A person in a rural community attends a court hearing via video conference, avoiding a six-hour drive to the nearest courthouse. A legal chatbot guides someone through small claims filing in twenty minutes, using plain language instead of impenetrable forms. An online dispute resolution platform settles a consumer complaint in days rather than the months litigation would require. Meanwhile, an elderly person without internet struggles to access a court system that has moved entirely online. Someone with limited English uses a legal chatbot that provides information too simplified to address their complex situation. A self-represented litigant appears by video while their opponent's lawyer sits in the physical courtroom with the judge, creating subtle disadvantages the technology cannot eliminate. Digital tools promise to make justice faster, cheaper, and more accessible, yet whether they democratize access or create new barriers depends largely on who is using them and for what purposes.
The Case for Digital Transformation
Advocates argue that technology can solve access to justice problems that have persisted for decades. Online filing eliminates the need to physically travel to courthouses during business hours, particularly valuable for those in remote areas, those working multiple jobs, or those with disabilities. Video hearings reduce costs and time burdens while maintaining meaningful participation. Legal chatbots and AI tools provide immediate, free answers to basic legal questions that would otherwise go unaddressed or require expensive lawyer consultations. Document assembly software helps people complete complex forms correctly. Online dispute resolution platforms resolve matters too small or too numerous for traditional courts to handle efficiently. From this view, the digital divide is real but solvable through public internet access, technology training programs, and maintaining offline alternatives for those who need them. The alternative to imperfect digital tools is not universal in-person access but continued exclusion of people whom the traditional system has never served well. Technology, properly implemented with equity considerations, expands justice access far beyond what physical courtrooms and traditional processes can provide.
The Case for Human Justice and Digital Exclusion
Others warn that digitizing justice creates as many problems as it solves. Video hearings lack the procedural fairness of in-person proceedings where judges can observe body language, assess credibility fully, and ensure parties truly understand what is happening. Legal chatbots provide oversimplified, sometimes incorrect information that can lead people to make serious mistakes, while creating the illusion that they understand their legal situation. AI tools trained on biased data replicate and amplify existing inequities. The digital divide is not minor or easily fixed: millions lack reliable internet, adequate devices, digital literacy, or comfort with technology. Elderly people, low-income individuals, those with certain disabilities, and immigrants navigate digital systems with great difficulty or not at all. From this perspective, moving justice online during COVID was necessary but should not become permanent. Courts are public institutions where the gravitas of physical presence, human interaction, and procedural formality serve important functions. Replacing judges with algorithms and courtrooms with screens may increase efficiency but diminishes justice. The solution is adequately funding physical court access, not substituting cheaper digital alternatives that exclude and disadvantage vulnerable populations.
The AI Accuracy Problem
Legal chatbots and AI tools promise to make legal information accessible to everyone, yet they frequently provide oversimplified or outright incorrect guidance. Law is complex and fact-dependent. AI cannot reliably distinguish which details matter for a particular person's situation. Someone relying on chatbot advice about tenant rights may miss crucial jurisdiction-specific protections or deadlines. Another using document assembly software may produce a contract with terms that do not protect their interests because the AI cannot understand their actual needs. The danger is not just incorrect information but the confidence with which tools deliver it, leading people to believe they understand their legal situation when they do not. Whether AI can ever reliably handle legal advice, or whether it will always require human judgment to apply law to specific circumstances, determines whether these tools expand access or simply spread misinformation at scale.
The Question
If digital tools make justice processes accessible to people who could never afford lawyers or travel to courthouses, does that justify accepting that some will be excluded by the technology itself? Can online hearings and AI-assisted processes deliver justice as fairly as in-person, human-guided systems, or does efficiency come at the cost of quality and procedural fairness? And when moving services online is cheaper than maintaining physical infrastructure, does the cost savings justify digital transformation even if it means some populations cannot access justice at all?