Kristen Diane Wheeler highlights administrative experience and concern about AI in Supreme Court interview

Kristen Diane Wheeler, who currently serves as chair attorney of the Kansas Board of Tax Appeals, told commissioners she views a Supreme Court role as an extension of her public-service work and highlighted administrative reform as a core qualification.

Wheeler said she brings a combination of curiosity, an "even-keeled judicial temperament" and wide-ranging legal experience — prosecution, defense, civil practice and administrative adjudication — and argued that administrative-law expertise is underrepresented on the current court. "We have to focus on the issues that are before the board right now and bring it back to the facts," Wheeler said when describing how she manages heated hearings.

Wheeler called artificial intelligence a major challenge for the profession and the judiciary: "How do we integrate it into the profession both from a standpoint of regulating the use so that it doesn't become damaging, but also how do we figure out how to use it proactively..." She also pointed to resource constraints and personnel shortages, including a lack of court reporters and fewer new law graduates, as problems the court must navigate.

In closing she outlined administrative accomplishments at the Board of Tax Appeals, including implementing a new content-management system, updating court recording systems and establishing on-site and off-site backups. She said the board now produces summary decisions within statutorily-required timeframes and that she has presided over roughly 1,600 hearings at the board level.