CBA Record November-December 2025

A bigger question is what humanity should do about this more existential threat. Even trying to regulate the inner workings of AI models is not realistic or effective. However, requiring transparency, standards, and accountability are all things our elected officials should be making a much bigger priority right now and courts should be considering as well.

Is AI going to take us to nirvana?

There is little doubt that AI has the potential to improve our professional and personal lives by making many repetitive and soul-crushing tasks in the practice of law and our daily lives a thing of the past. Many among us think it may cause us to favor more human interaction again, which would be great. And AI may soon hasten the end of the billable hour, a good thing for all concerned. But with all the madness that AI is going to unleash, even in the best of worlds, I am not buying the nirvana idea. On its own, no way, and run away if you hear anyone suggesting AI as a magic solution to the access-to-justice problem. But there are so many ways AI is going to help us get there—thus, I give it two happy emojis here. Any time we are talking about a potential solution for access to justice, we should start with the definition. Yogi Berra’s immortal words ring true: “If you don’t know where you are going, you might end up somewhere else.” The CBF’s definition of access to justice is: Everyone facing a legal issue (1) has timely and affordable access to the level of legal help necessary for them to get a fair and efficient outcome on the merits of their legal issue, and (2) objectively can believe they were treated fairly in the process. Critically thinking about how AI can improve access to justice does not have to exacerbate the “AI Overwhelm” so many of us are feeling. It is really just a matter of breaking down access to justice into its core components and evaluating the ways that AI has the potential to make a big, positive difference. AI offers several concrete ways to make a real impact in improving procedural access and efficiency in the courts. Exam ples include helping to simplify the process for completing court forms, e-filing, and using automatic speech-to-text transcription in lieu of written transcripts in cases where court reporters were not present (with the electronic recording serving as the official court record). AI also can increase access to necessary legal assistance by helping people find and connect to that assistance, improving efficiency in the practice of law, and making limited scope repre sentation a more realistic option for people who otherwise would not have access to a lawyer. Is AI really going to solve access to justice?

What Now? Resist the Urge to Just Tune Out

As busy people, taking time out to learn more about how AI might help us be more efficient and effective is not easy to do without outside pressure to do so. But like most of us, I have not really set aside time to learn more about how AI actually works or can be used to our advan tage to be more efficient and effective. And that leads to the next point. Dabble in AI with Guardrails Some great practical guides are available to learn more about how AI models work and how they can help us use them effec tively without putting ourselves at personal or professional risk. By setting aside a modest block of time every week to experi ment with AI and being careful not to use confidential informa tion, we can learn some of the ways this technology can make a positive difference. Always Lead with Our Uniquely Human Qualities If we lean into the uniquely human qualities of good lawyers and good people, and always keep those front and center in the way we use AI, we have a fighting chance to “keep a human in the loop” and make AI a force for good—and survive while we are at it.

Bob Glaves is Executive Director of The Chicago Bar Foundation.

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