Artificial intelligence is making it easier for people to represent themselves in court, fueling a sharp rise in lawsuits filed without lawyers and raising concerns among judges and legal experts, according to a Bloomberg Businessweek report.
One example is Amr Abouelmagd, an Egyptian-born father who used ChatGPT to help draft legal filings in a cross-border child custody battle that reached the U.S. Supreme Court. Abouelmagd said the AI tools helped him save an estimated $97,000 in legal fees and improve his English-language court filings. He also won the case.
Researchers from the MIT and the University of Southern California found that federal lawsuits where plaintiffs didn’t use lawyers nearly doubled to more than 39,000 in the year ending Sept. 30, compared with an annual average of about 19,700 pro se cases before ChatGPT’s 2022 launch.
The City Bar Justice Center of New York has received so many questions about DIY lawsuits that it developed a guide on the topic, according to Bloomberg.
The surge has also intensified concerns over AI “hallucinations,” after courts sanctioned lawyers for filings containing fabricated citations generated by AI tools. Legal aid groups and law firms say more people are now turning to AI for affordable legal guidance.