DoNotPay "robot lawyer" bot can now help with 1,000 different areas of law in all 50 U.S....

[Jos]

DoNotPay, the chatbot that became known for helping users challenge thousands of unfair parking fines and refugees apply for asylum, has announced a massive expansion to bring its AI-based free legal counseling to 1,000 different areas of law in all 50 US states and across the UK.

The new broad range of capabilities include bots to apply for more parental leave, fight a fraudulent purchase on your credit card, claiming lost luggage for an airline, make insurance claims, resolve landlord disputes and lots more. The bot won’t help you take on court battles, but it can help with anything involving documents — users simply state the problem they are trying to solve, answer a few questions, and DoNotPay will fill out the right forms or generate letters for you.

Joshua Browder, the British entrepreneur behind the so-called “robot lawyer” has been working with volunteer and part-time lawyers to deal with the differences between state laws and make locality-specific bots. IBM also offered its Watson technology for free to DoNotPay, making the tool smarter about figuring out what users need when expressing their legal questions in natural language.

If it can’t help with someone’s specific legal queries, DoNotPay may still be able to refer the person to a resource, law firm, or charity that’s willing to help.

The service started as a side project for Browder but he is now working on it full time as an entrepreneur-in-residence (EIR) at Greylock and receiving advice from the firm. It’s already saved people an estimated $9.3 million disputing 375,000 parking tickets.

Browder hasn't accepted any outside funding as of yet, but he’s considering some monetization options down the road while keeping the service free for users. One option is sponsorships, like a car dealership sponsoring a parking ticket bot specific to its city, for example

The new capabilities that come with today’s update are available through the web only, not the Facebook Messenger chatbot were the service originated.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/70140-donotpay-robot-lawyer-bot-can-now-help-1000.html

 

[stewi0001]

I'm sorry to hear that

 

[Uncle Al]

The end of lawyers as we know them today .... fantastic! Now, could he do something about politicians????

 

[Abraka]

Amazing!!!

Finally the bloodsucking lawyers will have to reduce their fees.

I hope politicians, medical doctors and other parasites are next.

 

[kapital98]

The end of lawyers as we know them today .... fantastic! Now, could he do something about politicians????

There is potential here but right now this service is pretty useless. Full disclosure: I'm an attorney who works in fields that require a lot of representation and some that can be done pro se (though the litigants are far more likely to lose without lawyers).

This service, as of now, is not even as good as other free legal sites like Avvo or Nolo. This is not in any way a real replacement for lawyers. As for things like parking tickets, lawyers don't represent stuff like that anyways (why spend $500 for a $30 ticket?).

The marketing of DoNotPay just isn't realistic. Though that could change in due time.

 

[erickmendes]

I'm thinking about a chatbot for my Workplace... It would help people that need info when on the building or need something from us, a chatbot would help with some simple someone reporting that there's no toilet paper, or a sink with problem, or basic location info... But It would be thru whatsapp.

 

[Kibaruk]

The end of lawyers as we know them today .... fantastic! Now, could he do something about politicians????

There is potential here but right now this service is pretty useless. Full disclosure: I'm an attorney who works in fields that require a lot of representation and some that can be done pro se (though the litigants are far more likely to lose without lawyers).

This service, as of now, is not even as good as other free legal sites like Avvo or Nolo. This is not in any way a real replacement for lawyers. As for things like parking tickets, lawyers don't represent stuff like that anyways (why spend $500 for a $30 ticket?).

The marketing of DoNotPay just isn't realistic. Though that could change in due time.

While true this can't replace lawyers, as the bot won't litigate in court, I think it's good enough to help people in a way they can get help for free and when not, point them the right way.

 

[kapital98]

While true this can't replace lawyers, as the bot won't litigate in court, I think it's good enough to help people in a way they can get help for free and when not, point them the right way.

What I'm getting at is this AI is less helpful than already existing, well indexed services. I was typing a ton of inquires into it to see what would come up.

At this time looking at Nolo or Avvo (both found with a quick google search) are much more helpful and also free.

With time the AI might be useful but at this time it's not something I would point people to if they needed a basic understanding of the law (how to evict someone, fight a ticket, etc) compare to no-AI sites.