Upcoming Conference: "Using Artificial Intelligence to Empower Self-Represented Litigants" (October 8, 2024)
The Lexum Chair is pleased to invite you to the online conference "Using Artificial Intelligence to Empower Self-Represented" Litigants" by Prof. John Zeleznikow
Practical Informations
- When: October 8, 2024, 11:45 AM
- Where: Salon François-Chevrette (A-3464), 3101 Chemin de la Tour, Montreal, Quebec, H3T 1N8
- Format: Hybrid
- Registration: https://fcdroit.umontreal.ca/
Speaker's Biography
Professor JohnZeleznikow has conducted research and taught in Australian, US, French, Dutch, Israeli, Belgian, German, UK, Estonian and Polish universities for fifty years. He is the author of 4 research monographs, 110 refereed journal articles and over 200 refereed conference articles. He has an H index of 39 with 5190 citations.
Professor Zeleznikow has also won over $A8.5 million in competitive research grants. Over the past thirty years, he has focused on how Artificial Intelligence can be used to enhance legal decision-making. His research findings have been utilised by legal and mediation firms, West Midlands Police (UK), CONSOB (Italian Stock Exchange Regulator), Victoria Legal Aid, Relationships Australia Queensland, and Relationships Australia Victoria.
Summary
Since the 1970s there has been a growing trend to seek alternatives to litigation. Galanter concludes that in USA the number of trials is shrinking whilst virtually everything else in the legal world is growing. Meanwhile, many, if not most, people in need of legal redress cannot afford lawyers. Accordingly, they assert their claims in court or defend themselves without the aid of a lawyer. These are pro se or self-represented litigants (SRL).
Many SRLs lack the resources to adequately represent themselves, and face a disadvantage when the other side is represented by counsel. Concurrently, but independently of the rise of SRLs, courts have started to embrace technology to encourage “online dispute resolution” (ODR) as a means for expanding access to justice (A2J).
ODR has been seen as particularly helpful for SRLs, since one does not need a lawyer’s assistance to use these technological tools. Indeed, legal technology companies behind these tools strive for them to be user-friendly, aimed at general non-lawyer users. We argue that the legal tech community should go further in developing and providing low-cost tools for SRLs and other justice users to enjoy greater access to justice.
We argue that such tools should include case management, triaging, advisory tools, communication tools, design support tools and drafting software. With the recent development of Large Language Models and ChatGPT, the development of advisory tools and document drafting has advanced greatly.
This content has been updated on 12 September 2024 at 15 h 24 min.