AI exposure: Administrative Law Judges, Adjudicators, and Hearing Officers
Conduct hearings to recommend or make decisions on claims concerning government programs or other government-related matters. Determine liability, sanctions, or penalties, or recommend the acceptance or rejection of claims or settlements.
Reading this score
computedAt 17.3% of weighted task load, Administrative Law Judges, Adjudicators, and Hearing Officers sits at the 29th percentile, below the point where a job's centre of gravity has moved. 63.3% of what this role does is untouched, meaning current systems cannot produce that work at all, whatever the commercial incentive.
What holds the line here is accountability. Across this occupation's 14 tasks it averages 2.73 out of 3, the highest of the five friction dimensions. In plain terms, someone licensed has to sign the work. Capability and permission are different things. Where a statute or a professional body requires a named, liable human to approve the output, the work can be drafted by a machine and still require the person.
The most exposed thing this job does is Schedule hearings, at 50.0%. The least is Determine existence and amount of liability according to current laws, administrative and..., at 0.0%. A gap of 50.0% between two parts of the same job is the reason this index publishes at task level. An occupation-wide number would have hidden both.
Within legal occupations, this one is less exposed than the median of 27.8% across the group's 7 roles, with 5 scoring higher. Being in an exposed family does not make a particular job exposed, and the reverse holds too.
What would move this score. Of 14 tasks, 3 are currently banded exposed, 4 assisted and 7 untouched. For that distribution to shift materially would take a change in who is permitted to sign the work, which is a question for regulators rather than for engineers. The score is re-computed every quarter against a fresh capability reference, and the change is published rather than quietly applied.
Where the score comes from
judgedEvery task is scored through the standardised work activities it maps to. These are this occupation’s averages on the six rubric dimensions. Capability is what AI can do; the other five are what stands in the way.
| Dimension | Mean | Scale |
|---|---|---|
| Capability | 1.64 | 0-4 |
| Embodiment | 0.61 | 0-3 |
| Presence | 1.61 | 0-3 |
| Accountability | 2.73 | 0-3 |
| Context | 2.18 | 0-3 |
| Verification cost | 2.65 | 0-3 |
Task by task
14 tasks, O*NET 31.0| Task | Exposed | Assisted | Untouched | Importance | Band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Schedule hearings. | 50.0% | 25.0% | 25.0% | 3.88 | exposed |
| Review and evaluate data on documents, such as claim applications, birth or death certificates, or physician or employer records. | 40.0% | 35.0% | 25.0% | 3.74 | exposed |
| Research and analyze laws, regulations, policies, and precedent decisions to prepare for hearings and to determine conclusions. | 38.3% | 36.7% | 25.0% | 4.60 | exposed |
| Conduct studies of appeals procedures in field agencies to ensure adherence to legal requirements and to facilitate determination of cases. | 35.0% | 40.0% | 25.0% | 3.56 | assisted |
| Explain to claimants how they can appeal rulings that go against them. | 30.0% | 45.0% | 25.0% | 4.07 | assisted |
| Recommend the acceptance or rejection of claims or compromise settlements according to laws, regulations, policies, and precedent decisions. | 30.0% | 45.0% | 25.0% | 3.75 | assisted |
| Prepare written opinions and decisions. | 20.0% | 30.0% | 50.0% | 4.90 | assisted |
| Issue subpoenas and administer oaths in preparation for formal hearings. | 15.0% | 22.5% | 62.5% | 4.20 | untouched |
| Confer with individuals or organizations involved in cases to obtain relevant information. | 8.3% | 16.7% | 75.0% | 4.05 | untouched |
| Authorize payment of valid claims and determine method of payment. | 2.9% | 9.6% | 87.5% | 4.06 | untouched |
| Monitor and direct the activities of trials and hearings to ensure that they are conducted fairly and that courts administer justice while safeguarding the legal rights of all involved parties. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.97 | untouched |
| Conduct hearings to review and decide claims regarding issues, such as social program eligibility, environmental protection, or enforcement of health and safety regulations. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.77 | untouched |
| Rule on exceptions, motions, and admissibility of evidence. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.61 | untouched |
| Determine existence and amount of liability according to current laws, administrative and judicial precedents, and available evidence. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.50 | untouched |
Task text and importance ratings sourced from O*NET 31.0. Shares computed. The occupation score is the importance-weighted mean.
Occupations either side of this one
The four closest scores in the same occupational family, then the four closest anywhere in the index.
Read this carefully. Exposure is not displacement. A high score means current AI systems can produce this work, not that anyone will stop paying a person to do it. Adoption depends on economics, regulation and inertia that this index deliberately does not model. How the score is built.
What this means in practice
Most of this work is not reachable by current systems, so the immediate pressure is on the administrative edges of the role rather than its core: the scheduling, the reporting, the written records. That is where time is recovered.