There are more pro se filings because of AI. Guess what? That means defendants are dealing with longer pleadings and increased costs.

According to Craig J. Compoli, Jr. and Brian R. Griffin in The National Law Review (available here), for insurers and legal operations professionals, the immediate concern is not simply that AI can help lawyers work faster; it is that AI can also help self-represented – pro se – litigants generate pleadings, filings, legal arguments, and more legal paper for defense counsel to answer.

Most commentary has focused on lawyers’ use of AI. For insurers, however, the more disruptive development may be AI-enabled pro se litigation.

Publicly available AI tools can draft complaints, motions, discovery requests, and briefs in seconds. That lowers the practical barrier to filing suit and allows self-represented litigants to submit documents that look sophisticated even when the legal analysis is weak, inaccurate, or entirely fabricated.

Unlike attorneys, pro se litigants generally do not receive formal training on AI risks, verification standards, or professional duty of candor, thereby increasing the likelihood that courts and opposing parties will encounter polished but unreliable filings. The New Jersey Supreme Court’s guidance expressly warns lawyers to verify AI output, and the same concern applies with even greater force when no lawyer is involved.

But, for people who can’t afford counsel, AI may seem like a low-cost substitute for legal representation. That accessibility has real upside, but it also creates a new cost center for insurers: filings that may appear credible on their face yet still require careful review, response, and court appearances.

The authors provide several examples of AI-generated errors in court filings. But the examples only provide a sense of what’s happening. Here’s a real stat for you to indicate how many more pro se filings there are: Among roughly 2.8 million federal filings, the federal civil pro se plaintiff rate rose from 11.33% before widespread access to generative AI to 16.94% afterward.

By my math, 5.61% of 2.8 million equals 157,080 more pro se filings. Hey, maybe they’re not doing so bad on the hallucinations front after all – they were responsible for “only” 1,018 AI hallucinations case filings as of early July. 🤣

AI-consistent complaints were also more citation-dense and more likely to be dismissed earlier in the case. Still, these more formal-looking filings can still produce more defense costs for insurers, despite a lack of merit.

We spend so much time talking about lawyers’ misuse of AI, but not near enough about the increased filings – and corresponding misuse of AI – by pro se parties. This is an even bigger challenge in the court system, in my opinion.

So, what do you think? How can we curb the trend of more pro se filings or at least get pro se parties to understand how to use AI tools better? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Image created using DALL-E 3, using the term “a large group of robots submitting filings in a courthouse”.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by my employer, my partners or my clients. eDiscovery Today is made available solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Today should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.