Using Generative A.I. To Expand Legal Aid: The Case of “Rentervention”
By Shiva Kooragayala
The extent to which artificial intelligence can transform the legal system remains under fierce debate amongst scholars and practitioners nationwide. The use of artificial intelligence in legal practice is laden with concerns around confidentiality, privilege, and quality control. Nevertheless, projects such as Rentervention, created by Chicago-based housing justice organization Law Center for Better Housing (“LCBH”), exemplifies the immense potential for artificial intelligence to ameliorate the pervasive justice gap in our nation. The challenge will be how to harness this technology to most equitably democratize access to civil legal aid.
Legal Services Are Needed to Further Housing Justice
As pandemic-time protections expire, the need for legal assistance for renters and tenants across the nation is as great as ever. The widespread paucity of affordable housing coupled with rising costs of living have created an untenable situation for too many families. As a consequence, many low-income families have no option but to live in poor-quality housing or to deal with absentee landlords who fail to oblige by their legal obligations. Moreover, a single financial event — a medical emergency, an unexpected increase in a tuition bill, unexpected cuts in hours at work — can cause a low-income family to miss a rent payment and thereby trigger an eviction proceeding.
Here’s an all-too-common story: a family living in an affordable yet substandard apartment building finds a terrible water leak in their roof. The landlord is persistently non-responsive, so this family decides to fix the roof on their own, drawing upon their own limited savings. They have no other option. The family then deducts the amount they spent to fix their roof from their next monthly payment. A few weeks go by, and they receive a notice of eviction from their landlord. Now, the family faces an all-too-real risk of becoming homeless. However, they do not have the money to hire a lawyer, much less to find a new place to live. Hiring a legal aid attorney could be an option, but legal aid providers turn away almost half of all requests for help, purely out of the immense demand for free civil legal aid. Navigating eviction court without an attorney is a scary and overwhelming experience — and often futile in terms of the eventual outcome. Eviction court is complex and archaic and landlords come armed with experienced attorneys. Given these power asymmetries, the vast majority of renters are unrepresented and end up losing in eviction court.
For families like those in our hypothetical scenario, Rentervention has made an immense difference.
Let’s Meet “Renny.”
Renny is the Rentervention program’s chatbot that uses artificial intelligence to help empower renters in Illinois to avail themselves of their rights. Renters can ask Renny plain-language questions about poor housing conditions, utility shutoffs, security deposits, and eviction proceedings. In response, Renny provides information and resources that answer renters’ questions. Renny can help renters write letters to their landlords and complete legal forms and documents that tenants can easily download and use themselves. When appropriate, Renny connects renters to legal aid attorneys. Importantly, qualified attorneys have designed and manage Renny and Rentervention day-to-day, so clients can trust the information they receive. Renny has served over 50,000 renters since 2019.
If the family from our hypothetical scenario were to be living in Chicago, Renny would have informed them that they should have done the following: they should have notified their landlord immediately after noticing the roof leak, waited two weeks to see if the landlord would fix the issue, and then withheld a reasonable amount of their rent. Renny could have drafted an email letter to their landlord and could have connected them to resources that may have prevented them from facing an eviction. And A.I.-powered tools like Rentervention are always available to clients, day or night.
Access to a lawyer and legal help surely does not “solve” the problem facing this family nor millions of low-income families in this country today. Recognizing a right to affordable housing and advocating for increased wages and incomes are imperative. We as a society must continue addressing the structural and systematic underpinnings for why so many low-income families are so close to becoming homeless. In the meantime, increasing access to justice cannot be delayed.
Investing in Artificial Intelligence to Expand Legal Aid Is Simply Practical
Pairing every low-income family facing any legal problem with an experienced legal aid attorney would be ideal. This is why “Right to Counsel” programs are gaining traction as a cure to narrowing the justice gap. These efforts are praiseworthy and necessary. But at the same time, these programs are impractical. They are costly and thus inevitably limited in their reach and are slow to roll out. Fundamentally, there are simply not enough qualified legal aid or pro bono attorneys to meet the immense demand for legal counsel. For example, large portions of rural America lack lawyers altogether.
In 2022, nearly 92 percent of low-income families had an unmet civil legal need across the country. Given the magnitude of the problem, we need to employ every tool at our disposal. As our example here illustrates, not every civil legal problem requires full-fledged legal representation. Artificial intelligence, when designed and employed thoughtfully, can provide the sort of soft-touch help that many families need every year, and not just for housing issues. Victims of domestic violence and clients with consumer-related civil problems, for example, stand to benefit greatly from innovations similar to Rentervention. Tools like Rentervention are relatively inexpensive, scalable, and adaptable to changes in the law and legal system.
Shiva Kooragayal is a judicial law clerk for the U.S. District Courts and a board member for the Law Center for Better Housing. He is also a member of LSC’s Emerging Leaders Council.
