In 2017, China started an online court that runs 24 hours a day. It uses AI tools to streamline the process so the average duration of a case is 40 days. No one has show up in person and because of the streamlined process, it has resulted in astronomical savings.
Looking at it from the American perspective, it seems incredibly undoable. Not only would it be difficult (if not impossible) to get most seasoned, experienced lawyers to take cases in the middle of the night, but the cost of such a case would be difficult to manage.
An example of a lawyer's hourly rate was in the news recently: Nathan Wade of Fulton County was give $250/hour and that was considered on the low side for lawyers practicing in the Atlanta area with Wade's experience.
Would the hourly change drastically based on the time of your case un internetcourt?
There are many possible topics that be discussed from China's internet court, including the most radical change - AI, non-human judges. But for now, as lawyers, there's a trend for better work-life balance. That system may completely upend that idea.
https://www.lexisnexis.ca/en-ca/ihc/2020-02/robot-justice-chinas-use-of-internet-courts.page
People with regular 9 to 5 (more likely 8 to 5 with an hour lunch in many industries) jobs have a hard time getting to court proceedings for family matters, traffic cases, minor criminal and civil matters, etc., because of their work schedules. Having after hours court would help expand the availability of the legal system to those people. It is an idea worth exploring, whether virtual or in-person.
ReplyDeleteWow. Talk about judicial efficiency. I will have to read up on this more. I wonder how they manage it!
ReplyDeleteThis is really interesting and I have not heard of this before. I wonder if this were to make it's way to America if firms would have to adopt a sort of "duty week" for night shifts and have client cases that are set to go at night essentially be rotated to whoever is on duty, similar to how judges and some government lawyers operate. That would be my first thought, but for ongoing cases I don't see that being an attractive option on the client-side to have lawyers rotating on your case depending on when it is being heard in court. I'm interested to read more about this!
ReplyDeleteThis may be an area where new attorneys could thrive and get experience since many experienced attorneys may not want to practice at the later hours in the night. I could also think that some attorneys may prefer working later hours in the day than the traditional 9-5 job. One of the only hard parts would be finding judges in the American system who would like to work these late hours.
ReplyDeleteSo many lawyers want to be judges (although I am not sure why given the workload and professional/personal isolation involved) that finding new judges willing to work at night should not be a problem.
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