AI: the robot-lawyer DoNotPay sued for his lack of diploma

In the United States, DoNotPay, presented as “the world’s first robot lawyer” and who claims to use artificial intelligence to help consumers defend themselves in court, may have to give up. A leading law firm filed a lawsuit against the robot are legal arts, accusing him of practicing law without a license. “He is actually neither a robot, nor a lawyer, nor a law firm”the Chicago-based firm said in its lawsuit filed in California.

A simple app allegedly powered by AI

Let’s go back to the dawn of this funny project. DoNotPay is a legal services chatbot, originally designed to dispute parking tickets, but whose missions have expanded over time. It is now able to support requests for reimbursement of plane tickets, asylum applications, and even to prosecute individuals. DoNotPay is a downloadable mobile application that therefore claims to use artificial intelligence to provide legal services for a subscription fee of a few tens of dollars per year. It is currently available in the UK and the US.

Edelson Law Firm filed the case on behalf of a Californian named Jonathan Faridian, who said he used DoNotPay for a variety of reasons, including writing demand letters, and obtaining results “substandard and poorly made”. Faridian said he “would not have paid to use the services of DoNotPay if he had known that it was not a lawyer”. In fact, the complaint seems above all to be aimed at protecting the profession. She alleges that DoNotPay violates California’s Unfair Competition Act, which prohibits a company from “illegal, unfair or fraudulent commercial act or practice [ainsi que la] misleading or misleading advertising”.

DoNotPay used to defend DoNotPay?

“DoNotPay denies these false allegationssaid a spokesperson for the company. It’s no surprise that a lawyer who has made hundreds of millions is suing an artificial intelligence service that costs $18 for unauthorized practice of law. We look forward to defending ourselves in court.” Company CEO Joshua Browder commented on the case on his Twitter feed, explaining that he might even use the robo-lawyer in the case. He also reports that the plaintiff is training as a lawyer, which undermines the theory that he expected to receive official documents from a law firm using the app.

The complaint comes as tools powered by artificial intelligence are extremely popular, evidenced by the success of OpenAI with ChatGPT, as well as the Microsoft Bing and Google Bard chatbots. According to certain studies, the legal professions would be among the first threatened by the popularization of these generative AIs.