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Automated Document Assembly: Access to Justice and Consumer Risk

Year of Publication: 2021
Month of Publication: 3
Author(s): Helena Whalen-Bridge
Research Area(s): Data Protection
Journal Name: Singapore Academy of Law Journal
Volume Number: 33
Abstract:

In the world of legal tech, automated document assembly offers economies for commercial entities as well as opportunities to expand access to justice for lower-income individuals and businesses. In particular, automated court document assembly is a major step forward for unrepresented litigants, as its design allows laypersons to access legal content through guided interviews which produce coherent court documents. Automated document assembly systems should therefore be developed, but there are risks to consumers which should be identified and evaluated. Based on a comparison of commercial and non-profit document assembly systems, this article suggests a series of questions to assess consumer risk. Depending on the context, these factors indicate that while some documents from commercial sources raise issues, court document assembly can pose relatively little risk for consumers, because of the non-profit mission of entities that create the documents and the collaborative nature of the creation process.