Enhancing the Accessibility of Case Law: Leveraging Artificial Intelligence for the Retrieval of Court Decisions

Access to court decisions is achieved through their publication in online or analogue formats. However, the publication of case law does not alone ensure its accessibility by lawyers and self-represented litigants seeking to formulate their representation strategy. Information retrieval systems (IRS) inte-
grated in court websites are called to render court decisions more accessible to the public. Various methods underline the functioning of IRS; however, Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques can retrieve more relevant court decisions, according to users’ information needs, in an understandable manner. This chapter seeks to address the question of how Artificial Intelligence can contribute to information retrieval systems to enhance the accessibility of court decisions. The question is answered through literature review on the legal background on access to courts through the accessibility of court decisions and on the methods underlying systems that support the retrieval of court decisions. The analysed AI techniques for IR are then evaluated under the notion of the accessibility of court decisions. The paper concludes that AI systems for the retrieval of court decisions can provide context-specific case law that responds to users’ information needs, without prejudice to further technical and regulatory conditions that must be implemented for the successful integration of AI in courts’ IRS.