Recognizing Lawyers as AI Creators and Intermediaries in Contestability
Gennie Mansi, Mark Riedl
TL;DR
The paper addresses the problem that contestability in AI is shaped by legal frameworks yet lawyers are underrecognized in system design. It reframes lawyers as AI Creators and Intermediaries and argues for cross-disciplinary design, emphasizing co-design methods and boundary objects to align legal and technical perspectives. The authors identify opportunities and challenges for integrating legal expertise into AI development and governance, outlining practical recommendations for design workflows that amplify contestability. The work aims to operationalize cross-disciplinary collaboration between lawyers and technologists to produce more contestable and accountable AI systems.
Abstract
Laws play a key role in the complex socio-technical system impacting contestability: they create the regulations shaping the way AI systems are designed, evaluated, and used. Despite their role in the AI value chain, lawyers' impact on contestability has gone largely unrecognized in the design of AI systems. In this paper, we highlight two main roles lawyers play that impact contestability: (1) as AI Creators because the regulations they create shape the design and evaluation of AI systems before they are deployed; and (2) as Intermediaries because they interpret regulations when harm occurs, navigating the gap between stakeholders, instutions, and harmful outcomes. We use these two roles to illuminate new opportunities and challenges for including lawyers in the design of AI systems, contributing a significant first step in practical recommendations to amplify the power to contest systems through cross-disciplinary design.