Judgment in the Age of Artificial Intelligence:

What Collaborative Divorce Can Teach Us

Co-Authored by Roy Martin and ChatGPT

The arrival of artificial intelligence has prompted predictions that many professions—law, medicine, accounting, engineering, even psychotherapy—will soon be transformed. AI systems can summarize legal opinions, draft contracts, analyze financial records, and answer questions with remarkable speed. As these capabilities improve, a natural question arises:

Can AI eventually replace professional judgment?

Recently, I had an extended conversation with a collaborative divorce attorney who posed that question in a way I had not considered before. He began by describing an increasingly familiar experience. Clients often consult AI before meeting with him. By the time they arrive for their first appointment, they already believe they understand the law. More often than not, they are mistaken—not because AI is incapable of explaining legal principles, but because it has applied those principles to an incomplete or misunderstood set of facts.

That observation led to a broader discussion about the difference between knowing the law and exercising legal judgment. There is an important distinction.

Explaining the elements of a cause of action, summarizing a statute, or describing the procedural rules governing litigation is primarily an exercise in information retrieval and reasoning. AI is already becoming quite capable at these tasks.

Judgment is something different.

Experienced lawyers do not merely answer legal questions. They decide which questions need to be asked in the first place. They recognize which seemingly insignificant facts may ultimately determine the outcome of a case. They help clients distinguish between what is legally possible and what is practically wise.

As our discussion continued, however, the attorney described a field of practice that pushed this distinction much further. He practices collaborative divorce. Unlike traditional litigation, collaborative divorce fundamentally changes the incentives of everyone involved. Each spouse retains a collaboratively trained attorney. All participants sign an agreement promising not to litigate and to make full disclosure of all relevant information. Ifnegotiations fail, both attorneys must withdraw permanently, and each spouse must retain new litigation counsel.

The effect is profound. Instead of functioning as opposing advocates attempting to defeat one another, the attorneys become members of a single professional team whose success depends upon finding a durable resolution for everyone involved.

The legal team is only one part of the process. Mental health professionals help each spouse identify what truly matters to them and communicate those priorities in ways the other spouse can hear. They observe emotional dynamics that might otherwise derail negotiations. A child specialist ensures that children’s interests remain central without placing them in the middle of parental conflict. A financial specialist assembles assets, debts, income, budgets, and long-term financial projections so that decisions can be made with clarity rather than guesswork.

Listening to this description, I realized that very little of the process could fairly be described as “giving legal advice.” Instead, the professionals were performing something much more subtle. They were creating the conditions under which good decisions become possible.

Beyond Information

Much of the public conversation about artificial intelligence assumes that professional expertise consists primarily of possessing information. If that were true, AI’s trajectory would seem straightforward. As it accumulates more knowledge and improves its reasoning, it would naturally replace more professionals.

Collaborative divorce suggests a different model. The attorneys are certainly applying legal knowledge. The financial specialist is certainly applying financial expertise. The mental health professionals are certainly drawing upon psychology. But their greatest value lies elsewhere. They are helping human beings make decisions while experiencing grief, anger, fear, uncertainty, guilt, and loss.No spreadsheet can determine how much value a parent places on remaining in the family home.

No statute can determine whether preserving a respectful co-parenting relationship is worth sacrificing a larger share of marital assets. No algorithm can decide whether a settlement is acceptable because it allows two children to experience fewer years of conflict. These are not merely legal questions. They are human ones.

What AI May Become

None of this suggests that AI has little to contribute. On the contrary. An AI system could analyze thousands of financial settlement scenarios within seconds. It could identify tax consequences, detect overlooked legal issues, organize disclosures, summarize communications, and ensure that no important issue has been forgotten.

Used in this way, AI becomes an extraordinarily capable member of the professional team. The distinction, however, is significant. It is not replacing judgment. It is supporting judgment. There is a profound difference between saying, “Here are the consequences of each available option.” and saying, “This is the decision you should make.”

The first is largely analytical. The second requires values.

The Nature of Professional Judgment

During our conversation, the attorney remarked that he doubted AI could ever replace any of the professionals involved in collaborative divorce. I understood his skepticism. Their work depends not only upon expertise but upon trust. Clients disclose fears they have never spoken aloud. They reveal financial anxieties, parenting insecurities, resentments accumulated over decades, and hopes for life after divorce.

The professionals do more than analyze these conversations. They create emotional safety. That may ultimately be one of the defining characteristics of professional judgment. It is not simply reaching correct conclusions. It is helping other people reach conclusions they understand, accept, and can live with.

A Different Future

Perhaps the future of AI is not one in which professionals disappear. Perhaps it is one in which professional work becomes increasingly centered on those aspects of human judgment that cannot easily be reduced to information processing.

If so, collaborative divorce offers an unexpected glimpse of that future. Its success depends upon law, psychology, finance, negotiation, empathy, and trust working together.

Artificial intelligence may eventually become an extraordinary participant in that process. But the process itself reminds us that information and judgment are not the same thing. Knowing the law is not the same as helping two people rebuild their lives. And as AI grows more capable, that distinction may become one of the most important lessons the professions have to teach.