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Court-Ready AI · A Practice of The Waldrep Company

AI is already in your lab. The question is whether you can explain it under oath.

Court-Ready AI is documented, auditable AI use with human validation: workflows that save real hours on case administration, research, and report preparation, built so every AI touchpoint can be explained on the stand.

It starts with a 20-minute fit call, no charge. If the review fits, it is $1,500: a 90-minute structured session plus a written AI Exposure Snapshot within 3 business days. The full fee credits toward an Assessment within 90 days.

27
Years Law Enforcement
19
Years Digital Forensics
MCFE
Certified Examiner
Since 2007
Digital Evidence Work

The AI you have not approved is the AI you cannot explain

Across US workplaces, 78% of surveyed employees admit to using AI tools their employer has not approved, and 49% have hidden that use. In legal work, 79% of professionals now use AI while 53% say their firm has no AI policy or they are unaware of one. Law enforcement is heading the same direction: 51% of agencies plan AI integration within two years, and 60% are worried about the regulatory constraints.

If you run a digital evidence team, three worries probably sound familiar:

“My examiners are already pasting case material into personal AI accounts and I cannot prove they are not.”
“Opposing counsel will gut me if AI touched this report.”
“My backlog is brutal and everyone says AI helps, but nobody can tell me what is safe.”

The courtroom record says those worries are earned. By mid-2026, a public tracker had logged roughly 1,500 court decisions worldwide involving AI-fabricated citations, with sanctions reaching five figures and, in one case, a license suspension.

None of those experts planned to end up in a written opinion. They just never documented what the AI did, who checked it, or why it was reliable.

There is a pattern courts have accepted. We build to it.

In Ferlito v. Harbor Freight (E.D.N.Y. 2025), expert testimony was admitted where the expert wrote his report first and used AI only to check it afterward. That case is the design spine of everything we build:

There is no digital-forensics AI standard to hide behind yet. SWGDE has published no best-practice standard on AI-assisted digital forensic examination; its only AI-titled document is a 2021 informational overview on video analysis. That vacuum cuts both ways: nothing certifies you, and nothing protects you.

What stands in for a standard right now is documentation discipline, anchored to the governance frameworks buyers and courts already recognize, principally the NIST AI Risk Management Framework and, where certification matters, ISO/IEC 42001.

That discipline is what Court-Ready AI installs.

Start where the risk is

Court-Ready AI Workshop
$9,500 virtual · $14,500 on-site + travel

One day, up to 20 seats, for agencies, prosecutors, and accredited labs. Where AI fails in court and why, and what your unit's documentation should look like before anyone touches a chatbot. This is training, and it buys like training: purchase orders and net-30 accepted for government, grant-compatible.

Bring the workshop to your unit →
Court-Ready AI Assessment
$7,500 · five focused days

An AI exposure map covering shadow AI and the AI embedded in your forensic and eDiscovery tools, a green/yellow/red data-use matrix, a vendor-neutral platform recommendation, a draft acceptable-use policy and AI-use disclosure standard marked for your counsel's sign-off, three pilot workflow specifications, a 90-day roadmap, and a leadership briefing. No case data required, ever.

Start with the free fit call →
Implementation Sprint
$25,000 · 30 days

Up to 3 workflows and 15 users. Week 1 architecture, week 2 build, week 3 validation, week 4 training and handoff, then 30 days of support. Your team runs the validation on real data inside your own environment; we score outputs only.

Start with the free fit call →
Court-Ready AI Program
$3,500/month · 6-month minimum

Ongoing governance for up to 25 users. Event-triggered revalidation when a model version changes, a prompt or template is edited, or a new integration lands. Quarterly counsel-ready governance status report, monthly office hours, an annual refresher, and a first incident consult included.

Start with the free fit call →

The lines we do not cross (and why that protects you)

Most AI consultants will tell you what they can do. In this field, what we refuse to do is the better credential.

Every one of these lines exists because someone will eventually ask you, under oath, how your AI program works. Each answer should be documented and boring. We hold our own casework to a stricter line than any of this, and we publish it: read our AI policy.

Built by an examiner who answers for his work under oath

Eric L. Waldrep, MCFE (Magnet Certified Forensics Examiner), certified UAS/Drone forensics examiner, U.S. State Department ATA Cyber Mentor. 27 years in law enforcement, including 11 as a detective. Digital forensics since 2007 (19 years). Digital evidence expert witness. Proficient with Cellebrite extraction and analysis tooling.

Eric directs every Court-Ready AI engagement. Where supervised associate work is used, it is disclosed in writing and independently verified.

Want to know if this fits your unit? The fit call is 20 minutes and free →

Straight answers

We hold our own casework to a stricter line than anything we will ask of you: no evidence, no extractions, no case data in any AI system, period. When we demonstrate AI workflows, we demo on training and business content only. You are hiring the discipline, and we live under it first. Our full AI policy is published at thewaldrepcompany.com/ai-policy/.
No, and be careful with anyone who says yes. No consultant can promise what a court will do. What we build is the preparation: documented, human-validated workflows and a disclosure-ready record of every AI touchpoint, modeled on the pattern courts have actually accepted. “Court-ready” describes that preparation discipline, not a court outcome, and our contracts say so in writing.
We are vendor-neutral and resell nothing. The recommendation gets made in the Assessment, with a per-platform annex you can hand to counsel and IT. One fact worth knowing now: no major vendor's business tier trains on customer data by default, while individual consumer accounts generally do unless the user opts out. That difference is the shadow-AI problem in one sentence.
Never. The Exposure Review and Assessment run on interviews, process maps, and synthetic materials. In a Sprint, validation runs on your data, inside your environment, executed by your people. We see scores, not evidence.
That is usually the biggest blind spot. The tools on your bench already ship AI features, and someone has to decide when your team may rely on them and how that reliance is documented. The Assessment inventories vendor-embedded AI and gives you a validation policy and reliance rules for it. Building that credibly takes someone who has had to defend tool output on the stand.
Not yet in digital forensics. SWGDE has published no best-practice standard on AI-assisted examination. We anchor governance to the NIST AI Risk Management Framework, and we treat CJIS Security Policy as fully applicable wherever AI touches criminal justice information. And no, nobody sells “CJIS-certified AI”; no such authorization exists.
Government agencies, yes: purchase orders and net-30 terms are accepted on every engagement, and the workshop is built for training budgets and grant funding. Private-sector engagements are prepaid.
Eric directs every engagement personally. Where supervised associate work is used, you are told in writing and the work is independently verified before it reaches you.
You get the written Snapshot within 3 business days and a debrief on what it means. If the findings justify going deeper, your full $1,500 credits toward the Assessment within 90 days. If they do not, you keep the Snapshot and you have lost nothing but 90 minutes.
Start with the workshop. It fits a training budget and takes purchase orders. And it gives your whole unit the same picture of where AI fails in court and what documentation has to exist before anyone uses it on the job. Book the fit call to talk dates.

Find out what AI is already touching your work

The examiners already using unapproved AI are not going to raise their hands. A 90-minute review will tell you where you actually stand, in writing, before opposing counsel asks the question for you. Agency looking at the workshop instead? Same call, same calendar.

Fastest Path · Pick a Time Now

Grab a 20-minute fit call directly on Eric's calendar. No charge, no obligation, no slide deck. On the call: where AI is already showing up in your operation, which engagement fits (if any), and what you would get in writing. You will know by the end whether the Exposure Review is worth your $1,500.

Book the Fit Call
Or start in writing

Eric replies personally, usually within one business day. Want the written service brief for any engagement before you talk to anyone? Ask for it here and he will include it in his reply. Sending this does not create an expert or consulting relationship, and please do not send privileged material or case evidence through this form. Prefer the phone? Call (251) 216-1164.

Got it. Watch your inbox.

Your inquiry is in. Eric replies personally, usually within one business day, with fit-call times or the answers you asked for. If it is urgent, call (251) 216-1164.

Not Ready to Talk?

Start with the free Cross-Examination Test

The 12 questions opposing counsel will ask about AI in your casework, what a strong answer sounds like, and a scoring rubric to find your gaps before someone else does.

Take the Test →