“My Lord” and “OP”: Judges and Lawyers in the AI Era

I was a planter from Kanjirappally, Kerala. I owned plantations in Idukki and Wayanad and lived a happy, peaceful life with my family. Then, suddenly, the Government declared my land an Ecologically Sensitive Area, with restrictions intended to protect wildlife and the environment. My entire life and livelihood were at stake.

“Please Sign Here”

I approached a famous legal firm to represent me before the court. I began explaining my case to the young advocates. But before I could finish, they had already prepared my affidavit. “Please sign here,” they said. I was surprised. I approached the senior advocate before signing. He looked at me calmly and said:

This is the AI era. Everything is done by AI now. I don’t have much role to play. Even judges expect AI-generated legal documents. They can then use AI to analyse them and perhaps even generate the basis for their judgments.

I was uncomfortable. But what could I do? I signed. The petition was, indeed, beautifully prepared — but I could hardly understand it.

A Stranger in My Own Case

On the day of the hearing, I appeared in court. My lawyers argued. The judge asked questions. The lawyers responded. Documents were cited; legal propositions exchanged. But I understood almost nothing. I was the person whose land, livelihood and future were at stake — yet I felt like a stranger in my own case.

After some time, the judgment was delivered. I received a copy. It was beautifully written, page after page filled with laws, precedents, facts, data and legal reasoning. I read it once, then again. Still I could not understand the most important question: had I won or lost?

So I asked my lawyer to explain the judgment. He said: “Let us ask AI to explain it.” He opened his computer, and within seconds AI produced a neat explanation. He handed it to me, without explaining it himself. I paid my fees and returned home.

Where Does the Human Being Stand?

On the way back, one question kept troubling me: “My Lord, please tell me — did I win or lose my case?” Then another thought struck me. Who exactly was “My Lord”? And what was my “OP”? Perhaps I had entered the court as a citizen seeking justice, but emerged as a spectator watching machines communicate with other machines.

If AI writes the petition, analyses the evidence, searches the precedents, assists the lawyer, assists the judge, and explains the judgment — where does the human being stand in the justice system?

Perhaps the greatest danger of the AI era is not that machines will replace judges and lawyers. It is that human beings may gradually surrender their capacity to understand, question and judge — to the machines created to assist them.

In your own most important decisions, do you still understand — or only sign?