41 ms·

This is so fucking dumb. As if you need a lawyer to contest a parking ticket in the first place. The last time I got a parking ticket I had photos and document

by dools 4y ago

This is so fucking dumb. As if you need a lawyer to contest a parking ticket in the first place. The last time I got a parking ticket I had photos and documentary evidence that I should not have been liable. After I lodged my intent to contest the fine, the council sent me a letter saying how they win 97% of cases and I should just pay up now to avoid the risk. I called bullshit and turned up on my court date. There were a bunch of cases heard before mine, 3 of which were parking violations. In all 3 cases the defendants received a default judgement because the council didn’t even bother to send someone to fight the case. My case got the same result. Maybe I would hire a lawyer to sue the council for intimidation over the letter they sent, but I sure as hell wouldn’t use an AI lawyer for that!

parsimo2010 4y ago
The issue here (as with many disruptive tech companies), is the regulatory system. It is illegal in most states to give legal advice if you are not licensed to practice law. If DoNotPay isn't licensed to practice law in California, they can't do this. And unless they have a plan to either get licensed in many states, or somehow change the law, then their business model sucks. It sounds to me that they haven't actually solved the real problem with the $28 million in investment money they took. The particular AI tech will have very little bearing on the company's eventual success or failure. The real problem isn't the complexity of the arguments in most cases (as your story shows). The real problem is the complexity of the regulatory system. Tesla has to deal with the dealership rules in several states. Fintech companies that handle real money have to deal with financial regulations or else they are smuggling money. Biotech startups have to follow the FDA rules or they are just drug dealers. Legal advice companies will have to deal with the rules too- and their opponents are particularly challenging.
- freejazz 4y ago
  >"The real problem isn't the complexity of the arguments in most cases (as your story shows)." Uhh, do you think most attorneys work cases that are in traffic court? That's not the case.
- tialaramex 4y ago
  Does the US have McKenzie Friends ? Seems like "No". You should get McKenzie Friends. McKenzie Friends can't represent you in court, in most cases they're not allowed to address the court, but they can help you in all the other ways you'd expect, like quietly prompting you on what points to mention, keeping notes, ensuring you have the right paperwork. Friend stuff. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKenzie_friend https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKenzie_friend
  - parsimo2010 4y ago
    The US does not have them, and they are not legal. I agree that they could be useful. But in the US you have strictly two options- represent yourself to a court, or let a bar-certified lawyer represent you. Nobody else gets to help in court. Outside of court, legal assistants help lawyers with administrative stuff- doing legal research, organizing paperwork, etc. But the lawyer holds the sole responsibility to the court. Unless DoNotPay has a strategy to change the law, they are in trouble. It seems that this case was a publicity stunt and not part of a larger strategy.
    - asvitkine 4y ago
      Seems like the company could perhaps switch its focus to markets where these are allowed?
      - idkyall 4y ago
        It's sort of a catch-22, Law in the US is only a lucrative market to disrupt because the regulation and gatekeeping has made labor expensive. If lawyers didn't bill 300+/hr in the US, then an AI powered startup to replace them wouldn't be cost effective. There's a joke I saw recently about a guy hiring a lawyer for a $800 traffic violation and getting a bill for $1200. I can't speak to the price of a lawyer abroad, but a quick google seems to indicate US lawyer salaries on avg are up to ~2x as much as in some parts of Europe[1][2]. [1]https://www.legalcheek.com/2020/12/revealed-the-eu-countries-where-lawyers-earn-the-most/ https://www.legalcheek.com/2020/12/revealed-the-eu-countries... [2]https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/lawyer/salary https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/lawyer/salary
- Nowado 4y ago
  Following the analogy, aren't there supplements and collectibles for law?
- shubb 4y ago
  If GPT can pass an MBA paper, can a carefully trained chatbot mixed with hand coded logic pass a bar exam?
  - parsimo2010 4y ago
    Only four states allow people to take the bar exam without earning a juris doctorate (J.D.) from law school. And three other states require some law school experience but do not require graduating with a J.D. So in 43 states the answer is no. A chatbot never attended law school and doesn't have a J.D., so it can't take the exam. If it can't take the exam, it can't pass. I suppose if you could get the chatbot permission to take the exam, a properly trained one could pass. But as I said in my post up a level, the issue isn't the AI chatbot. It's the rules. https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/can-you-take-the-bar-exam-without-going-to-law-school https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/can-...
    - shubb 4y ago
      Doesn't this just open the question of whether the chatbot can get a JD? The other angle is whether the chatbot can be equivalent to a process which a proper person can rubber stamp. For instance, a professional engineer might run a pre-written structural engineering model against their building design and certify that the building was sound - and then stand up in court and say they had followed standard process. It seems weirdest here that the court is treating the chatbot as a person. Lawyers use computer tools all the time for discovery, and then use that information to make arguments in court as a proper person. You can represent yourself in court without being a lawyer, so isn't a person doing so just a proper person rubber stamping a an electronic output? It feels like this court decision, that an electronic tool is not a proper person, is some kind of case law that chat bots are people. I don't think they are.
      - freejazz 4y ago
        The difference is the engineer is liable... how is an AI going to be liable. What is the point of holding an AI liable? If the company is going to be liable on behalf of the AI, what do you think is going to happen? They aren't going to provide the service...
- jonstewart 4y ago
  One could also argue the real problem is the tech industry constantly ignoring regulations that were put in place for good reasons. Car dealerships are for sure a clear example of regulatory capture, but “legal advice from lawyers”, “medicine from doctors”, “insurance from companies that can prove they can pay out”, and “equities backed by actual assets” all exist for good reasons.
  - mensetmanusman 4y ago
    Licenses for cutting hair or applying makeup? https://www.mprnews.org/amp/story/2019/11/13/freelance-wedding-makeup-artists-push-back-against-new-state-regulations https://www.mprnews.org/amp/story/2019/11/13/freelance-weddi...
    - lostlogin 4y ago
      Where do you draw the line? I’d say that an industry with significant health, safety or financial risk should require regulation and licensing. Your example seems a bit crazy.
      - ajmurmann 4y ago
        The funny thing is that doctors would be the canonical examples for most people. Yet, there is no license that stops a pediatrician from performing brain surgery. What stops the pediatrician from performing brain surgery is that no hospital would hire them as a brain surgeon, no insurance would insure their brain surgery and if something goes wrong they'd likely face a lawsuit they couldn't win. Why is the system able to judge the difference between a pediatrician and a brain surgeon but we need licensing to distinguish between doctor and non-doctor?
        giantg2 4y ago
        The answer is in your question. It's the credentialing. The pediatrician lacks the credentials of a neurosurgeon. Just as non-doctors lack the credentials to work as a doctor. The hosptial, insurance, and court would all be looking at the credentials.
- markus_zhang 4y ago
  IMHO some regulation and especially entry barriers had good ideas but their con overwhelm the pro nowadays (think barriers such as foreign doctors need to re-study X years and re-practice Y years, or you simply cannot take certification exams if you do not come from Z school, or technically you may lose insurance claims on your house if you do some repairs but do not have certification K). Since the world is already running like that, IT people should join the fun, otherwise we simply get screwed by other interest groups who are protected by those barriers. Since every one of those barriers simply increase the cost of whole society for the benefit of whoever behind them, we should setup our own barriers. If you do not graduate from a CS/SE degree you cannot take certification exams, and if you don't then you cannot do programming legally. We should increase further the cost of whole society to make everyone else realize the absurdity of those barriers.
  - Loughla 4y ago
    I don't understand your statement. Because regulations have advanced various fields, like medicine, engineering, health, environment, to the point that we are seeing the fruit of that regulation, we need to get rid of the regulations? We don't have to worry about really unqualified lawyers, doctors, teachers, or engineers, etc. So what we need to do is go back to a time when we did? Also, aren't there already numerous certifications you earn for various technologies that companies explicitly look for when hiring? I'm confused about what you're getting at.
    - markus_zhang 4y ago
      Just my cynical vents about some entry barriers.
- ClarityJones 4y ago
  > It is illegal in most states to give legal advice if you are not licensed to practice law. You also can't have a human in the next room feeding you lines... even if that person is an attorney. However, a party / attorney certainly can bring in notes / a casebook / etc. You can usually bring in a laptop, with search functions, pdfs, etc. An AI that quickly presents relevant information, documents, caselaw, etc. would 100% be allowed. However, if they're sworn in to testify, these would usually be taken away, because testimony is supposed to be from personal knowledge / memory.
  - elil17 4y ago
    > You also can't have a human in the next room feeding you lines... even if that person is an attorney. I believe this varies state by state. In Delaware, litigants representing themselves can bring a cell phone to court, and could presumably use it to have lines fed to them (e.g., I don't know that anyone has done that but I can't find any rule against it). In neighboring Maryland, you can't use electronic devices for communication with persons during in court (although the AI would not be a person so it would be allowed).
  - pseingatl 4y ago
    You can have a non-lawyer represent a company or an individual in an arbitration or mediation if the parties agree.
- bloak 4y ago
  > It is illegal in most states to give legal advice if you are not licensed to practice law. Presumably that's in the USA, where all sorts of things require a licence. But what's the definition of "legal advice", I wonder? Can an unlicensed person dodge the law just by saying "this is not legal advice" while advising someone how to draft a contract or what to say in court and charging for that advice? If you want an example of advice that may or may not be "legal advice" think about how to fill in a tax return, how to apply for a government grant, how to apply for or challenge planning permission, how to deal with a difficult employer/employee/neighbour/tenant/landlord, how to apply for a patent, how to deal with various kinds of government inspector, ... That's all specialist stuff for which you might want professional advice but not necessarily from a "lawyer" (depending on what that word means in your part of the world).
  - OkayPhysicist 4y ago
    The distinction you're looking for is "legal advice" vs. "legal information". The tricky thing is that when a lawyer gives you legal advice, they are taking legal responsibility for that advice to be good. There's a guide for avoiding illegally giving legal advice for California court clerks [0] that might help clarify what information can be given without qualifying as advice. [0] https://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/mayihelpyou.pdf https://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/mayihelpyou.pdf
Pinegulf 4y ago
True, but I don't thinks it's about if you need one or not. I think it's about money. Luddites trying to keep automation out from their profession.
- throwawa454 4y ago
  I'm facing 20 years in jail. I would MUCH RATHER have an actual world class lawyer representing me than a freaking chatbot!
  - wittycardio 4y ago
    [dead]
  - renewiltord 4y ago
    Then you should go get one. Personally, I really like Envy Apples but I don't ban the other varieties, do I?
dsfyu404ed 4y ago
> This is so fucking dumb. As if you need a lawyer to contest a parking ticket in the first place. There are plenty of jurisdictions that have all sorts of onerous rules that tilt things in favor of the prosecution because they use traffic and parking enforcement as a revenue generator. These rules are cheered on by <looks around room and gestures> because politicians and high level bureaucrats aren't idiots and know how to frame things to sell them to any given audience.
P_I_Staker 4y ago
I'm betting they gas up the numbers by only considering cases that they send people to fight, and ignore these default judgement cases... that's takin' the piss, amIrite?
morpheuskafka 4y ago
The reason you would need a lawyer for a parking ticket is: 1) It's not worth your time to be there yourself. (This assumes it cannot be done by mail as in your case.) 2) To know all the local procedures, judges, etc. and know what to expect. AI is not going to take care of either of those problems.
izacus 4y ago
> This is so fucking dumb. As if you need a lawyer to contest a parking ticket in the first place. If this is dumb, then remove the regulation / requirement for the lawyer. Don't "fix" this by generating and injecting bullshit into the system and requiring that judges and everyone else now sift through the generated dross.
Digory 4y ago
Government doesn’t have time to deal with moderately informed opponents on individual tickets, so they don’t show up. DNP should take the other side of this bet. AI for prosecution.
pibechorro 4y ago
I was snatched up in an entrapment scheme by the Bronx police a decade or so ago. They waited for a bad rainy day, knowing the subway flooded badly, then put police tape around the turnstyles and opened the emergency gates wide open. As the hundreds of people followed each other down the tunnel the insticnt of everyone was to follow everyone else walking past, assuming the flooding broke the turnstyles. Fast forward 10min when the train shows up. The cops stopped the train, closed the exits and rounded up everyone issuing them 100$ tickets. I fought it. The courtroom had people, mainly minorities, in a line all around the block in winter time. It was a money generating racket, preying on the poorest citizens who could not afford a $100 ticket, to loose a day of work,let alone a lawyer. I was the only one there with a letter written by my lawyer. When it was my turn and they saw I had a lawyer ready to fight they dismissed my case with no explanation. Shameless. Everyone takes a plea deal and they just extract millions from us. The courts, lawyers, the police. Do not take plea deals! Fight them. Grind the courts, force them to work for it. Hold them accountable. I cant WAIT for ai to make them obsolete.
nzealand 4y ago
This was actually arguments for a speeding ticket in California. For those in the bay area with parking tickets.... I've had hundreds of parking tickets in California. I would always lose the first round of dispute, because it is adjudicated by the city/county that gets the revenue. The second level of dispute is reviewed by an independent party who actually looks at what you state and makes an impartial decision, and the third level is reviewed by the courts. I disputed hundreds of tickets, and only once did I almost get to the third level.
- Waterluvian 4y ago
  Are you a lawyer who deals with traffic law, or is California just some sort of dystopia where you get hundreds of parking tickets as a normal way of life? Up here in Ontario I've had 1 ticket in my life. I just... no, there is no way you're getting hundreds as an individual.
  - nzealand 4y ago
    I had the custom plates NV and ended up in some sort of dystopia where I got hundreds of parking tickets for all different makes and models of cars until well after I returned the plates. I wrote my story up here... https://100parkingtickets.com/ https://100parkingtickets.com/
    - Waterluvian 4y ago
      Good gravy. Thanks for the link. What a read.
      - nzealand 4y ago
        I originally wrote that on Craigslists rants and raves at a point in the process when I was starting to get frustrated. Just writing it out was therapeutic, it helped me see the absurd humor in the situation. Then someone responded with a link to an LA reporter who had written about similar situations. I contacted him, he wrote a story about me, and all the bureaucratic problems just went away.
fudged71 4y ago
That's the point... it's an MVP, they went for an easy basic case like Parking Tickets.

by dools 4y ago

parsimo2010 4y ago

The issue here (as with many disruptive tech companies), is the regulatory system. It is illegal in most states to give legal advice if you are not licensed to practice law. If DoNotPay isn't licensed to practice law in California, they can't do this. And unless they have a plan to either get licensed in many states, or somehow change the law, then their business model sucks. It sounds to me that they haven't actually solved the real problem with the $28 million in investment money they took. The particular AI tech will have very little bearing on the company's eventual success or failure. The real problem isn't the complexity of the arguments in most cases (as your story shows). The real problem is the complexity of the regulatory system. Tesla has to deal with the dealership rules in several states. Fintech companies that handle real money have to deal with financial regulations or else they are smuggling money. Biotech startups have to follow the FDA rules or they are just drug dealers. Legal advice companies will have to deal with the rules too- and their opponents are particularly challenging.

freejazz 4y ago
>"The real problem isn't the complexity of the arguments in most cases (as your story shows)." Uhh, do you think most attorneys work cases that are in traffic court? That's not the case.
tialaramex 4y ago
Does the US have McKenzie Friends ? Seems like "No". You should get McKenzie Friends. McKenzie Friends can't represent you in court, in most cases they're not allowed to address the court, but they can help you in all the other ways you'd expect, like quietly prompting you on what points to mention, keeping notes, ensuring you have the right paperwork. Friend stuff. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKenzie_friend https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKenzie_friend
- parsimo2010 4y ago
  The US does not have them, and they are not legal. I agree that they could be useful. But in the US you have strictly two options- represent yourself to a court, or let a bar-certified lawyer represent you. Nobody else gets to help in court. Outside of court, legal assistants help lawyers with administrative stuff- doing legal research, organizing paperwork, etc. But the lawyer holds the sole responsibility to the court. Unless DoNotPay has a strategy to change the law, they are in trouble. It seems that this case was a publicity stunt and not part of a larger strategy.
  - asvitkine 4y ago
    Seems like the company could perhaps switch its focus to markets where these are allowed?
    - idkyall 4y ago
      It's sort of a catch-22, Law in the US is only a lucrative market to disrupt because the regulation and gatekeeping has made labor expensive. If lawyers didn't bill 300+/hr in the US, then an AI powered startup to replace them wouldn't be cost effective. There's a joke I saw recently about a guy hiring a lawyer for a $800 traffic violation and getting a bill for $1200. I can't speak to the price of a lawyer abroad, but a quick google seems to indicate US lawyer salaries on avg are up to ~2x as much as in some parts of Europe[1][2]. [1]https://www.legalcheek.com/2020/12/revealed-the-eu-countries-where-lawyers-earn-the-most/ https://www.legalcheek.com/2020/12/revealed-the-eu-countries... [2]https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/lawyer/salary https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/lawyer/salary
Nowado 4y ago
Following the analogy, aren't there supplements and collectibles for law?
shubb 4y ago
If GPT can pass an MBA paper, can a carefully trained chatbot mixed with hand coded logic pass a bar exam?
- parsimo2010 4y ago
  Only four states allow people to take the bar exam without earning a juris doctorate (J.D.) from law school. And three other states require some law school experience but do not require graduating with a J.D. So in 43 states the answer is no. A chatbot never attended law school and doesn't have a J.D., so it can't take the exam. If it can't take the exam, it can't pass. I suppose if you could get the chatbot permission to take the exam, a properly trained one could pass. But as I said in my post up a level, the issue isn't the AI chatbot. It's the rules. https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/can-you-take-the-bar-exam-without-going-to-law-school https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/can-...
  - shubb 4y ago
    Doesn't this just open the question of whether the chatbot can get a JD? The other angle is whether the chatbot can be equivalent to a process which a proper person can rubber stamp. For instance, a professional engineer might run a pre-written structural engineering model against their building design and certify that the building was sound - and then stand up in court and say they had followed standard process. It seems weirdest here that the court is treating the chatbot as a person. Lawyers use computer tools all the time for discovery, and then use that information to make arguments in court as a proper person. You can represent yourself in court without being a lawyer, so isn't a person doing so just a proper person rubber stamping a an electronic output? It feels like this court decision, that an electronic tool is not a proper person, is some kind of case law that chat bots are people. I don't think they are.
    - freejazz 4y ago
      The difference is the engineer is liable... how is an AI going to be liable. What is the point of holding an AI liable? If the company is going to be liable on behalf of the AI, what do you think is going to happen? They aren't going to provide the service...
jonstewart 4y ago
One could also argue the real problem is the tech industry constantly ignoring regulations that were put in place for good reasons. Car dealerships are for sure a clear example of regulatory capture, but “legal advice from lawyers”, “medicine from doctors”, “insurance from companies that can prove they can pay out”, and “equities backed by actual assets” all exist for good reasons.
- mensetmanusman 4y ago
  Licenses for cutting hair or applying makeup? https://www.mprnews.org/amp/story/2019/11/13/freelance-wedding-makeup-artists-push-back-against-new-state-regulations https://www.mprnews.org/amp/story/2019/11/13/freelance-weddi...
  - lostlogin 4y ago
    Where do you draw the line? I’d say that an industry with significant health, safety or financial risk should require regulation and licensing. Your example seems a bit crazy.
    - ajmurmann 4y ago
      The funny thing is that doctors would be the canonical examples for most people. Yet, there is no license that stops a pediatrician from performing brain surgery. What stops the pediatrician from performing brain surgery is that no hospital would hire them as a brain surgeon, no insurance would insure their brain surgery and if something goes wrong they'd likely face a lawsuit they couldn't win. Why is the system able to judge the difference between a pediatrician and a brain surgeon but we need licensing to distinguish between doctor and non-doctor?
      - giantg2 4y ago
        The answer is in your question. It's the credentialing. The pediatrician lacks the credentials of a neurosurgeon. Just as non-doctors lack the credentials to work as a doctor. The hosptial, insurance, and court would all be looking at the credentials.
markus_zhang 4y ago
IMHO some regulation and especially entry barriers had good ideas but their con overwhelm the pro nowadays (think barriers such as foreign doctors need to re-study X years and re-practice Y years, or you simply cannot take certification exams if you do not come from Z school, or technically you may lose insurance claims on your house if you do some repairs but do not have certification K). Since the world is already running like that, IT people should join the fun, otherwise we simply get screwed by other interest groups who are protected by those barriers. Since every one of those barriers simply increase the cost of whole society for the benefit of whoever behind them, we should setup our own barriers. If you do not graduate from a CS/SE degree you cannot take certification exams, and if you don't then you cannot do programming legally. We should increase further the cost of whole society to make everyone else realize the absurdity of those barriers.
- Loughla 4y ago
  I don't understand your statement. Because regulations have advanced various fields, like medicine, engineering, health, environment, to the point that we are seeing the fruit of that regulation, we need to get rid of the regulations? We don't have to worry about really unqualified lawyers, doctors, teachers, or engineers, etc. So what we need to do is go back to a time when we did? Also, aren't there already numerous certifications you earn for various technologies that companies explicitly look for when hiring? I'm confused about what you're getting at.
  - markus_zhang 4y ago
    Just my cynical vents about some entry barriers.
ClarityJones 4y ago
> It is illegal in most states to give legal advice if you are not licensed to practice law. You also can't have a human in the next room feeding you lines... even if that person is an attorney. However, a party / attorney certainly can bring in notes / a casebook / etc. You can usually bring in a laptop, with search functions, pdfs, etc. An AI that quickly presents relevant information, documents, caselaw, etc. would 100% be allowed. However, if they're sworn in to testify, these would usually be taken away, because testimony is supposed to be from personal knowledge / memory.
- elil17 4y ago
  > You also can't have a human in the next room feeding you lines... even if that person is an attorney. I believe this varies state by state. In Delaware, litigants representing themselves can bring a cell phone to court, and could presumably use it to have lines fed to them (e.g., I don't know that anyone has done that but I can't find any rule against it). In neighboring Maryland, you can't use electronic devices for communication with persons during in court (although the AI would not be a person so it would be allowed).
- pseingatl 4y ago
  You can have a non-lawyer represent a company or an individual in an arbitration or mediation if the parties agree.
bloak 4y ago
> It is illegal in most states to give legal advice if you are not licensed to practice law. Presumably that's in the USA, where all sorts of things require a licence. But what's the definition of "legal advice", I wonder? Can an unlicensed person dodge the law just by saying "this is not legal advice" while advising someone how to draft a contract or what to say in court and charging for that advice? If you want an example of advice that may or may not be "legal advice" think about how to fill in a tax return, how to apply for a government grant, how to apply for or challenge planning permission, how to deal with a difficult employer/employee/neighbour/tenant/landlord, how to apply for a patent, how to deal with various kinds of government inspector, ... That's all specialist stuff for which you might want professional advice but not necessarily from a "lawyer" (depending on what that word means in your part of the world).
- OkayPhysicist 4y ago
  The distinction you're looking for is "legal advice" vs. "legal information". The tricky thing is that when a lawyer gives you legal advice, they are taking legal responsibility for that advice to be good. There's a guide for avoiding illegally giving legal advice for California court clerks [0] that might help clarify what information can be given without qualifying as advice. [0] https://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/mayihelpyou.pdf https://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/mayihelpyou.pdf

Pinegulf 4y ago

True, but I don't thinks it's about if you need one or not. I think it's about money. Luddites trying to keep automation out from their profession.

throwawa454 4y ago
I'm facing 20 years in jail. I would MUCH RATHER have an actual world class lawyer representing me than a freaking chatbot!
- wittycardio 4y ago
  [dead]
- renewiltord 4y ago
  Then you should go get one. Personally, I really like Envy Apples but I don't ban the other varieties, do I?

dsfyu404ed 4y ago

> This is so fucking dumb. As if you need a lawyer to contest a parking ticket in the first place. There are plenty of jurisdictions that have all sorts of onerous rules that tilt things in favor of the prosecution because they use traffic and parking enforcement as a revenue generator. These rules are cheered on by <looks around room and gestures> because politicians and high level bureaucrats aren't idiots and know how to frame things to sell them to any given audience.

P_I_Staker 4y ago

I'm betting they gas up the numbers by only considering cases that they send people to fight, and ignore these default judgement cases... that's takin' the piss, amIrite?

morpheuskafka 4y ago

The reason you would need a lawyer for a parking ticket is: 1) It's not worth your time to be there yourself. (This assumes it cannot be done by mail as in your case.) 2) To know all the local procedures, judges, etc. and know what to expect. AI is not going to take care of either of those problems.

izacus 4y ago

> This is so fucking dumb. As if you need a lawyer to contest a parking ticket in the first place. If this is dumb, then remove the regulation / requirement for the lawyer. Don't "fix" this by generating and injecting bullshit into the system and requiring that judges and everyone else now sift through the generated dross.

Digory 4y ago

Government doesn’t have time to deal with moderately informed opponents on individual tickets, so they don’t show up. DNP should take the other side of this bet. AI for prosecution.

pibechorro 4y ago

I was snatched up in an entrapment scheme by the Bronx police a decade or so ago. They waited for a bad rainy day, knowing the subway flooded badly, then put police tape around the turnstyles and opened the emergency gates wide open. As the hundreds of people followed each other down the tunnel the insticnt of everyone was to follow everyone else walking past, assuming the flooding broke the turnstyles. Fast forward 10min when the train shows up. The cops stopped the train, closed the exits and rounded up everyone issuing them 100$ tickets. I fought it. The courtroom had people, mainly minorities, in a line all around the block in winter time. It was a money generating racket, preying on the poorest citizens who could not afford a $100 ticket, to loose a day of work,let alone a lawyer. I was the only one there with a letter written by my lawyer. When it was my turn and they saw I had a lawyer ready to fight they dismissed my case with no explanation. Shameless. Everyone takes a plea deal and they just extract millions from us. The courts, lawyers, the police. Do not take plea deals! Fight them. Grind the courts, force them to work for it. Hold them accountable. I cant WAIT for ai to make them obsolete.

nzealand 4y ago

This was actually arguments for a speeding ticket in California. For those in the bay area with parking tickets.... I've had hundreds of parking tickets in California. I would always lose the first round of dispute, because it is adjudicated by the city/county that gets the revenue. The second level of dispute is reviewed by an independent party who actually looks at what you state and makes an impartial decision, and the third level is reviewed by the courts. I disputed hundreds of tickets, and only once did I almost get to the third level.

Waterluvian 4y ago
Are you a lawyer who deals with traffic law, or is California just some sort of dystopia where you get hundreds of parking tickets as a normal way of life? Up here in Ontario I've had 1 ticket in my life. I just... no, there is no way you're getting hundreds as an individual.
- nzealand 4y ago
  I had the custom plates NV and ended up in some sort of dystopia where I got hundreds of parking tickets for all different makes and models of cars until well after I returned the plates. I wrote my story up here... https://100parkingtickets.com/ https://100parkingtickets.com/
  - Waterluvian 4y ago
    Good gravy. Thanks for the link. What a read.
    - nzealand 4y ago
      I originally wrote that on Craigslists rants and raves at a point in the process when I was starting to get frustrated. Just writing it out was therapeutic, it helped me see the absurd humor in the situation. Then someone responded with a link to an LA reporter who had written about similar situations. I contacted him, he wrote a story about me, and all the bureaucratic problems just went away.

fudged71 4y ago

That's the point... it's an MVP, they went for an easy basic case like Parking Tickets.