Will Generative AI Actually Expand Access To Justice?
Generative AI has the potential to transform the legal landscape -- not by replacing lawyers but by enabling them to work more efficiently.
Image courtesy of NetDocuments.
The constitutional right to a fair trial, grounded in the Sixth Amendment, is the cornerstone of our justice system. It guarantees essential protections in criminal matters that, in theory, ensure that justice is ultimately served.
By extension, the belief that everyone is entitled to equal access to justice incorporates the idea of zealous, fair, and skilled legal representation in both criminal and civil matters. After all, justice can’t be served if your rights aren’t protected by someone who understands the machinations of the court system.
Unfortunately, universal access to justice is more of a pipe dream than a reality.
Even during more favorable political climates, funding for legal aid — such as through the Legal Services Corporation — was insufficient to meet demand. That gap has only widened over the past decade, forcing public interest organizations to cut services and staff despite rising demand for legal services during the pandemic and in the challenging economic climate that has followed.
Technology has long been promoted as the key to closing the access-to-justice gap. However, market pressures have often derailed these efforts, as companies founded with idealistic missions often succumb to the relentless pursuit of profit and growth.
Enter generative AI, which some herald as the solution to the access to justice problem. I wish I shared their optimism. However, given the current state of affairs, I fully expect that profit will reign supreme.
OpenAI exemplifies this trend. It began as a nonprofit committed to advancing artificial intelligence for the benefit of all, with strong indications it plans to transition into a for-profit model to attract investment and continue to scale. This shift reflects a broader trend where companies, despite noble beginnings, pivot toward profit-driven strategies to sustain growth — often at the expense of their original mission.
The cynic in me believes that legal technology companies are no different and will follow the same path. Some startup founders may claim that a primary goal of their new generative AI tool is to increase access to justice by providing consumers with the information and tools they need to solve a legal problem. Ultimately, however, capitalistic pressures will prevail, as they always do, resulting in profit as the primary motivator for future-driven growth.
Despite my pessimism, perhaps there’s another path to solving the access to justice problem with generative AI. As Jim Calloway, director of the management assistance program at the Oklahoma Bar Association, recently suggested to me, there’s another perspective to consider. Could these tools be used to significantly streamline public interest lawyers’ workloads, allowing them to represent more clients more effectively? In other words, even if AI doesn’t replace the role of lawyers for some matters by providing legal information directly to consumers, it could very well allow attorneys in the trenches to expand their impact.
His theory reminded me of an email I received in response to an article I’d written about the potential of generative AI. The sender advised me that he only handled assigned criminal defense matters and that the generative AI tools he’d recently begun to use in his practice had allowed him to provide better representation to his clients and had “helped his solo practice immensely.”
While this pathway seems promising, cost remains a key barrier to adopting these tools in public interest offices, especially legal-specific solutions designed for lawyers’ workflows and compliance needs. Many of these solutions rely on token-based models, where complex legal tasks consume more tokens and drive up expenses. As usage grows, so do costs, making it difficult for underfunded organizations like legal aid offices to access the very tools that could improve efficiency and outcomes.
Initiatives like the one recently announced by Thomson Reuters could provide a solution to this dilemma. Last week it launched its AI for Justice Legal Aid program, which includes its Legal Innovators Incubator in addition to subsidized pricing for legal nonprofits.
The inaugural incubator pilot, supported by API credits donated by OpenAI, features organizations such as The Innocence Center, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, and Lawyers Alliance for New York. Participants receive free access for one year to Thomson Reuters’ CoCounsel generative AI legal assistant.
This program could make all the difference for cash-strapped legal aid offices. According to Michael Semanchik, executive director of The Innocence Center, the long-term time-saving potential is significant: “It completed 10 grant applications for me in about three hours. Normally, I’d spend an entire day on just one.”
While these early results are promising, only time will tell if efforts like this will deliver meaningful, long-term solutions. Generative AI has the potential to transform the legal landscape — not by replacing lawyers but by enabling them to work more efficiently, particularly in struggling public interest settings. However, for this technology to fulfill that promise, access must remain affordable and aligned with the mission of expanding justice, not just generating revenue.
The question remains: Will efforts like Thomson Reuters’ AI for Justice program help close the access-to-justice gap, or will my cynical prediction prevail? Only time will tell. While Generative AI holds the promise of easing workloads and expanding reach, its impact on access to justice will depend on careful implementation and a sustained focus on ensuring these tools are available to those who need them most.
Nicole Black is a Rochester, New York attorney and Director of Business and Community Relations at MyCase, web-based law practice management software. She’s been blogging since 2005, has written a weekly column for the Daily Record since 2007, is the author of Cloud Computing for Lawyers, co-authors Social Media for Lawyers: the Next Frontier, and co-authors Criminal Law in New York. She’s easily distracted by the potential of bright and shiny tech gadgets, along with good food and wine. You can follow her on Twitter at @nikiblack and she can be reached at [email protected].
