8 ms·

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

by 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

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