Online Courts and the Future of Justice

by Richard Susskind

Our court system is struggling. It is too costly to deliver justice for all but the few, too slow to satisfy those who can access it. Yet the values implicit in disputes being resolved in person, and in public, are fundamental to how we have imagined the fair resolution of disputes for centuries. Could justice be delivered online? The idea has excited and appalled in equal measure, promising to bring justice to all, threatening to strike at the heart of what we mean by justice.

With online courts now moving from idea to reality, we are looking at the most fundamental change to our justice system for centuries, but the public understanding of and debate about the revolution is only just beginning.
In Online Courts and the Future of Justice Richard Susskind, a pioneer of rethinking law for the digital age, confronts the challenges facing our legal system and the potential for technology to bring much needed change. Drawing on years of experience leading the discussion on conceiving and delivering online justice, Susskind here charts and develops the public debate.

Against a background of austerity politics and cuts to legal aid, the public case for online courts has too often been framed as a business case by both sides of the debate. Are online courts preserving the public bottom line by finding efficiencies? Or sacrificing the interests of the many to deliver cut price justice? Susskind broadens the debate by making the moral case (whether online courts are required by principles of justice) and the jurisprudential case (whether online courts are compatible with our understanding of judicial process and constitutional rights) for delivering justice online.

Includes a substantial new chapter updating the book with the developments in online courts since the onset of Covid-19.

Genres: Law, Nonfiction, Artificial Intelligence

400 pages, Paperback

First published November 14, 2019

About the author

Richard Susskind OBE

Reviews

[Laurentiu · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very insightful glimpse into the future of delivering justice. Botton line is that we need a global response to the current ways of making justice thorugh courts as the main points of public dispute resolution. An overhaul of outdated practices is required if we are to succeed in reaching the UN's SDG #16 on improving acces to justice.
The book is well structured to cover both pros and cons of introducing a new generation of online courts, at first focused on routine low value cases that are backlogged in most courts around the world. By using machine learning and other AI technologies justice delivery will lead to a far reaching audience while mainting human professionals (judges) control and maintin appeals.

[Oliver · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting read. It took me a while to get through this book as it's so intricately detailed and explores so many different avenues of justice and the implications that the development of an online court system may have upon these.

I mostly read this book with the intention of seeing whether it might help my civil justice research paper in the summer. It did explore open justice and technology in some detail, which will be helpful I think.

My one qualm is that there were a few typos and grammatical errors throughout, so either Susskind didn't have an editor, or they didn't read the book all the way through. I wouldn't blame them towards the end as it is a bit of a slog to finish, but I'm glad that I did.

Hoping to use the AI chapter 26 in particular for my paper.

[Charlie Medcalf · Rating 3 out of 5]

Online Courts and the Future of Justice by Richard Susskind sets out the case for the Justice system of England and Wales to introduce online courts to the jurisdiction in the civil law sector. Susskind sets out both the case for and against, explaining why online courts are the best way forward for our justice system and providing a fully holistic plan for how we can introduce online courts to our justice system.

For my full review please visit: https://cembookportal.blogspot.com/20...

[Ekin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably best combined with Susskind's most famous book, Tomorrow's Lawyers. It expands upon few of the chapters but to my dismay it does not contain enough content to warrant a 300-page book.

There are a few bits and pieces there that really shine but most of the arguments have been framed in much more elaborate ways and more in depth. The biggest problem seems to me that the book suffers from trying to appeal to the general public but then tries hard to convince the legal profession.

[Danielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

A broad brush on some of the arguments for and against digitalisOng dispute resolution and court processes and imagining what that might look like.

[Cem Ucan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book could be trimmed down to 1/3 and not lose its substance. Skip this and read Tomorrow’s Lawyers instead.