"The World's First Robot Lawyer Has Been Practicing Law Without a License —"

"doing a pretty poor job of it to boot, according to a putative class action filed Tuesday," reports Courthouse News Service.

From its story:

Defendant DoNotPay Inc. began as an app to fight parking tickets and in the eight years since it began has morphed into an online legal service which claims to be able to handle a slew of legal services for its clients ranging from finding hidden money and filing lawsuits to annulling marriages and beating bureaucracy, all without having to hire a lawyer.

The app now offers divorce settlement agreements, defamation demand letters, restraining orders, and U.S. Securities and Exchange complaints in addition to dozens of other legal services. "The DoNotPay app is the home of the world's first robot lawyer," the company claims on its website. "Fight corporations, beat bureaucracy and sue anyone at the press of a button."

But the plaintiffs in Tuesday's lawsuit have their doubts….

You can read the Complaint; here's DoNotPay's initial response (though of course it will respond in more detail in the litigation):

"The named plaintiff has submitted dozens of cases and seen significant success with our products," the company said. "The case is being filed by a lawyer that has personally made hundreds of millions from class actions, so it's not surprising that he would accuse an AI of 'unauthorized practice of law.' Once we respond in court, this will be cleared up."

Thanks to Media Law Resource Center's MediaLawDaily for the pointer.

Comments

[John F. Carr]

"The case is being filed by a lawyer that has personally made hundreds of millions from class actions"

If the defendant could prove that the plaintiffs' lawyer was in it to save his own business income, would that do the defendant any good?

[Noscitur a sociis]

No.

[Dr. Ed 2]

IANAA -- but Mass Bar Rule 1.7 and 1.8 come to mind -- conflicts of interest.

It's not the attorney's business income but the best interests of his other clients and he's spread such a broad net that he inevitably is including his past, current & future clients, and the harm to them is that they will have to pay money to him for services that they (theoretically) could have gotten for less from the automated system.

Yes, it's a stretch -- but it's also a stretch for him to claim that doing a terrible job in and of itself constitutes unlicensed practice of law.

Again, IANAA but As have told me about the concept of not only an actual conflict of interest but "the appearance of a conflict of interest."

[David Nieporent]

IANAA

Why oh why couldn't you have stopped there?

[Dr. Ed 2]

What the legal profession needs to understand is that it must respect the public or it will be controlled by the public.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Yes, it’s a stretch — but it’s also a stretch for him to claim that doing a terrible job in and of itself constitutes unlicensed practice of law.

Could you quote the part of the complaint that you feel makes that claim?

[Dr. Ed 2]

See page 6 of complaint.

[David Nieporent]

Nothing on Page 6 of the complaint says any such thing.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

That's nothing, soon the same robot will serve as a lawyer, a cop, and a judge.

There will be an appeal to three higher robots (appeals courts) but it will only take seconds to process the appeals and then the sentence will be carried out.

[Bored Lawyer]

It's not a joke. In some administrative proceedings, routine requests for extensions are granted by a computer maintained by the administrative board. You can get your extension request approved in 20 minutes.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

You can still joke about it. Whistling past the graveyard. Or the Matrix.

[SMP0328]

Judge Bender Bending Rodriguez will find you guilty, the Cylon Court of Appeals will affirm, then Skynet will send a terminator to carry out the sentence.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Tough but fair.

[SRG]

Wait until we get a robo-plaintiff suing a robo-defendant...that will be the funniest case since Cellino sued Barnes (tristate area ref)

[Krayt]

handle a slew of legal services for its clients ranging from finding hidden money

My bro got taken in by a scam artist on this decades ago. For $200, they’d tell you a get rich quick scheme. Money parted, he got a box which had in it three papers. One that said, “Go look on government lists of escrowed money owed to people by banks and government and rando business they've lost track of, and track them down and get them to sign the second paper, a power of attorney, and you will get their money in exchange for 30%.”

The third paper, not told to you until after your money was in their hands, was “We believe this market is saturated.”

[Noscitur a sociis]

It is perhaps worth noting that, in addition to not being a lawyer, the service is also almost certainly not a robot.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I am *not* an attorney, but was once a paralegal and the complaint strikes me as bizarre.

First, exactly how does California define “the practice of law” — taking, for example, Massachusetts (with all caveats) — there are non-lawyer advocates who attend court with women seeking 209A (abuse protective) orders and they stand beside the women in court while the women testify (etc.) but don’t address the court.

There are all kinds of non-lawyers who help people obtain government benefits, it’s something that social workers routinely do and there are other specialized advocates that do likewise, particularly in immigrant communities where there is also a language barrier. (Some are competent, some are very much *not*, but none are lawyers.)

How about law librarians? Several helped me with my dissertation and California’s educational code had several things I needed help understanding. They were licensed in Massachusetts — but not California — was that “practicing law in California”?

And when I was a “janitor” (actually student advisor), I once walked into a meeting with the Dean and a student and dropped a copy of Cohen v. California (“Fuck the Draft”) on the dean’s lap — the student was in trouble for having been overheard saying “Fuck the Union” at lunch. Was that the unlicensed practice of law?

Likewise, as a “janitor”, I spoke with the probation people on behalf of a different young man (who was with me) as to what he needed to do with them. Neither I nor the probation people were attorneys.

Please correct me if I am wrong, but my definition of “practice of law” (requiring licensure) is restricted to (a) addressing the court on behalf of *another* or (b) filing paperwork in your own name. I don’t even believe that Clerk Magistrates have to be lawyers, and they conduct the preliminary hearings.

2: What — exactly — does the fact that his product sucked have to do with it being the unlicensed practice of law? Would all of the allegations of unlicensed practice have evaporated if it hadn’t?

3: Years back, West Publishing had a book of standard legal forms for each state. Was (a) *everyone* involved in that, including the bookbinder, licensed to practice in that particular state, and (b) was selling someone a copy of it the unlicensed practice of law?

3A: What is the difference between selling me that book knowing that I would copy the format (and insert my personal information) as I typed it on something we called a “typewriter” back then and selling me access to a .pdf where I could get the whole thing pre-typed?

4: Doesn’t the fact that the alleged “victim” knew that the forms were no good and didn’t use them negate his entire argument about the public being too ignorant to know anything legal?

5: Are Pro Se plaintiffs/defendants practicing law without a license? How about woman who has her 12-year-old son translating for her? What if she was using a computer that she typed her language into and it came out as spoken English?

6: Above and beyond that pesky “right to counsel”, what ever happened to the First Amendment. About 50 years ago now, a bunch of feminists (non MDs) published a book entitled “Our Bodies, Ourselves” which was about female health (mostly reproductive) and seriously pissed off the mostly-male cadre of MDs. But they were protected by the First Amendment.

As I understand it, if they had actually *conducted* an OB/GYN exam on another woman, that would have been practicing medicine without a license. But telling her how to do it herself was not. How is this different?

7: I sit in one of Professor Volokh’s classes — maybe even graduate from his law school, but never take (or more likely never pass) the California Bar. I then go Pro Se and thinking I remember what he taught, make a mess of something. Is he liable?

7A: Would it even make a difference if he was a member of the Cali Bar or not? Not all law professors are — e.g. the combined JD/MBA program have business faculty who aren’t, although there may be some ABA hoops the school has to jump through.

7B: Teaching law does not require a bar card — I’ve done it. I took four undergrad law classes, all taught by professors with PhDs in Political Science and no law degree.

[John F. Carr]

Some acts that have been held to be limited to the lawyer's guild, in some states but not necessarily all states:
1. Helping a person prepare court filings with case-specific legal arguments. I think the concern is non-lawyers will annoy the court with bad legal arguments.
2. Preparing closing documents for a real estate transaction. The documents hopefully never end up before a judge, and some of them are standard forms, but they still have to be handled by a lawyer in Massachusetts.

[Dr. Ed 2]

"1. Helping a person prepare court filings with case-specific legal arguments.

Hmmm....

Thinking of 209As, which I helped some girls get as a "janitor" (I also had a car and it wasn't parked a mile away like the undergrads were) -- the police help her with case-specific arguments for the emergency order, and then the advocates prepare her for the hearing the next day, and neither are attorneys. (The advocates also encourage them to embellish their testimony, which I found disturbing.)

As to the larger issue, how would you ever prove that someone helped someone else with case specific legal arguments? (How *did* they?)

Preparing closing documents for a real estate transaction.

Hmmm.... Maine law is very similar to MA law, and I know lots of people who have bought and sold property without a lawyer, writing their own deeds and often inserting their own corner markers. Now these were cash transactions, but still (in some cases) property that is considerably more valuable than it was 50 years ago.

[John F. Carr]

The rules in Massachusetts were established in 2011 in the Supreme Judicial Court case Real Estate Bar Association for Massachusetts v. National Real Estate Information Services. A private sale with no financing might be doable without lawyers if the parties understand how to write a contract and deed.

[Dr. Ed 2]

"Because deeds pertaining to real property directly affect significant legal rights and obligations, the drafting for others of deeds to real property constitutes the practice of law in Massachusetts.[emphasis added]. (Pg 525?)

Apparently a non-lawyer can write one's own deeds.

[David Nieporent]

Please correct me if I am wrong,

I have tried oh so many times. It never takes.

[OtisAH]

“The World’s First Robot Lawyer Isn’t A Lawyer, And I’m Not Sure It’s Even A Robot”

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/01/24/the-worlds-first-robot-lawyer-isnt-a-lawyer-and-im-not-sure-its-even-a-robot/

[Roman Moroni]

I hope Unfrozen Robot Lawyer gets to represent itself in court.

I’m just a robot. Your human thoughts and emotions confuse and frighten me. But one thing I do know; that Mass Bar rules 1.7 and 1.8 clearly state…

[Scribe]

This is quite serious - if only because a misplaced or mis-chosen word can have serious consequences.
Years ago, a colleague and I represented a residuary beneficiary against the home health care aide who'd drafted and supervised the execution of a decedent's will. He had been the kind of person who was constantly revising his will. His lawyer - as many small-town, small-firm practitioners do - made house calls to do the execution.
Anyway, the decedent decided to leave some of his estate to the aide - the house and its contents, for her and her daughter to live in. She drafted and conducted the execution of a will leaving herself the house and contents, knowing there was a safe in the basement holding a million dollars in stock (to which she did not have the combination).
She showed up, suing the estate and the residuary, demanding the stock, too. What she didn't know is that under that state's law the stock was considered "contents" NOT of the house, but rather of the safe.
She said the decedent intended to give her the stock. We counterclaimed. We accused her of legal malpractice because she hadn't properly effected the testator's intent - if he really intended for her to have the stock she should have given herself the "contents" of the safe, or just given herself the stock outright.
We also demanded she get nothing because in that state (1) it is per se unethical for an attorney to draw a [non-family member] client's will where that attorney takes any benefit under the will (arguably including being the executor), and (2) it is a crime for someone to practice law without a license and make any money (or otherwise derive a benefit) from that. And equity won't be used to facilitate a crime.

She settled. She got the house. The residuary got the stock.