The legal system is flawed — could AI actually make it better?

Bridget McCormack is used to correcting judges’ work. As the former chief justice on the Michigan Supreme Court, it was her job to review complaints about how judges at the lower courts failed to consider key evidence or rule on certain aspects of a case.

In her current job, McCormack is working on a new kind of legal decision-maker. Like a judge, it would make mistakes. But unlike many judges, it wouldn’t be burdened by more casework than it had hours in the day. It could make sure to always show its work, check that each side agreed it understood all the facts, and ensure it ruled on each issue at play. And it wouldn’t be human — it’s made of neural networks.

McCormack leads the American Arbitration Association, which has developed an AI Arbitrator to help parties settle document-based disputes in a low-cost way. The system is built on OpenAI’s models to walk parties in arbitration through their dispute and draft a decision on who should win the case and why. The system deals only with cases that rely solely on documents, and there’s a human in the loop at every stage, including in the final step of issuing an award. But McCormack believes even with these caveats, the process can make dispute resolution faster and more accessible, greasing the wheels of an overburdened legal system.

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