Would you trust a robot lawyer? 🤖💼

Should you trust an AI bot to give legal advice? 

The emergence of cutting-edge AI systems offers widening access to justice by mitigating the financial burden of legal services. However, they are far from perfect, frequently falling short of the performance standards set by seasoned legal professionals. This problem underscores the gray area surrounding the role of AI in law. 

In today’s edition of The Automated Lawyer, we’ll examine DoNotPay, the self-proclaimed “world’s first robot lawyer,” as a case study. Continue reading for a special announcement about our referral program?

What’s the history of DoNotPay?

DoNotPay, founded by Joshua Browder during his freshman year at Stanford, started as a solution for contesting parking tickets through automated appeal letters in 2015. 

• Over the years, it has expanded to become a versatile legal aid platform for consumers in the UK and US, with solutions ranging from analyzing terms of services to handling warranty claims.

DoNotPay gets into legal trouble.

In February 2023, DoNotPay’s anticipated debut in a California court, where an individual planned to use its AI technology for legal defense, was canceled due to prosecution threats from state bar officials. 

Since then, the startup has faced two class action lawsuits and a pre-action discovery dispute, all of which were unrelated to the California traffic court case. Plaintiff Jonathan Faridian said he used DoNotPay for document drafting, expecting competent documents, but received inaccurate, blank, and undelivered content.

Faridian v. DoNotPay, Inc. 

Plaintiff Jonathan Faridian said he used DoNotPay for document drafting, expecting competent documents, but received inaccurate, blank, and undelivered content.

• The class action lawsuit he filed alleged the company violated California’s unfair competition law by portraying itself as a lawyer and practicing law without a license.

MillerKing, LLC v. DoNotPay, Inc.

Illinois law firm MillerKing filed a second class action lawsuit, alleging DoNotPay’s violation of federal and state laws, including the Lanham Act and Illinois’ deceptive trade practices law, echoing the California lawsuit’s claims of unlicensed provision of legal services.

Tewson v. DoNotPay, Inc.

Kathryn Tewson, a paralegal, filed a petition in New York to compel DoNotPay to produce pre-action discovery, alleging consumer fraud due to the company's misrepresentation of AI technology and errors in its products, but the court denied the petition.

The Dilemma: Murky Territory

Services like DoNotPay inhabit a complex space within the legal field. Cutting-edge AI systems hold the promise of enhancing access to justice by alleviating the financial strain of legal services. However, they are far from perfect, often falling short of the performance standards established by legal professionals.

What’s to come next?

Concerns about nonlawyer-owned law firms center on their lack of ethical constraints, potentially leading to less conscientious client service, such as taking on too many clients or prolonging processes for financial gain.

While these concerns are valid, non-lawyer participation is essential to tackle access to justice and justice gap issues in the US, where many states lack sufficient legal aid attorneys for low-income individuals.

More than half of the states in the US have less than one civil legal aid attorney per 10,000 people living below 200% of the federal poverty line, and there are more than 1.9 million requests for legal assistance annually from low-income households. 

While it is prudent to exercise caution regarding AI's imperfections, we must acknowledge the imperative to democratize the legal system.

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