Legal Aid Clinics as Catalysts of Alternative Dispute Resolution Mechanisms in Rural India – Exploring the role of Artificial Intelligence in improving Access to Justice

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-547-8_22How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Legal Aid; Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR); Artificial Intelligence (AI); Mediation

Abstract

To ‘leave no one behind’ and to ‘reach the furthest behind first’ are the principles that lie at the core of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Goals. Goal sixteen aims at building effective and accountable institutions and providing access to justice for all. The Indian legal system has tiers for redressing legal issues, including the Gram Nyayalay and Lok Adalat, which are some of the efforts for dispute resolution at the rural level. However, the vulnerable remain deprived of justice owing to reasons like lack of awareness, administrative inefficiencies, reliance on and exploitation by rural intermediaries, and so on. The Alternative Dispute Resolution landscape is thriving in India due to its flexibility, cost-effectiveness, and community-centric orientation, offering significant potential for addressing routine civil and economic disputes in rural India. The legal aid clinics established by law schools have proved to be an impactful link with the justice system. And the same time, the recent technological developments in Artificial Intelligence present opportunities to strengthen the justice system. This paper explores these intersections, thereby assessing the role of Artificial Intelligence as an enabling tool for data-driven decision-making, pattern analysis, and administrative assistance. The paper argues that with integration within the constitutional framework, Artificial Intelligence can augment a legally viable dispute resolution mechanism and a people-centred strategy for the administration of justice.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Apurva Bhilare
AU  - Divyanshu Priyadarshi
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/03/05
TI  - Legal Aid Clinics as Catalysts of Alternative Dispute Resolution Mechanisms in Rural India – Exploring the role of Artificial Intelligence in improving Access to Justice
BT  - Proceedings of the International Conference on Socio Legal Intricacies of Artificial Intelligence (ICSLIAI 2026)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 183
EP  - 190
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-547-8_22
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-547-8_22
ID  - Bhilare2026
ER  -