GenAI is changing how self-represented parties engage with Canada’s courts - EUROPE SAYS
Improved formatting, same substanceIn separate conversations in July, Paquette and Hinkley each responded to a question about what trends they’ve observed on self-represented litigants’ AI use by emphasizing. . .
Improved formatting, same substanceIn separate conversations in July, Paquette and Hinkley each responded to a question about what trends they’ve observed on self-represented litigants’ AI use by emphasizing the same point: many people have successfully used AI to raise the quality of their court submissions. “This is not a trivial benefit, either for the litigants or for the judges,” Paquette says. She notes that since generative AI tools became widely available, many filings by self-represented litigants are “clearer, better organized, and closer to the expected structure of legal proceedings than what we would have seen a few years ago. ” Hinkley puts it another way. “The format gap has closed,” he says. Different legal documents need to be structured in distinct ways, depending on their purpose, the court they’re being filed in, and procedural rules. Hinkley has seen many breaches of formatting rules during his time on the bench, from materials that were handwritten to submissions that were clearly copied and pasted from the internet. “Materials from self-represented litigants now look like what they should look like,” he observed. “There’s some organization to the affidavits. The applications we’re seeing from self-reps, or at least I’m seeing from self-reps, are recognizable as what they are supposed to be, and that’s a real change. ”However, Hinkley says the improved formatting of many filings has not changed the quality of the actual arguments they’re making. “The self-represented party I’m seeing has the same command or lack thereof of their cases they did before,” he says. Hinkley notes that the wider availability of generative AI tools has also correlated with a greater difficulty in convincing self-represented litigants to let go of bad arguments; this may be due, he speculates, to the sycophantic nature of many AI chatbots, which are likely telling litigants that their arguments are sound. Paquette’s experience is similar. While formatting has improved in recent years, she and other judges at the Superior Court of Quebec have seen an increase in fake case citations or references to irrelevant authorities. Many of these filings appear polished or have attractive legal reasoning, but lack actual substance, she says. She’s also noted another phenomenon. Because AI tools dramatically lower the cost and effort involved in producing documents, the length of filings by many self-represented litigants has increased. “This places an additional pressure on judicial resources, a trend that we can already observe very, very precisely and concretely in my office,” Paquette says. She offered an example. At the Superior Court of Quebec, the chief justice is responsible for deciding whether a person who has been deemed a vexatious litigant can launch court proceedings. Last year, applications by vexatious litigants for permission to initiate proceedings “have become noticeably longer and more sophisticated,” Paquette says. For these litigants, who typically earn their distinction by repeatedly filing meritless lawsuits to harass other parties, generative AI tools can be damaging, she argues, adding these tools multiply “by 10 the waste of time and pressure they can put on the system. ”Smiley said the BC Court of Appeal is facing similar concerns. “Because genAI platforms make it easier for a litigant to produce more material, faster, and at little or no expense, litigants may file more applications or apply to review or vary previous decisions even with very little chance of success,” Smiley wrote in an email. “This burdens the court and responding litigants without improving access to justice outcomes. ”