Originally published June 2025
AI-driven legal services have the potential to significantly improve access to justice, especially for those individuals and small businesses who struggle to afford traditional legal help from lawyers.
Generative AI can perform a range of functions which may help people move toward resolving their legal problems.
AI-driven legal services are marketed (as of early 2025) to the general public as being able to:
Direct to consumer (D2C), AI-driven legal services = tech that is sold or freely given to nonattorneys, including individuals in the general public and in small businesses.
Products include both those (i) specifically advertised to provide legal services and (ii) generally providing information that may include legal information. Both categories of products are already providing (unregulated) legal information and advice.
Given:
- the significant justice gap facing the United States, in which more than 85% of people go without the help they need for significant civil legal problems; and
- the ubiquity of AI platforms, such as ChatGPT, and
- the integration of AI into the dominant knowledge platforms such as Google search,
AI will imminently become a primary source of legal guidance, if it is not already.
As a profession with responsibility for the rule of law and the public good, legal professionals have the duty to carefully consider both the opportunities and risks of this remarkable new technology.
Research is needed to verify the claims currently made about what AI-based legal tools can effectively accomplish.
To address these concerns, a RAILS Working Group sought to identify and better understand the risks associated with AI-based, consumer-focused legal services in order to help legal system stakeholders, and perhaps specifically current and potential developers of these technologies, assess the path forward.