A couple of concerns come to mind in regard to allowing algorithms to remove bureaucracy from the legal system, whether we’re talking parking tickets or pre-nups. As prejudices are baked into people, they can also be keyed into algorithms. A modicum of careful oversight should be able to mitigate this problem, however, especially if we’re not talking about criminal cases. A more practical problem is the public-sector and lawyer jobs that will be lost have long been among the steadiest, a longtime entry into the middle class. The U.S. has dragged its feet with such automation, but Europe is moving forward apace. It seems a matter if time until there’s near-universal adoption.

The opening of Carol Matlack’s Bloomberg Businessweek article “Robots Are Taking Divorce Lawyers’ Jobs, Too“:

Buyers and sellers on EBay use the site’s automated dispute-resolution tool to settle 60 million claims every year. Now, some countries are deploying similar technology to let people negotiate divorces, landlord-tenant disputes, and other legal conflicts, without hiring lawyers or going to court.

Couples in the Netherlands can use an online platform to negotiate divorce, custody, and child-support agreements. Similar tools are being rolled out in England and Canada. British Columbia is setting up an online Civil Resolution Tribunal this summer to handle condominium disputes; it will eventually process almost all small-claims cases in the province. Until now, says Suzanne Anton, the province’s minister of justice, “if you had a complaint about noise or water coming through your ceiling, you might have to go to the Supreme Court,” spending years and thousands of dollars to get a ruling.

These online legal tools are similar to EBay’s system, which uses algorithms to guide users through a series of questions and explanations to help them reach a settlement by themselves. Like EBay, the services can bring in human adjudicators as a last resort. Several of the new platforms were designed with help from Colin Rule, who started EBay’s dispute-resolution unit in 2004 and ran it until 2011. Soon after leaving EBay, Rule started Modria, a San Jose-based company that markets dispute-resolution software for e-commerce. 

Employing online tools to settle routine legal disputes can improve access to justice for people who can’t afford to hire a lawyer, while freeing up court dockets for more complex cases, enthusiasts say.•