Using AI In Group Actions - The Beginning Of A Boom?

The vast potential impact of artificial intelligence (AI) is a red-hot topic in the legal industry, from the shape of its potential regulation to changing the ways that legal services are provided.

As the Master of the Rolls, Sir Geoffrey Vos, recently said, AI "is likely to transform the work that lawyers need to do and possibly even, in the slightly longer term, the business of judging".

Another area of significant attention is the rise in group actions in England and Wales. However, despite having multiple group action regimes, including a nascent "opt-out" regime before the Competition Appeals Tribunal, group actions are not as common in this jurisdiction as they are in others. The introduction of AI in the legal industry could particularly benefit group actions. Language models and other advanced machine learning have the potential to help claimants and funders, defendants and the courts to litigate group actions more efficiently and cost-effectively.