Legal research companies are no more novel than the other platforms we use to navigate our daily lives, and they operate similarly to other information access giants like Amazon and Ticketmaster. Academics are quick to decry the cost of course materials and attorneys are quick to complain about their monthly research bills, but year after year, academics assign course materials through Lexis and Westlaw, and attorneys rely on those products to perform the research necessary to quickly move cases through the system. Similarly, there is ample information available about the problems associated with prison services monopolies and attorneys have been quick to denounce those predatory practices and the harm they place on incarcerated people. Some attorneys have gone so far as to attack some technologies that may benefit litigants as unauthorized practice of law, while also suggesting a change in entry requirements for practicing law for the benefit of indigent criminal litigants, so a law-school-to-public-defender pipeline can be created for the benefit of those individuals. But where is the outcry surrounding legal information access, access which could immediately and significantly impact the ability of incarcerated litigants to understand their cases, themselves?

This article will discuss the history of access to legal information in American prisons, and the history of legal information ownership and the myriad ways in which these ownership schemes negatively impact all Americans, but acutely impact incarcerated litigants. It describes the advocacy work of attorneys surrounding the use of technology by non-lawyers, ability to practice law and, yes, Taylor Swift tickets. The Article concludes with suggestions for how this kind of advocacy can be mobilized to fight back against predatory publishers for the benefit of all those currently in the justice system, but especially those fighting for their freedom behind bars.

While a lack of internet regulation is the norm in the United States, generative artificial intelligence presents a series of new challenges, particularly in the legal field. Those who are trained in the law know to check their sources whether they come from case law or a generative AI tool like ChatGPT, but the average consumer is not so discerning.  When that average consumer is in the midst of dealing with legal issues and has to navigate those issues without a lawyer, he or she is less likely to sit back and evaluate the information they’re being given, particularly if it looks bright, shiny, and full of knowledge and the ability to help navigate the legal system quickly and efficiently. This lapse in judgment, whether conscious or subconscious, may deepen the justice gap and cause those who are unfamiliar with the legal system to become even more distrustful of not only the system, but the resources that are meant to help self-represented litigants navigate that system in a meaningful way.

This Article will begin with a brief explanation and analysis of generative artificial intelligence more broadly, as well as its current role in the legal field. It will go on to analyze global regulatory frameworks surrounding artificial intelligence and compare those frameworks to the current approaches in the United States. In Part II, the Article will discuss access to justice in the United States and the ways in which technology currently is and is not filling that gap, as well as the regulations to the industry. Part III will propose a scheme for regulating consumer-facing generative AI products and analyze the potential and pitfalls of regulation. Next, Part IV will discuss enforcement of any consumer-facing generative AI products that may be created to fill the justice gap, while Part V will look on the other side of the looking glass, and discuss predictions based on whether or not meaningful consumer-facing generative-AI reaches those in the justice gap, and whether regulating those products becomes a reality.

In 2020, the United States Supreme Court paved the way for a statutory publishing scheme that would enhance access to primary (and some secondary) legal information – they highlighted Georgia’s statutory publishing process as a way to pull some secondary material into the public domain under the government edicts doctrine. To be clear, the Supreme Court set out to more clearly define the classification of government edicts under Copyright law and not to set forth a new publishing scheme for legal materials, but the result was a glimpse into how federal and state governments could approach the publication of legal information, so information can be consistently and equitably made available to incarcerated litigants in either a print or electronic format, thereby expanding access to the Courts.

This article examines the legal evolution of access to information for incarcerated litigants and the role that access to the internet, libraries, and “ownership” of the law play in providing access to the Courts under decades of precedent. It then discusses the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence regarding the way technology has changed American behavior, including access to the internet, and how that significant shift in behavior is impacting incarcerated litigants. It concludes by offering a hopeful – and significantly more fair – approach to providing inmates access the courts and, therefore, true access to justice, without exploiting them in the process.