Keith Swisher to Receive the 2026 American Inns of Court Warren E. Burger Prize

Keith Swisher is the 2026 winner of the prestigious Warren E. Burger Prize, a writing competition sponsored by the American Inns of Court to promote scholarship in the areas of professionalism, ethics, civility, and excellence. To be presented in October at the American Inns of Court 2026 Celebration of Excellence at the Supreme Court of the United States, the award recognizes Swisher’s paper “The Moral Gaps in Legal Machines.”

The winning paper warns of the moral and ethical challenges inherent in the use of artificial intelligence in the legal world. On the plus side, Swisher writes, so-called “legal machines” that can autonomously or semi-autonomously do the work of lawyers and judges could prove much more efficient and productive than humans. These machines will not, however, be ethical or accountable. The technology industry and its partners must address five key issues—legal machines’ lack of moral responsibility, inability to empathize, difficulties with new or challenging cases, lack of legal ethics, and lack of accountability—before they can ethically and competently take over the field of law. Until these concerns are addressed, Swisher argues, legal machines need to be kept under close human supervision.

Swisher has been a professor at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law in Tucson since 2017. Since 2012, he has also had his own consulting firm offering legal counsel and expert witness services to lawyers, judges, and others. Between 2009 and 2020, he was a Criminal Justice Act Appellate Panel attorney, representing indigent criminal defendants in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. His academic career began at Phoenix School of Law, where he began as an assistant professor of law in 2009, became an associate professor in 2011, and ended up as the associate dean of academic affairs in 2014. He clerked for Judge William Canby Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Swisher earned a summa cum laude undergraduate degree in political science from Arizona State University in Tempe in 2001. He then went on to earn a doctorate in philosophy from the school in 2025, focusing on moral philosophy, artificial intelligence, and law. In 2004, he earned a summa cum laude law degree from Arizona State University College of Law. In 2007, he earned a master of laws degree from Harvard Law School, where he was editor of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review.

The American Inns of Court, headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, inspires the legal community to advance the rule of law by achieving the highest level of professionalism through example, education, and mentoring. The organization’s membership includes nearly 30,000 federal, state, and local judges; lawyers; law professors; and law students in nearly 370 chapters nationwide. More information is available at www.innsofcourt.org.

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