AI-Powered Self-Representation Is Flooding Courts With Cases
Source: The New York Times
Generative AI has lowered the barrier to filing lawsuits by enabling people without legal training to produce plausible court documents. Courts now face a volume problem they weren't built to handle. This creates a genuine tension between access and institutional capacity: legal reform advocates wanted to democratize litigation, but the current infrastructure collapse suggests the system needs triage mechanisms—not just unrestricted AI-assisted filing—to remain functional. Courts are now caught between rejecting cases on procedural grounds (reasserting gatekeeping) and absorbing thousands of amateur filings that clog dockets and waste judicial time on frivolous claims.