Robot-Jury

On the final day of the Clio Cloud Conference, Joshua Lenon, Clio lawyer-in-residence, and Joshua Browder, founder of chatbot legal service DoNotPay, discussed the ways chatbots can help access to justice efforts.

Chatbots can be used by lawyers and firms to screen possible clients' questions to see if their claim warrants a lawyer's time. The cases that would only win small dollar amounts, after all, would most likely not be financially beneficial to lawyers and could be better handled by automated systems powered with legal knowledge.

That's where Browder's DoNotPay comes in. DoNotPay is powered by bots that help individuals through a number of legal process, including filing a complaint against companies, fighting parking tickets and filing complaints against airlines.

On Friday, Browder announced DoNotPay will be rolling out 15 new legal services products, focused on civil cases, which it will offer free of charge.

The process starts with a user selecting how much money they want in the small claims issue, choosing one of 15 generic legal issues to address and answering questions regarding that issue. The bot generates a “suite” of documents to help the user, then provides filing information and generates a script of prepared answers that a judge or a cross-examiner is likely to ask, explained Browder. The bots can also help to generate a initial demand letter to help seize someone's assets if the DoNotPay user is the victor.

Browder said he originally thought his bots would replace lawyers, but instead found that the  bots haven't diminished the need of lawyers, yet have helped underserved people access civil litigation. He added that “to help people have access to justice, you have to control the complete process from start to finish.”

Chatbots aren't new to the legal field. ZentLaw has a lawyer-facing chat bot program that answers common questions poised by law firms and legal departments. Jurisdictions like Utah are also moving toward “virtual” small claims courts that require online only litigation in a bid to make civil litigation more accessible.

Bots, however, cannot automate all legal services. Browder did concede that there are legal obstacles that are too complicated, at the moment, for bots to handle. Non-litigation contests however, are “fair game,” Browder said.

There is also evidence that such bots would be welcome by potential legal consumers. Clio's Lenon reiterated stats from a recently released Clio survey that found that 35 percent of those who faced a legal problem in the past two years did not hire a lawyer because they were unable to afford it. But the same group said they were OK using a virtual lawyer when poised with a legal issue, according to the survey.