Litigation Outcome Prediction, Access to Justice, and Legal Endogeneity

Abstract

The United States has a serious and persistent civil justice gap. Computationally driven litigation outcome prediction tools might offer a solution by reducing uncertainty and lowering the cost of legal services. Yet the field remains in its infancy: this chapter identifies the data, methodological, and financial limits that have impeded development in general and the potential to expand access to justice in particular. The chapter also raises a note of caution about unintended consequences. As outcome prediction reaches maturity, such tools might reify existing case outcome patterns and lock out litigants whose claims are novel or boundary-pushing. This legal endogeneity may reduce access to justice for some categories of would-be litigants and diminish the flexibility and adaptability that characterize common law reasoning. Empirical questions remain about the way(s) that outcome prediction might affect access to justice. Yet if developments continue, policymakers and practitioners should be ready to exploit the tools' substantial potential to fill the civil justice gap while also guarding against the harms they might cause.