Lawsuits and AI

The United States is a highly litigious country because of the business model underpinning the US legal industry (lawyers often take on cases on a contingency basis, enabling lawsuits without upfront costs), because litigation serves as a punitive measure in many less-regulated industries (allowing for the punishment of entities that otherwise see little or no moderation), and because there’s no “loser pays” rule in the US, which means the consequences for filing a lawsuit and losing are smaller than in many other countries.

The US legal system is also partly shaped by lawsuits, each judicial interpretation of the law in these cases creating precedent, which is then used to determine the outcome of cases in the future, until or unless a higher court takes up the issue and rules otherwise, or Congress passes a new law that contradicts that earlier case law decision.

In addition to being potentially highly damaging for those on the receiving end, then, lawsuits can also significantly shape the law in the United States, which means those who are more capable or of comfortable with leveraging the legal system often have a leg-up over those who don’t.

A March 2026 paper looks at the impact AI tools are having on this aspect of the US legal system, and those behind it note that by 2025, an increase in pro se cases (someone filing a lawsuit by themselves, without a lawyer) account for about 59% of the growth in federal civil suits above the pre-AI mean level of such suits, and the same growth is being seen across the US.