A robot lawyer has been attacked by a lawsuit for practicing without earning a law degree. Owned by DoNotPay, the company’s AI lawyer has been accused of poorly practising without an official license.
The class action lawsuit was filed by Edelson, a California-based law firm, on behalf of user Jonathan Faridian. In the lawsuit, it states that the quality of legal documents generated by the AI program were so poor and inaccurate that they were unusuable.
Faridian used the DoNotPay robot lawyer to generate a number of legal documents. The user attempted to use the program to create a small claims court filing and a job discrimination complaint, but the quality was astoundingly terrible.
The AI program created documents that were “so poorly or inaccurately drafted that he could not even use them”, the lawsuit says. However, DoNotPay claims that is not the case.
In the lawsuit, Edelson, which has sued Google, Apple and more for billions, claims the service is “not actually a robot”, “does not have a law degree” and is “not barred in any jurisdiction”. DoNotPay is fighting all of the above.
On Twitter, DoNotPay CEO Joshua Browden claimed that the law firm’s claims have “no merit” and that Edelson’s massive payouts from previous lawsuits are the reason the robot lawyer was invented.
“Jay Edelson inspired me to start DoNotPay because he symbolizes everything wrong with the law,” he wrote. “In a recent Facebook settlement, for example, he made $97,500,000. A minority of consumers made $375 and, the majority, who couldn't fill out complicated "claim forms," got $0.”
He continued: “Time and time again the only people that win are the lawyers. So I wanted to do something about it, building the DoNotPay robot lawyer to empower consumers to take on corporations on their own. This put my target on my back and Edelson began a campaign to stop us.”
Browden told his followers that “DoNotPay is not going to be bullied by America's richest class action lawyer.”
Previously, DoNotPay offered $1 million to anyone who would use the company’s robot lawyer to defend them in court. However, that plan got killed after legal threats targeted the company.
This recent lawsuit isn’t the only legal trouble facing DoNotPay’s AI lawyer. Recently, the FTC issued a warning against the AI company selling its legal tools.