Robot Lawyer Goes To Court

It’s 2023, and the world will be keeping a close eye on the outcome of a simple speeding ticket case.

Why?

Because this is the year an AI-powered robot lawyer will defend a human client in a courtroom.

Back in 2020 we wrote about 18-year-old Londoner Joshua Browder who had come up with a chatbot app called ‘DoNotPay’ originally to help friends fight speeding tickets. He commercialised it and won awards, including from the American Bar Association.

This February, the ‘DoNotPay’ robot will listen to proceedings, process and analyse the data, and then advise the defendant via a smartphone and a set of headphones. What we don’t yet know is where the case is being held or who the defendant is.

Why should this be worth pursuing? Well, it could be a lot cheaper to use an AI-powered robot on your smartphone than to pay a lawyer to come to court. In the UK, costs for a lawyer in a speeding case will cost hundreds and can cost more than £1000 depending on the case complexities.

Over the last few years, law firms have increasingly embraced legal tech. There’s no doubt it can supplement legal work and has the potential to reduce billable hours considerably.

Another AI-powered robot lawyer is LISA—hailed as the ‘world’s first impartial lawyer’, capable of drawing up legally binding contracts by only dealing in facts and avoiding any conflicts of interest. Last year, Morgan Stanley used robot lawyers to review and revise LIBOR contracts worth trillions of dollars and claims to have saved 50 thousand hours and $10 million in legal fees.

Few of us seriously considered an AI-powered robot lawyer could replace a human lawyer in court. It looks like this could be the year to challenge that perception.

Do you think this technology could see courtroom lawyers replaced?