Courts must prepare for a surge in AI-generated claims: Master of the Rolls

Speaking at the Justice for All event at the Old Bailey on 4th February, Sir Geoffrey noted that where litigants once relied on lawyers, “the first port of call is ChatGPT or Copilot”, enabling individuals to turn personal grievances and large document sets into arguable claims at no cost. Courts must prepare for this “AI revolution”, he said.

The justice system will need to embrace and utilise AI if it is to cope with a sharp increase in the number and complexity of claims. Sir Geoffrey said the legal community had been “short sighted” in its approach to technology and must now confront the implications of a rapidly approaching “machine age” in which AI, quantum computing and digital evidence systems reshape the fundamentals of justice.

“Artificial intelligence will soon be capable of delivering civil and criminal justice outcomes in a tiny fraction of the time” taken by human judges and lawyers, he said, adding that society must urgently decide what role humans should retain in the justice system.

Sir Geoffrey argued that the justice system cannot continue to rely on 19th century processes in a 21st century environment where:
• disputes generate vast datasets;
• litigants increasingly use AI tools as their first source of legal advice;
• minor disputes can be resolved online in hours; and
• society expects justice to be accessible, fast and affordable for all.

AI, he said, will inevitably be used to deliver many justice outcomes because it will be “far more capable than many can now imagine” and far cheaper than human driven processes. Economics alone, he suggested, will drive adoption.

Despite predicting widespread machine assisted or machine made decisions, Sir Geoffrey stressed that human judges must remain “front and centre” of final determinations affecting people’s lives.

He questioned whether a machine could ever constitute an “independent and impartial tribunal” under Article 6 ECHR, and warned that a fully automated justice system would not be accepted by the public.

Sir Geoffrey highlighted the ongoing development of the Digital Justice System under the Online Procedure Rules Committee, which will integrate:

• pre action dispute resolution platforms;
• legal information and advice tools;
• online mediation and ombuds processes; and
• court based digital resolution services.

He pointed to eBay’s 60 million annual online dispute resolutions as evidence that “one size does not fit all” and that many users prefer fast, machine enabled outcomes for low value disputes.

Sir Geoffrey said that the legal community must urgently address several “existential” questions, including:

• Which judicial decisions must always be made by humans?
• When should parties be able to consent to machine made decisions?
• How should evidence rules change in the age of quantum verified data?
• How do Article 6 ECHR and Article 14 of the EU AI Act constrain AI enabled justice?

The Master of the Rolls concluded that justice expectations have fundamentally changed: society now demands equal access to justice for all, delivered quickly and efficiently. Meeting that expectation, he said, is impossible without embracing AI - but doing so requires a principled, urgent debate about the boundaries of machine involvement in judicial decision making.

“There is not a minute to lose,” he warned.