I don't think it will be a huge problem. People aren't going to commit more crimes so the caseload there won't increase much. "Jailhouse lawyers" might file more appeals of their own convictions but those seldom go very far.

On the civil side, high-dollar disputes are already litigated. The real potential growth enabled by cheaper legal services will be in small claims. Those courts can be scaled up because they don't require a jury or even a real judge.

The law works because most people won't break it, most disputes don't even end up in anyone getting sued, and most lawsuits end up in settlements before too much court time was spent. Break any of those things, and systems crack. Break multiple, and it all collapses.

If the cost of what a lawyer does today drops to pennies, the system probably needs robo-judges, and/or massive penalties for taking something in front of a human judge when the facts sufficiently completely one sided, as making them pay the winning party's legal fees will become insufficient deterrence.

That is self inflicted by having a system where you're expected to plead not guilty when you're guilty, because otherwise you get screwed. In other country's legal systems, pleading not guilty when ultimately found guilty is taken as a lack of remorse and tends to result in harsh sentencing. By contrast if somebody pleads guilty, shows remorse, and works with the police and others then they can expect to receive relatively lenient sentencing, all other things being equal.

> strain of the current workload on courts

Maybe courts could be replaced by AI too once it's good enough?

With the right to escalate to human judges of course.

and without turning it into current phone helplines or support chatbots, god please.