AI vs Legalese: How Technology Can Democratising Access to Justice

You shouldn’t need a law degree to understand your own rights.

Yet here we are — swimming (read: drowning) in contracts written in a language that feels intentionally obscure. Legalese. The ancient art of saying something simple in the most convoluted way possible.

But what if AI could tear down that barrier? What if it could take the dense, clause-ridden labyrinth of legal documents and translate them — not into another language, but into human?

That’s not just a hypothetical. It’s happening.

The Problem With Legalese (You Already Know This One)

You’ve probably agreed to hundreds of contracts you didn’t read. Not because you’re lazy, but because they're unreadable. Legalese isn’t just complex — it’s designed to be. To confuse. To disempower.

This has real-world consequences. Tenants miss housing rights buried in jargon. Gig workers unknowingly sign away basic protections. Parents navigate school or healthcare forms that might as well be encrypted.

It’s not just frustrating — it’s unjust.

The Solution: AI as Your Legal Translator

Imagine this: you highlight a passage in a legal document, hit a keyboard shortcut, and boom — the AI rewrites it in plain English. That’s what I’ve put together: an open-source tool that runs right on your Windows machine, turning bureaucratic babble into clarity in seconds.

And now, I’ve taken it a step further.

You can use the same AI assistant in your browser. Whether you’re combing through an online tenancy agreement or wrestling with terms and conditions on a dodgy website, just highlight the text and get instant plain-language explanations — without leaving the page.

Even better? It works both ways. Need to sound a bit more legal in a complaint letter, housing form, or tenancy dispute? It can help reverse-engineer your everyday language into something a solicitor would nod at.

And the cost? Just pennies per use. Setup? Five minutes. This isn’t just slick tech — it’s a values-led design. Built for inclusion, not extraction.

This Isn’t About Replacing Lawyers

Lawyers have their place (courtrooms, ideally, not your inbox). What this is about is access. Understanding. Autonomy. It’s about ordinary people being able to comprehend the contracts they’re signing. It’s about knowing when to push back.

Because justice shouldn’t be paywalled.

AI As a Tool for the People — Not the Powerful

While public discourse gets stuck debating AI’s impact on artists or deepfakes, the powerful are already wielding it. Landlords use AI to automate evictions. Corporations deploy it to scour for tax loopholes. Law firms run it to strengthen defence strategies you’ll never afford.

But here’s the counterweight: working-class communities using AI to protect their homes. Tenants decoding lease clauses. Activists auto-generating FOI requests. Immigrants understanding their asylum paperwork. Indigenous groups finally navigating British common law through translated tools.

That’s the revolution they don’t want to talk about.

“AI Is a Tool, Not a Product”

And like any tool, it matters who wields it. A hammer can build a home or break a window. AI can write birthday cards — or challenge unjust power structures.

The real question isn’t “Should we use AI?” It’s “Who gets to use it — and for what?”

When AI is used to:

• Translate housing rights

• Assist with benefit applications

• Simplify contracts

• Empower renters and workers

• Build open-source systems with no sign-up, no tracking, no fees

Then it's not just a convenience.

It’s liberation tech.

A Final Thought (and an Invitation)

Let’s stop pretending AI is only good for parlor tricks and productivity hacks. Let’s use it to build with dignity. To eliminate friction that’s been designed to wear us down. To translate not just text, but power — back into our hands.

You don’t need a £200-an-hour solicitor to read your rights.

You need a shortcut key and some solidarity.

How are you using AI to reduce friction in people’s lives? Have you found a liberatory use that others should know about? Let’s build a thread of tools-for-the-people. Drop your links, thoughts, or questions below.