AI-Drafted Claims and the Case for Short-Form Arbitration

Generative AI has made it quicker and cheaper than ever to prepare a legal claim. A letter before claim, particulars of claim or a draft witness statement can now be produced in minutes. In one sense, that is a gain for access to justice. But it raises a question that the profession has only begun to confront: what happens when claims become cheap to write, and there are more of them, they are longer and some of them are wrong? pinqDR considers why the answer lies as much in procedure as in technology.

The current landscape

As we know too well, the civil courts are under strain, and that is before AI-drafted claims have arrived in any number. By way of example, between April and June 2026, 82,000 county court claims were defended, 15% more than in the same quarter of 2025 and the highest level since 2009. Where claims went to trial, the median time from issue to trial was 41.0 weeks for small claims and 55.9 weeks for fast, intermediate and multi-track claims (Ministry of Justice, Civil Justice Statistics Quarterly: April to June 2026).

A tool that can produce ten pages as easily as two will tend to produce ten, and every additional page must be read, answered and weighed by the court or tribunal. The cost of writing has fallen; the cost of reading has not.

The risk of unverified material

The courts have already seen the consequences. In a judgment handed down on 6 June 2025, the Divisional Court determined two cases referred to it under its Hamid jurisdiction: R (Ayinde) v London Borough of Haringey and Al-Haroun v Qatar National Bank QPSC [2025] EWHC 1383 (Admin). In Al-Haroun, 45 authorities were cited to the court in correspondence and in witness statements; 18 of them did not exist. The claimant accepted responsibility, explaining that the material had been generated using publicly available AI tools, legal search engines and online sources; his solicitor had relied on that research without verifying it. The court took the opportunity to issue a stark warning to the profession about putting unverified material before the court.

Rule-makers are also responding. Earlier this year, the Civil Justice Council consulted on whether new rules were needed for the use of AI by legal representatives in preparing court documents. Its June 2026 update reported broad agreement among respondents that existing professional duties are sufficient for statements of case, skeleton arguments and similar documents. It also identified litigants in person as raising distinct issues requiring further attention.

That distinction matters. Solicitors and barristers owe duties to the court and answer to their regulators. A business drafting its own claim with a chatbot is not subject to the same professional obligations, although it must still verify its particulars of claim with a statement of truth. It might be said, therefore, that the claims AI makes easiest to write are the very ones that nobody is professionally obliged to check.

Procedure as the safeguard

The response so far has rightly focused on the author, who must verify citations and supervise the tools. That is not enough on its own. A system that accepts unlimited paper will receive unlimited paper, and the more durable safeguard lies in the design of the process itself.

pinqDR was designed on that principle from the outset. The process is short-form: a claim begins with a summary of no more than 250 characters, submissions are entered on the platform rather than attached as lengthy documents, and extremely long submissions may be challenged. The process is also arbitrator-led. Within five working days of appointment, the arbitrator issues a Procedural Order defining the issues to be decided and setting out what further information is required, from whom and by when. The parties answer the questions that matter, rather than every question they can think of.

That structure is well suited to a world of AI-drafted claims. A longer submission gains nothing when the arbitrator is asking specific questions, and the tribunal's scrutiny sits at the centre of the process from the outset rather than at a final hearing a year away. A focused record is also a checkable one: an authority that does not exist is far easier to spot in ten focused pages than in a bundle of several hundred.

A role for the profession

AI will make claims cheaper to prepare. That is not a threat in itself; many businesses with legitimate claims have been priced out of the system for too long. The benefit is real, however, only if the process on the other side can absorb it without slowing down. If it cannot, delay risks undermining confidence in the system, and users will look for alternatives. The lasting answer lies in processes built around focus: fewer words, sharper questions and faster decisions.

At pinqDR, we see this as an opportunity to show what a well-designed process can achieve. pinqDR provides online dispute resolution for B2B disputes from £5,000 to £2m, producing a final and binding award in 6 to 8 weeks, decided by an experienced arbitrator and enforceable, with the leave of the court, in the same manner as a judgment.

To find out more, get in touch at hello@pinqDR.com.