Startup Behind AI DoNotPay Being Sued for Lack of Law License
The lawyer AI saga seems to have only gotten started. As we reported earlier this year, DoNotPay faced great scrutiny from legal professionals who decided to bow out of the courtroom, at least for now. But that doesn’t seem to be enough as one law firm from Chicago filed a class action against the startup on March 3rd. The firm, Edelson filed case number: CGC23604987 against the startup in The Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco.
Overall, the complaint against DoNotPay states, “Unfortunately for its customers, DoNotPay is not actually a robot, a lawyer, nor a law firm. DoNotPay does not have a law degree, is not barred in any jurisdiction, and is not supervised by any lawyer.” Edelson filed the complaint on behalf of Jonathan Faridian, who is claiming he used the tap to draft a variety of legal documents. This includes a job discrimination complaint, a small claims court filing, and a couple of demand letters.
The complaint follows that the party believed that they’d purchased legitimate legal documents “from a lawyer that was competent to provide them,” but got “substandard” results.” Last Thursday, Joshua Browder, DoNotPay CEO, took to Twitter to make clear that the claims held “no merit“. He also pledged that he’d fight the lawsuit in court as Browder claims that Edelson’s lawsuit seeks to end any AI program used in law.
You can read the full response below:
As reported earlier this year, the legal industry has been quite hostile to the idea of AI technology being used in court. This came to a head when DoNotPay CEO offered to represent a plaintiff in the U.S. Supreme Court, due to how confident he was with the program. But once the news went viral, lawyers and attorney generals across the nation began questioning the legality of DoNotPay’s ability to practice law.
While speaking with Business Insider, Jay Edelson who filed the complaint against DoNotPay stated his view of Joshua Browder’s comment on Twitter. Saying in part, “We understood when we filed suit that Josh and DoNotPay would try to distract from their misconduct in any way possible. They attacked our client and now are attacking me.”
Originally posted on OpenDataScience.com
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