Would You Be Willing To Have A Robot Lawyer Represent You

Would you be willing to have a robot lawyer represent you?

Is it possible that your next lawyer will be a robot? Despite the fact that it may seem impossible, artificial intelligence (AI) software systems - computer programs that can update and "think" on their own - are becoming increasingly popular among the legal community.

According to Joshua Browder, the creator of DoNotPay, his app is "the world's first robot lawyer."

It assists users in the creation of legal correspondence. You tell its chatbot what your problem is, such as contesting a parking ticket, and it will suggest the legal language that it believes is the most appropriate for the situation.

A machine learning model is used to match people's words to a legally correct way of saying it. "People can type in their side of an argument using their own words, and software with a machine learning model matches that to a legally correct way of saying it," says the author.

Despite the fact that the 24-year-old and his company are based in California's Silicon Valley, the firm's roots can be traced back to London in 2015, when Mr Browder was 18 years old.

The late teenager from Hendon in north London recalls, "I was a terrible driver as a late teenager." It resulted in numerous expensive parking tickets, which I couldn't afford at the time because I was still in secondary school.

Mr. Browder claims that he discovered the best ways to contest the tickets after conducting extensive research and requesting information under the Freedom of Information Act. You can save a lot of time and money by knowing what to say when the situation calls for it.

It seemed like "the perfect job for software," he says, rather than simply copying and pasting the same document over and over. Consequently, in a few weeks in 2015, he developed the first version of DoNotPay, "really just to impress my family."

Since then, the app has gained popularity in the United Kingdom and the United States, and it can now assist users in writing letters dealing with a variety of issues, including insurance claims, applying for tourist visas, writing complaint letters to businesses or local authorities, getting your money back for a vacation you were unable to take, and canceling gym membership. Mr. Browder claims that the last two uses have increased dramatically as a result of the pandemic.

DoNotPay now claims to have 150,000 paying subscribers, according to the company. And while it has its detractors, with some claiming that its legal advice is not accurate enough, it was recognized by the American Bar Association last year for its efforts to increase access to legal services.

Mr Browder claims an overall success rate of 80 percent, with a lower success rate of 65 percent for parking tickets because "some people are guilty."

You might think that human lawyers would be concerned about artificial intelligence encroaching on their territory. Some, on the other hand, are pleased with the software because it allows them to quickly sift through and sort vast quantities of case documents.

Sally Hobson, a barrister at the London-based law firm The 36 Group who specializes in criminal defense, is one of these attorneys. She recently used artificial intelligence in a complicated murder trial. Approximately 10,000 documents were required to be analyzed in a short period of time.

The software completed the task in four weeks less time than it would have taken humans, resulting in a savings of £50,000 for the company.

Lawyers utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) for assistance is "becoming the norm rather than a nice to have," according to Eleanor Weaver, chief executive of Luminance, which manufactures the software Ms Hobson uses.

It is also used by more than 300 other law firms in 55 countries, with staff speaking 80 different languages.

According to Ms Weaver, "Historically, you had a lot of [document checking] technologies that were no better than keyword searches, such as pressing Control-F on your laptop." She claims, on the other hand, that today's sophisticated software can link together words and phrases that are related.

AI, on the other hand, is not limited to assisting lawyers in the organization of documentary evidence. It can now also assist them in the preparation and structuring of their case, as well as the research of any relevant legal precedents.

One such piece of software is used by Laurence Lieberman, who oversees the digitising disputes program at the London law firm Taylor Wessing. The software was developed by an Israeli company called Litigate.

According to him, once you upload your case summary and pleadings, the software will analyze them and determine who the key players are. In the next step, the AI will connect them all together and compile a chronology of the most important events as well as an explanation of what happens on which dates.

Bruce Braude, chief technology officer of Deloitte Legal, the legal arm of accountancy giant Deloitte, claims that the company's TAX-I software system can analyze historical court data for similar tax appeal cases, which is currently in development.

A majority of the time, the firm claims that it can accurately predict how appeals will be decided. "It provides a more quantifiable way of determining what your chances of success are, which you can use to determine whether or not you should proceed," Mr Braude continues.

However, while artificial intelligence can assist in the writing of legal letters and the assistance of human lawyers, will we ever see a time when robot solicitors and barristers, or even robot judges, are employed?

"I believe that, in reality, we are nowhere near that," Ms Weaver asserts.

Others, such as Professor Richard Susskind, who chairs the Lord Chief Justice of England's advisory group on artificial intelligence, are less convinced.

Prof. Susskind admits that the concept of a computer judge was terrifying to him in the 1980s, but that he no longer is.

Even prior to the coronavirus outbreak, he points out that "Brazil had a court backlog of more than 100 million court cases, and that there is no chance that human judges and lawyers could deal with a caseload of that size."

So, if an artificial intelligence system can predict the outcome of court decisions with high accuracy (say, with 95 percent probability), he suggests that we should consider treating these predictions as binding decisions, particularly in countries with impossibly large backlogs of cases.