Can A Robot Lawyer Defend Itself Against Class Action Lawsuit For Unauthorized Practice Of Law
We were already expecting a lawsuit to be filed against DoNotPay, the massively hyped up company that promises an “AI lawyer” despite all evidence suggesting it’s nothing of the sort. Investigator and paralegal (and Techdirt guest author and podcast guest) Kathryn Tewson had already filed for pre-action discovery in New York, in the expectation of filing a consumer rights case against the company.
However, some others have also jumped in, with a class action complaint being filed in state court in California (first covered by Courthouse News). The full complaint is worth reading.
Defendant DoNotPay claims to be the “world’s first robot lawyer” that can help people with a range of legal issues, from drafting powers of attorney, to creating divorce settlement agreements, or filing suit in small claims court.
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.
DoNotPay is merely a website with a repository of—unfortunately, substandard— legal documents that at best fills in a legal adlib based on information input by customers.
This is precisely why the practice of law is regulated in every state in the nation. Individuals seeking legal services most often do not fully understand the law or the implications of the legal documents or processes that they are looking to DoNotPay for help with.
The key claim is that DoNotPay is engaged in the unauthorized practice of law. And, of course, this is mostly on CEO/founder Joshua Browder and his greatly exaggerated marketing claims. Of course, when Tewson confronted him on this, he told her “the robot lawyer stuff is a controversial marketing term, but I would (sic) get to wound up over it.”
Yeah, but the thing is, people relying on you for legal services might (reasonably?) get “wound up over it” if the legal services they receive make life worse for themselves. The complaint highlights just how hard the company has leaned into these claims about being a “robot lawyer.”
Yeah, I’m going to have to say that this is probably not a good look if you’re then going to claim in court that your “robot lawyer” is not actually doing legal stuff. The complaint also anticipates Browder’s usual response to critics. As we’ve noted, he has a habit of insisting that it’s all nothing important, and it’s just “greedy lawyers” who are scared that he’s disrupting their business.
The complaint pre-buts that argument:
Not surprisingly, DoNotPay has been publicly called out for practicing law without a license—most recently in relation to a stunt in which it sought to actively represent a client in court using AI. In response, DoNotPay’s CEO deflects, blaming “greedy lawyers” for getting in the way….
Sadly, DoNotPay misses the point. Providing legal services to the public, without being a lawyer or even supervised by a lawyer is reckless and dangerous. And it has real world consequences for customers it hurts.
The complaint then highlights some of the problems users of DoNotPay have faced while relying on the service:
One customer, who posted an online review, used DoNotPay’s legal services to dispute two parking tickets. According to his account, his fines actually increased because DoNotPay failed to respond to the ticket summons. The customer then cancelled his account, but DoNotPay continued to charge a subscription fee.
DoNotPay’s service then reversed another customer’s arguments in her parking ticket dispute. Where she had intended to argue she was not at fault, DoNotPay’s services instead admitted fault, and the customer had to pay a resulting $114 fine.
Those are based on online reviews, but the complaint also details the named plaintiff in this case, Jonathan Faridian, and his experience:
Plaintiff Faridian believed he was purchasing legal documents and services that would be fit for use from a lawyer that was competent to provide them. Unfortunately, Faridian did not receive that.
The services DoNotPay provided to Faridian were not provided by a law firm, lawyer, or by a person supervised by a lawyer or firm.
The services DoNotPay provided Faridian were substandard and poorly done.
For example, the demand letters DoNotPay drafted for him, and which were to be delivered to the opposing party, never even made it to his intended recipient. Rather, the letters were ultimately returned undelivered to Faridian’s home. Upon opening one of the letters, Faridian found it to be an otherwise-blank piece of paper with his name printed on it. As a result of this delay, his claims may be time-barred.
Other documents Faridian purchased from DoNotPay were so poorly or inaccurately drafted that he could not even use them. For example, Faridian requested an agency agreement for an online marketing business he wished to start. Upon reviewing the agency agreement drafted by DoNotPay, he noted that the language did not seem to apply to his business. Even the names of relevant parties were printed inaccurately. Faridian was ultimately unable to use this document in his business project. In the end, Faridian would not have paid to use DoNotPay’s services had he known that DoNotPay was not actually a lawyer.
Yikes. Perhaps not a surprise after what Tewson had found, but, still. Sending a blank piece of paper with just his name on it, and not even delivering it properly?
DoNotPay gave Courthouse News a statement that seems typical of its responses to these kinds of allegations… once again attacking the lawyers.
“The named plaintiff has submitted dozens of cases and seen significant success with our products,” the company said. “The case is being filed by a lawyer that has personally made hundreds of millions from class actions, so it’s not surprising that he would accuse an AI of ‘unauthorized practice of law.’ Once we respond in court, this will be cleared up.”
It is true that Jay Edelson is a well known class action lawyer, who has somewhat famously sued a wide variety of Silicon Valley tech companies. I would argue that not all of his lawsuits are necessarily well targeted, but plenty of them are legit, and he’s generally not messing around when he sues. In other words, this may not be the kind of thing that Browder wouldn’t get “wound up over” but… he probably should.