding problem across the Eastern Caribbean: the inability to produce transcripts promptly. Additionally, in December 2024, the St. Kitts and Nevis Ministry of Justice and Legal Affairs launched “VoiceIt,”, an AI-powered virtual assistant designed to improve public access to legal and regulatory information.[5] The tool enables users to ask questions about local law through a website or WhatsApp. Its features are intended to make legal information more accessible to citizens, residents, students, professionals, and business owners. These are not uniquely Caribbean needs; public institutions around the world are exploring whether conversational tools can make complex legal information easier to find and understand.[6]
Both initiatives are significant. VoiceIt has the potential to narrow the gap between the public and the law by presenting legal information in a more accessible manner. Similarly, the court transcription pilot has the potential to address a longstanding procedural bottleneck by reducing delays in the production of court transcripts, which have affected litigants access to justice for decades. However, both initiatives also reveal a challenge faced by justice systems worldwide: how to successfully integrate AI tools into public institutions in a manner that is responsible, efficient and capable of maintaining public confidence and trust.
Speech-to-text software cannot produce reliable official transcripts unless there are sufficient trained personnel to review, correct, certify, and release them. Similarly, a legal information chatbot, without corresponding investment in public AI literacy and user training, is unlikely to bridge the access-to-justice gap or realize AI’s transformative potential.
The Transcript Problem: Efficiency, Procedure and Human Capacity
The production of transcripts is a useful case study because it shows how an AI solution may fail to produce practical reform if procedural and institutional conditions remain unchanged. The timely preparation of transcripts is essential to the administration of justice because they provide a reliable record for appeals, particularly where a litigant seeks to challenge what was said, ruled, or decided during court proceedings. Transcripts also promote fairness, accountability, and transparency by ensuring that the statements of judges, attorneys, parties, and witnesses are accurately documented and capable of later review. Considering their importance, the delay in the preparation of transcripts deeply affects case scheduling, delays the progress of appeals, which undermines litigants’ access to justice.
Under the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court Civil Procedure Rules, several important appeal deadlines begin only after the parties are notified by the court that the transcript is available.[7] A delay in preparation of the transcript by the court therefore postpones the compilation of the appeal record, the filing of written arguments and, ultimately, the progress of the appeal itself. In practice, litigants continue to experience delays in obtaining transcripts, even where the rules contemplate their preparation. The reality is that court offices face practical difficulties, including limited staffing, competing workloads, uncertainty regarding payment, and the administrative burden of preparing transcripts that parties may ultimately choose not to collect. AI-assisted transcription may reduce the time required to generate a first draft, but it does not eliminate the need for quality assurance, certification, cost management, and clear communication among the parties.
The lesson is clear: technology must be integrated into the procedural realities of the court. If an AI-generated transcript is produced within minutes but remains unreviewed for weeks, the underlying problem persists. Where the parties’ willingness or ability to bear the cost of obtaining a transcript is uncertain, or where that cost is prohibitive, access to justice remains constrained. Uncertainty also persists when litigants and counsel lack clarity regarding when and how transcripts will be produced. AI therefore improves the administration of justice only when the surrounding processes are redesigned to translate technological efficiency into institutional reliability.
Governance Gaps and the Need for AI Readiness
AI readiness refers to an organization’s capacity to implement and utilize AI technologies effectively in a manner that maximizes their value.[8] For courts, ministries, law firms, and public legal institutions, AI readiness requires more than software procurement. It demands adequate digital infrastructure, reliable datasets, robust cybersecurity measures, trained personnel, internal policies, leadership support, effective monitoring mechanisms, and a culture in which users are encouraged to identify risks promptly and raise ethical concerns.
St. Kitts and Nevis does not yet have dedicated AI legislation. While existing laws governing data protection, electronic transactions, cybercrime, and consumer protection may provide partial guidance, they were not designed to address the full range of issues raised by generative AI within the legal system. These issues include confidentiality, AI-generated hallucinations, algorithmic bias, evidential reliability, accountability for AI-assisted decisions, and the permissible use of AI-generated content in court filings and judicial administration.[9]
This legislative gap forms part of a broader regional discussion concerning what Caribbean states require to become AI-ready. In December 2024, Dr Luis Videgaray, Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, outlined nine policy recommendations to assist Barbados in navigating the opportunities and challenges presented by AI.[10] His recommendations included adopting a proactive but adaptable policy approach, strengthening AI expertise within government, establishing a framework for the procurement of AI tools, and preparing for potential workforce disruption arising from advances in AI. Dr Videgaray also emphasized the importance of effective data management, particularly in the tourism sector, observing:
“Barbados is a tourism powerhouse. Are you gathering all your data? Are you using that data? You can become more competitive … by using that data, but that data needs to be properly stored [and] cleaned up.”
Although made in the context of tourism, his observations have broader relevance to public administration and the legal system. They underscore that meaningful AI readiness depends not merely on access to new technologies, but also on reliable data, appropriate governance frameworks, skilled personnel and the institutional capacity to deploy those technologies responsibly.
This is particularly significant in small island jurisdictions, where legal institutions often operate with limited financial resources, constrained technical capacity, small teams, and legacy record systems. While it may be tempting to view AI as a shortcut to overcoming these constraints, it may instead intensify them. Poor-quality data can produce unreliable outputs. Inadequate staffing can create backlogs in reviewing AI-generated material. Weak cybersecurity measures can expose sensitive court or client information. The absence of clear regulatory guidance may leave judges, lawyers, court staff, and the public uncertain about the appropriate use of AI.
Legal education and continuing professional development are therefore essential components of AI readiness. Lawyers, support staff, court officers, and public servants should receive training not only on how to use AI tools but also on when their use is inappropriate. In the Caribbean context, such training must be practical, accessible, and affordable, taking into account the realities faced by sole practitioners and small firms, the current capacity of court registries, and the human resources available within public legal departments.
Recommendations for Responsible AI in Justice
At the opening of the 2026 Law Year in January 2026, the Honorable Chief Justice of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court, Madam Margaret Price Findlay (then Acting Chief Justice), announced in her address that the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court was developing a formal policy to govern the use of AI by judges and legal practitioners.[11] Importantly, the Chief Justice remarked that “The ECSC is committed to ensuring that technology remains a tool in the service of justice, not a substitute for judicial judgment or other ethical obligations attendant to the legal profession,”. Chief Justice Findlay further noted that “in an era where the public increasingly engages with institutions through digital platforms, the court’s online presence is an essential gateway to information, services, and public understanding.”
This recognition of the need for clear policies governing the use of AI in the administration of justice is not confined to St. Kitts and Nevis; it is increasingly evident across the Caribbean. In July 2026, Chief Justice Ronnie Boodoosingh of Trinidad and Tobago issued a Practice Direction on the Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence in court proceedings. The Practice Direction among other things, sets limits for the use of AI for drafting and administrative purposes, subject to verification of all facts, authorities and legal citations; prohibits the use of AI to generate evidence, including affidavits and witness statements, except for limited formatting and language assistance; requires disclosure whenever AI has been used in preparing court documents, including certification of the AI tool used and confirmation that all legal authorities have been independently verified, and emphasizes that court proceedings must remain human-controlled and that all facts, legal authorities and citations must be independently verified.[12] Commenting on the appropriate role of AI within the justice system, Chief Justice Boodoosingh observed: “The question is not whether AI should be used, but how can we responsibly use AI as a tool to assist us in making the human judgments that we need to make?”
While these developments are encouraging, they underscore a central lesson for St. Kitts and Nevis—and similarly situated jurisdictions: responsible AI adoption must be grounded in sound governance and institutional readiness before it is expanded. The Chief Justices’ remarks also highlight the need for comprehensive ethical guidelines governing the use of AI by legal practitioners, courts, and public legal institutions, together with clear guidance for court users.
These guidelines should address confidentiality, verification, disclosure, accountability, and the permissible limits of AI-generated legal content. AI literacy should become an integral component of continuing legal education, supported by practical training tailored to the local realities of lawyers, judicial officers, court staff, and legal support personnel. At the same time, the continued implementation of AI must be supported by reliable digital infrastructure.
Courts cannot fully realize the benefits of AI where records remain fragmented, e-litigation platforms are difficult to use, or registries lack the human resources necessary to maintain digital systems. Finally, public education is essential. Members of the public should understand what AI legal tools can and cannot do and should be able to distinguish between legal information and legal advice.
Conclusion
The experience of St. Kitts and Nevis demonstrates that AI can play a constructive role in modernizing the administration of justice. A publicly accessible legal information chatbot may make the law easier to access, understand, and navigate. Similarly, AI-assisted transcription may reduce delays and enhance appellate efficiency. AI-powered legal tools may also enable legal systems to operate more efficiently and cost-effectively. These are significant gains.
Yet AI adoption alone is not enough. The administration of justice depends on sound governance, inclusion, competence, and public trust. If AI is introduced without clear rules, trained users, adequate infrastructure, and ethical oversight, it may create new risks while leaving existing problems unresolved. The task for St. Kitts and Nevis, and the wider Caribbean, is therefore not merely to adopt AI, but to invest equally in the physical, digital, and human infrastructure necessary to ensure that the region remains at the forefront of this rapidly evolving technological transformation.
Edisha K. Greene
Associate Attorney-at-Law, Joseph Rowe Attorneys-at-Law and Notaries Public
[1] Caribbean Legal Sector Accelerates AI Adoption as Trust Becomes the Differentiator |LexisNexis PressRoom
[2] Caribbean Artificial Intelligence Policy Roadmap |UNESCO Digital Library
[3] Caribbean AI Roadmap Wins Regional Backing | UNESCO
[4]ECSC Initiates Pilot Project In St. Kitts And Nevis With AI Technology To Revolutionise Court Proceedings | The St Kitts Nevis Observer
[5] St. Kitts and Nevis Pioneers AI-Powered Assistant to Answer Questions about its Laws|St. Kitts Nevis Information Service
[6] Conversational AI for Government: Real Use Cases, Compliance, and Pitfalls |lifeinside
[7] Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court Civil Procedure Rules (Revised Edition) 2023, rules 62.12 and 62.14
[8] Factors influencing readiness for artificial intelligence: a systematic literature review | Science Direct
[9] AI, Liability, and Hallucinations in a Changing Tech and Law Environment |Standford Law School
[10] The Future of AI Policy: Lessons for Barbados | Central Bank of Barbados
[11] ECSC Opens 2026 Law Year, Plans announced to Develop AI Policy for Courtrooms |Antigua News
[12] Media Release – Judiciary Issues Practice Direction on the Responsible Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence in Court Proceedings |The Judiciary of Trinidad and Tobagos-to-justice> accessed 27 June 2026.
