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AI in Arbitration and Litigation: The Jagged Frontier
by Doak Bishop and Karl Hennessee
A six-part series
What can artificial intelligence contribute to arbitration and litigation—and where does human judgment remain essential?
FedArb panelist Doak Bishop and co-author Karl Hennessee explore AI’s capabilities, limitations, and practical applications in this six-part series published in Alternatives to the High Cost of Litigation. The series examines AI’s capabilities, limitations, and practical applications in arbitration and litigation, exploring how to use AI effectively while preserving independent analysis and professional judgment.
Read the available installments below. Additional articles will be added as they are published.
Part 1 | The Nature of AI in Dispute Resolution: Competence Without Comprehension
July/August 2026
How can AI produce sophisticated legal work without understanding it as a lawyer would? Bishop and Hennessee explain how large language models operate, examine their limitations, and explore why verification and experienced human judgment remain essential.
Part 2 | The Surprising Things Artificial Intelligence Can Do: Capabilities and Properties in Dispute Resolution
September 2026
AI can perform impressively on one task and fail on another that appears equally straightforward. The authors examine this uneven performance, the risks of mistaking plausible output for correct analysis, and a framework for deciding how much human review different tasks require.
Part 3 | The AI Toolkit: Use Cases, Tools, and Prompting Techniques for Dispute Resolution
October 2026
From document review and drafting to hearing preparation and damages analysis, this installment explores practical AI applications in arbitration and litigation. It also presents 10 prompting techniques and discusses the verification, confidentiality, and human oversight these tools require.
Coming Next
The remaining installments will examine advanced AI models for reasoning, causation, and analogical inference; whether AI will make legal work more productive and dispute resolution less expensive; and the role of human judgment and ethical safeguards.
About the Authors
Doak Bishop is a FedArb arbitrator and mediator and a retired King & Spalding partner who founded the firm’s international arbitration practice. A former chair of the Institute of Transnational Arbitration, he has held leadership roles with major international arbitration institutions and served as an adviser to the U.S. Restatement of the Law of International Commercial and Investor-State Arbitration. View his full FedArb bio.
Karl Hennessee is Senior Vice President, Litigation, Investigations & Regulatory Affairs at Airbus, leading the company’s global activities in these areas, and has held leadership positions with major international arbitration institutions.
These articles are presented courtesy Alternatives to the High Cost of Litigation. Copyright © 2026 International Institute for Conflict Prevention & Resolution. All rights reserved.