Robot, Esquire
You have probably already heard that robots are coming to take your job. Automated machines are capable of completing many tasks as well or better than humans. The evolution of Henry Ford’s assembly line is the quintessential example, which used to be manned by dozens of humans and is now an array of robotic arms completing the same tasks.
Legal professionals have had their heads in the sand for years, not wanting to admit that robots could replace the menial work currently assigned to a bullpen of interns and associates. For various reasons, the legal industry leaders have not turned their eye to the future but have instead elected to operate in yesteryear. One of those reasons is a rule against outside financing, making it more difficult for firms to raise the capital to develop new tools internally. Another is simply a fear of cannibalizing its own cash cow.
We are probably all familiar with Jeff Goldblum’s famous line from Jurassic Park — “Life, uh, finds a way.” Well, so too does capitalism. If there is a cheaper way of doing something, someone in the market will find it. For legal automation, one of those breakthroughs is the chatbot. If you are part of a GroupMe messaging thread, you’ve probably already been introduced to Zo. Zo and Facebook Messenger’s “M” are robots capable of taking action on conversational cues. They help you share a location, find applicable GIFs, etc. Chatbots are making inroads in the provision of legal services, and sources like Above the Law, the ABA Journal, and Mashable took notice.
Much of the focus is on DoNotPay, a chatbot originally designed to help offenders avoid paying for traffic tickets. Its founder, Joshua Browder, posted this message on Medium just a few days ago. He is opening his vision to the countless other possibilities that a conversational bot can reach by opening up the platform. By doing so, Browder allows others to use the program to collect meaningful information in an engaging way and prepare legal documentation based on replies.
It ingeniously takes the intimidation factor out of preparing official and authoritative legal documents. Legal professionals and law students have had access to legal forms through Westlaw, Bloomberg, and LexisNexis to quickly fill out boilerplate documents, but the method DoNotPay uses is so easy it hardly feels like any work at all. The ask-and-answer autopopulation of documents is so simple it would shock me if DoNotPay does not become a household name like LegalZoom or Rocket Lawyer.
Technology aims to make processes easier and to make results more uniform. One way it does this is by tackling ease-of-access issues and removing the glut of menial work done by error-prone humans. Technology will continue to push lawyers to be their most efficient selves, to adapt and specialize their talents.