Will AI fill the unfairness gap in British justice?

One client tells the BBC how she has been made homeless because the landlord cancelled her tenancy.

“I’m a professional person – and I am not used to finding myself in this kind of situation,” she says.

“It’s distressing, destabilising and being homeless, also at my age, is quite difficult.”

There is legal aid for the absolute poorest in society – but it is means-tested and extremely limited. Many people give up on their fight against something they instinctively know has been an injustice.

So what’s this got to do with artificial intelligence? Going to court can be cripplingly expensive. The aim of anyone sensible is to get a resolution long before that point. And that requires expert advice.

Adam Samji is a paralegal adviser at the Westway. He helps to prepare a case by researching whether a client has a point worth fighting against, say, a rogue landlord or government rejection of a benefits application.

An eligibility assessment for benefits can run to 60 pages. Each individual case can take hours of careful analysis of personal circumstances.

The Westway is now using AI tools to cut through these kinds of documents to the key facts and legal issues that could make or break a case.

“We spend a couple of minutes going through [the documents] and redacting the client’s personal information,” says Mr Samji.

“We upload it on to an AI model and that will give us all that information. It’ll usually shoot it back in about 10 to 15 minutes.

“It will save us hours of having to do it ourselves. We can efficiently use our time, as their paralegal volunteers, to better serve our clients.”