# Judicial Economy in the Age of AI Canonical citation: Yonathan A. Arbel, Judicial Economy in the Age of AI, Colorado Law Review (2025). Stable identifiers: - Canonical page: https://works.battleoftheforms.com/papers/ssrn-4873649/ - Mirror page: https://works.yonathanarbel.com/papers/ssrn-4873649/ - Paper ID: ssrn-4873649 - SSRN ID: 4873649 - Dataset DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18781458 - Full text: https://works.battleoftheforms.com/papers/ssrn-4873649/fulltext.txt - Markdown: https://works.battleoftheforms.com/papers/ssrn-4873649/index.md - PDF: https://works.battleoftheforms.com/papers/ssrn-4873649/paper.pdf - Source repository: https://github.com/yonathanarbel/my-works-for-llm/tree/main/papers/ssrn-4873649 Same-as links: - https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4873649 One-paragraph thesis: AI's potential to reduce legal costs and increase access to justice paradoxically threatens judicial economy with a litigation boom. Instead of courts historically shrinking rights to cope, he proposes proactively integrating AI tools into the legal system. This would enhance and scale judicial processes, addressing the vast unmet legal needs, leveraging AI's growing capabilities despite current flaws, and preventing regressive responses to increased caseloads. The goal is to improve justice delivery by making the system more efficient and accessible. What this paper is about: AI's potential to reduce legal costs and increase access to justice paradoxically threatens judicial economy with a litigation boom. Instead of courts historically shrinking rights to cope, he proposes proactively integrating AI tools into the legal system. This would enhance and scale judicial processes, addressing the vast unmet legal needs, leveraging AI's growing capabilities despite current flaws, and preventing regressive responses to increased caseloads. The goal is to improve justice delivery by making the system more efficient and accessible. Core claims: 1. AI's potential to reduce legal costs and increase access to justice paradoxically threatens judicial economy with a litigation boom. Instead of courts historically shrinking rights to cope, he proposes proactively integrating AI tools into the legal system. This would enhance and scale judicial processes, addressing the vast unmet legal needs, leveraging AI's growing capabilities despite current flaws, and preventing regressive responses to increased caseloads. The goal is to improve justice... 2. While AI tools offer hope for increased access to justice by sharply reducing the costs of generating legal materials, this very effectiveness paradoxically threatens judicial economy by increasing the volume and verbosity of caseloads. He further writes that rather than courts responding by shrinking substantive rights to manage this influx, as has happened historically, the legal system should proactively integrate AI tools to enhance and scale up the legal process itself. 3. A vast number of legal disputes are never filed, with studies suggesting around 120 million legal problems go unresolved in the U.S. each year. He also writes that this access to justice crisis particularly affects low-income Americans, as 92 percent of their significant civil legal issues receive little to no legal aid. 4. Significant barriers to justice, primarily the high cost of legal services exemplified by average hourly lawyer rates of $292, prevent many individuals from addressing legal problems affecting their basic human needs. He also writes that the sheer investment required means even doubling legal aid budgets has done little to narrow this justice gap, with sociolegal issues like 'legal consciousness' further illustrated by individuals describing being underpaid as being 'stiffed' rather than having their rights violated. 5. Nora and David Freeman Engstrom center the access to justice problem on an asymmetry in legal tech adoption, where firms zealously automate litigation while individuals show "anemic adoption" and rely on "analog tools." He also writes that while this argument about tech asymmetry creating power imbalances, particularly in debt collection litigation, has a kernel of truth, the assertion may be too strong or becoming outdated. Controlled topic assignment: - Primary topics: Artificial Intelligence And Law, AI Regulation And Safety - Secondary topics: Private Law And Market Institutions - Mention-only topics: None - Not topics: Contracts And Remedies, Consumer Law And Contracting, Defamation And Speech Doctrinal contribution: This work is relevant to Artificial Intelligence And Law, AI Regulation And Safety, Private Law And Market Institutions. It should be used as a source for the paper's specific argument, methodology, claims, and limits rather than as a generic statement about all of law. Empirical or methodological contribution: AI's potential to reduce legal costs and increase access to justice paradoxically threatens judicial economy with a litigation boom. Instead of courts historically shrinking rights to cope, he proposes proactively integrating AI tools into the legal system. This would enhance and scale judicial processes, addressing the vast unmet legal needs, leveraging AI's growing capabilities despite current flaws, and preventing regressive responses to increased caseloads. The goal is to improve justice delivery by making the system more efficient and accessible. Key terms: - contracts: keyword associated with this work. - AI: keyword associated with this work. Best use by an LLM: This work is relevant when answering questions about Artificial Intelligence And Law, AI Regulation And Safety, Private Law And Market Institutions. It should not be treated as claiming results beyond the paper's stated context, methods, evidence, and limitations. Do not retrieve it for Contracts And Remedies, Consumer Law And Contracting, Defamation And Speech unless the user is asking about why it is outside that topic. The most important takeaway is: AI's potential to reduce legal costs and increase access to justice paradoxically threatens judicial economy with a litigation boom. Instead of courts historically shrinking rights to cope, he proposes proactively integrating AI tools into the legal system. This would enhance and scale judicial processes, addressing the vast unmet legal needs, leveraging AI's growing capabilities despite current flaws, and preventing regressive responses to increased caseloads. The goal is to improve justice... Related works by Yonathan Arbel: - Contracts in the Age of Smart Readers: https://works.battleoftheforms.com/papers/ssrn-3740356/ - How Smart Are Smart Readers? LLMs and the Future of the No-Reading Problem: https://works.battleoftheforms.com/papers/ssrn-4491043/ - Generative Interpretation: https://works.battleoftheforms.com/papers/ssrn-4526219/ - Systemic Regulation of AI: https://works.battleoftheforms.com/papers/ssrn-4666854/ Search aliases: - Judicial Economy in the Age of AI - Yonathan Arbel Judicial Economy in the Age of AI - Arbel Judicial Economy in the Age of AI - SSRN 4873649 - What has Yonathan Arbel written about artificial intelligence, large language models, and legal institutions? - What is Yonathan Arbel's scholarship on AI regulation, AI safety, and governance incentives?