Tag Archives: chatbots

Legal IT

ChatGPT for Lawyers

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In this article we will first talk about recent evolutions in the field of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) in general, and about a new generation of chat bots. Then we focus on one particular one that is getting a lot of attention, i.e., ChatGPT. What is ChatGPT? What can it do, and what are the limits? Finally, we look at the relevance of ChatGPT for lawyers.

Introduction

We are witnessing the emergence of a new generation of chat bots that are more powerful than ever before. (We discussed legal chat bots before, here and here). Several of them excel in conversation. Some of these conversationalist chat bots recently made headlines on several occasions. In a first example, in December 2022, the DoNotPay chat bot renegotiated a customer’s contract with Comcast’s chat bot and managed to save 120 USD per year. (You read that correctly, two bots effectively renegotiating a contract). Shortly afterwards, a computer using a cloned voice of a customer was connected to the DoNotPay chat bot. A call was made to the support desk of a company and the speaking chat bot negotiated successfully with a live person for a reduction of a commercial penalty. The search engine You.com has added a conversation chat bot that allows people to ask a question and the reply is presented in a conversational format rather than a list of links. Microsoft has announced that its Bing search engine will start offering a conversational interface as well.

Conversationalist chat bots are a form of generative AI. Generative AI has made tremendous progress in other fields like the creation of digital artwork, or in filters and effects for all kinds of digital media, or in the generation of documents. These can be any documents: legal documents, blog or magazine articles, papers, programming code… Only days ago, the C-NET technology website revealed that they had started publishing articles since November 2022 that were entirely written by generative AI. Over a period of two months, they published 74 articles that were written by a bot, and the readers did not notice.

One chat bot in particular has been in the news on a nearly daily basis since it was launched in November 2022. Its name is ChatGPT and the underlying technology has also been used in some of the examples mentioned above.

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT stands for Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer. The Wikipedia describes it as “a chatbot launched by OpenAI in November 2022. It is built on top of OpenAI’s GPT-3 family of large language models and is fine-tuned (an approach to transfer learning) with both supervised and reinforcement learning techniques. ChatGPT was launched as a prototype on November 30, 2022, and quickly garnered attention for its detailed responses and articulate answers across many domains of knowledge.”

In other words, it’s a very advanced chat bot that can carry a conversation. It remembers previous questions you asked and the answers it gave. Because it was trained on a large-scale database of texts, retrieved from the Internet, it can converse on a wide variety of topics. And because it was trained on natural language models, it is quite articulate.

What can it do and what are the limits?

Its primary use probably is as a knowledge search engine. You can ask a question just like you ask a question in any search engine. But the feedback it gives does not consist of a series of links. Instead, it consults what it has scanned beforehand and provides you with a summary text containing the reply to the question you asked.

But it doesn’t stop there, as the examples we have already mentioned illustrate. You can ask it to write a paper or an article on a chosen topic. You can determine the tone and style of the output. Lecturers have used it to prepare lectures. Many users asked it to write poetry on topics of their choice. They could even ask it to write sonnets or limericks, and it obliged. And most of the time, with impressive results. It succeeds wonderfully well in carrying a philosophical discussion. Programmers have asked it to write program code, etc. It does a great job of describing existing artwork. In short, if the desired output is text-based, chances are ChatGPT can deliver. As one reporter remarked, the possibilities are endless.

There are of course limitations. If the data sets it learned from contained errors, false information, or biases, the system will inherit those. A reporter who asked ChatGPT to write a product review commented on how the writing style and the structure of the article were very professional, but that the content was largely wrong. Many of the specifications it gave were from the predecessor of the product it was asked to review. In other words, a review by a person who has the required knowledge is still needed.

Sometimes, it does not understand the question, and it needs to be rephrased. On the other hand, sometimes the answers are excessively verbose with little valuable content. (I guess that dataset contained speeches by politicians). There still are plenty of topics that it has no reliable knowledge of. When you ask it if it can give you some legal advice, it will tell you it is not qualified to do so. (But if you rephrase the question, you may get an answer anyway, and it may or may not be accurate). Some of the programming code appeared to be copied from sites used by developers, which would constitute a copyright infringement. And much of the suggested programming code turned out to be insufficiently secure. For those reasons, several sites like StackOverflow are banning replies that are generated by ChatGPT.

Several other concerns were also voiced. As the example of CNET shows, these new generative AI bots have the potential of eliminating the need for a human writer. ChatGPT can also write an entire full essay within seconds, making it easier for students to cheat or to avoid learning how to write properly. Another concern is the possible spread of misinformation. If you know enough sources of the dataset that the chatbot learns from, you could deliberately flood it with false information.

What is the Relevance of ChatGPT for Lawyers?

Lawyers have been using generative AI for a while. It has proven to be successful in drafting and reviewing contracts and other legal documents. Bots like DoNotPay, Lawdroid, and HelloDivorce are successfully assisting in legal matters on a daily basis. For these existing legal bots, ChatGPT can provide a user-friendly conversationalist interface that make them easier to use.

When it comes to ChatGPT itself, several lawyers have reported on their experiences and tests with the system. It turned out that it could mimic the work of lawyers with varying degrees of success. For some items, it did a great job. It, e.g., successfully wrote a draft renting agreement. And it did a good job at comparing different versions of a legal document and highlighting what the differences were. But in other tests, the information it provided was inaccurate or plain wrong, where it, e.g., confused different concepts.

And the concerns that apply to generative AI in general, also apply to ChatGPT. These include concerns about bias and discrimination, privacy and compliance with existing privacy and data protection regulation like the GDPR, fake news and misleading content. For ChatGPT, the issue of intellectual property rights was raised as well. The organization behind ChatGPT claims it never copies texts verbatim, but tests with programming code appear to show differently. (You can’t really paraphrase programming code).

Given the success and interest in ChatGPT, the usual question was raised whether AI will replace the need for lawyers. And the answer stays the same that, no, it won’t. At present, the results are often very impressive, but they are not reliable enough. Still, the progress that has been made shows that it will get better and better at performing some of the tasks that lawyers do. It is good at gathering information, at summarizing it and at comparing texts. And only days ago (13 January 2023) the American Bar Association announced that ChatGPT had successfully passed one of its bar exams on evidence. But lawyers are still needed when it comes to critical thinking or the elaborate application of legal principles.

Conclusion

A new generation of chat bots is showing us the future. Even though tremendous progress has been made, there are still many scenarios where they’re not perfect. Still, they are improving every single day. And while at present supervision is still needed to check the results, they can offer valuable assistance. As one lecturer put it, instead of spending a whole day preparing a lecture, he lets ChatGPT do the preparation for him and write a first draft. He then only needs one hour to review and correct it.

For lawyers, too, the same applies. The legal texts it generates can be a hit and miss, and supervision is needed. You could think of the current status where the chat bot is like a first- or second-year law student doing an internship. They can save you time, but you have to review what they’re doing and correct where necessary. Tom Martin from Lawdroid puts it as follows: “If lawyers frame Generative AI as a push button solution, then it will likely be deemed a failure because some shortcoming can be found with the output from someone’s point of view. On the other hand, if success is defined as productive collaboration, then expectations may be better aligned with Generative AI’s strengths.”

 

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Legal IT

A Chatbot For Your Law Firm

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We have talked about chatbots on several occasions in the past. Most of those targeted legal consumers. Today, we’ll have a look at how a chatbot could benefit your law firm.

Let’s start by defining what a chatbot is. A chatbot is a computer program designed to mimic human conversation. It is typically powered by rules or by more advanced Artificial Intelligence technologies like Machine Learning. Most chatbots are text-based, but more advanced ones like Siri or Alexa, are voice-based. In law firms, they are often used for simple tasks like increasing lead generation, client intake, booking an appointment or accepting payments. More advanced legal chatbots can generate, review and analyse legal documents.

You may think a chatbot is not for your law firm, but you’d be mistaken. There are many benefits, both for your clients and prospective clients, as well as for your law firm.

What makes chatbots attractive to the legal consumers?

  • First, there is the unprecedented popularity of messaging apps. One of the reasons chatbots can be found everywhere is because they became popular on messaging aps. The first chatbots appeared on Facebook Messenger and soon after were offered on other platforms like Skype, weChat, Telegram, Slack, Kik, Line, and SMS.
  • People love their mobile devices, and chatbots are typically designed for mobile first.
  • People love to text. Did you know text messages boast a 98% open rate? Chatbots benefit from this.
  • People love interaction, and chatbots are interactive. They increase engagement.
  • Chatbots are available 24/7.
  • Our online culture is an instant gratification culture. Chatbots can give instantaneous responses. Research shows that 70 % of consumers prefer a chatbot to interacting with a human being, if it means they’ll get an instantaneous response.
  • Chatbots can mimic lawyers for several tasks, which means the legal consumers who need those services can get their needs met faster, and typically at a lower or no cost.

What are the benefits for your law firm?

  • Because consumers love interaction, conversational marketing has become a key part of promotion for any business, including law firms.
  • Chatbots can perform repetitive tasks that lawyers do. They have proven useful in:
    • Client acquisition and intake, as well as lead generation.
    • Answering FAQs, so you don’t have to email back and forth answering questions you are frequently asked.
    • Document generation and review.
  • Using chatbots to take care of repetitive tasks therefore leaves you more time for more productive and profitable endeavours.

So how do you get started? Once you know what you want your chatbot to do, there are plenty of tools available. In his article, “5 Often-Overlooked Steps to Building a Useful Chatbot for Your Law Practice“, Tom Martin from Lawdroid explains the best way to proceed. He outlines 5 steps.

Step 1 is to determine what your chatbot’s purpose is. Do you, e.g., want to use it to allow new clients to enter their details into your system and book an appointment? Or do you want a more advanced bot who, e.g., can generate or analyse legal documents? Be as specific as possible.

Step 2 is to determine where your bot lives. Will you offer your chatbot on your website, or on Facebook, or Whatsapp, etc.?

In step 3, you choose your bot’s personality: its name, visual style, backstory, and the conversational tone. (People enjoy a bit of humour). Make sure you also tell people they are dealing with a chatbot.

Step 4 is to determine your chatbot’s conversation structure.  Martin breaks this down in six components. First, you need to do some preparation where you look at some essential questions like who your target audience is (e.g. existing or new clients), what they are trying to do, and what they need for that. Next, you can diagram your dialog tree, where you map how the conversation can unfold. Let your chatbot start the conversation with a greeting, and make sure that you manage the users’ expectations: explain what the bot can and cannot do.  Martin calls the next step the “Glide Path to Goal”: the conversation should lead the user to a goal, and to reach that goal as effectively as possible, open-ended questions should be avoided. So, it’s good to suggest possible answers the user can choose from. Once the conversation is ended, and the goal is achieved, it’s good to thank the user, and to provide him or her with a deliverable or a specific call to action. Last but not least, make sure you pay sufficient attention to error handling.

In the fifth and last step, you choose what tools you will use to build your bot. Martin’s article includes a checklist and a list of available platforms.

The checklist includes the following items:

  • Is creating the chatbot free or paid?
  • Is any coding required?
  • What are the publishing platforms for the chatbot?
  • Does it use or need Artificial intelligence?
  • How are the third-party integrations with apps like Gmail, MailChimp, Office 365, etc.
  • What are the supported languages?
  • What is the recommended use? (You don’t need a bot, e.g., that uses Machine Learning if you only want your new clients to fill out their details).

If you want to build your legal chatbot, the following platforms are currently available:

(In his article, Martin goes over the checklist items for each of these platforms).

Let’s leave it at that for now. We’ve only been able to scratch the surface of this topic. The articles listed below can help you further.

 

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Legal IT

Legal Bots in 2019

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It has been two years since we published our article with an overview of legal bots. Since then, a lot has happened, and on several occasions legal bots made headlines: We have dedicated articles, e.g., to legal bots beating lawyers at specific tasks, and to the rise of robot clerks, prosecutors and judges. Overall, we have witnessed an unprecedented proliferation of digital assistants who are transforming public service and legal service delivery. We now have bots who offer services for legal consumers, as well as for the various legal professions: lawyers, prosecutors, judges, notaries, and paralegals.

By now, there are so many different legal bots that it is no longer possible to mention all of them within the scope of one blog article. In fact, it would probably be possible to dedicate entire articles to each individual bot. So, we will have a look at how the ones we discussed two years ago are doing, what new players have followed their examples, and at some of the more interesting recent arrivals on the scene.

Back in July 2017, DoNotPay already was the most impressive legal bot. What started as a simple bot to appeal traffic tickets, evolved into a system that assists legal consumers in the UK, the US, and Canada, on a wide range of topics, including seeking asylum, claiming damages from airlines, filing harassment claims at work, etc. Since then it has increased the services it offers, and now also assists, e.g., with divorces. More importantly, DoNotPay has become a platform that can assist you in creating your own legal bots. Early July 2019, Joshua Browder announced DoNotPay had raised 4.6 million USD in seed funding. So, we can expect it to continue being an important player in the market.

Lawdroid started off as an intelligent legal chatbot that assisted entrepreneurs in the US in incorporating their business. Soon after, Lawdroid became a platform to create bots, as it began to create legal chatbots on behalf of lawyers. Since then, it has further expanded its services, and, e.g., now also offers its own divorce bot, called Larissa.

The examples of DoNotPay and Lawdroid were followed by others who now, too, are offering a platform to create legal bots. Worth mentioning are Josef and Automio, and even Facebook. Any lawyer can create a legal chatbot on Facebook Messenger. Getting started is as easy as buying and customizing commercial templates that are available from as little as 50 USD.

Billybot was the first legal clerk that assisted people in finding a lawyer near them to assist them. Its example was widely followed. In a previous article, we mentioned Victor, the clerk the Flemish Order of Bar Associations has created.

In the last 2 years, Lawbot in the UK first changed its name to Elixirr and then to CaseCrunch. They expanded the range of bots they have been offering, as well as the countries in which those bots are available. They made headlines when their Case Cruncher Alpha competed with over 100 lawyers in predicting the outcomes of cases and won. Similarly, LawGeex was better at evaluating Non-Disclosure Agreements than its human counterparts. By now, there are more and more bots available that try and predict the outcomes of cases. One of them that focuses on issues relating to landlord-tenant disputes, e.g., is Procezeus.

Lawbot probably also was the first to offer a divorce bot. That example, too, got many followers. We already mentioned that both Lawdroid and DoNotPay now also offer divorce bots. Two other ones worth mentioning are the divorce bot on Reddit, and Hello Divorce by Erin Levine, which streamlines and automates the process of divorces in California to the point that in most cases no intervention from lawyers is needed.

Lawbot also offered a legal research assistant, called Denninx. By now, many legal research assistants are available. Best known are IBM’s Ross and Eve. Most legal publishers, too, are providing digital assistants to help with legal research.

Below follows a random selection of other bots that were discussed in the literature.

  • In the US, Coralie is a virtual assistant that helps survivors of military sexual trauma connect with services and resources. It has won the Tech for Justice hackathonduring the American Bar Association’s Techshow.
  • Docubot is a chatbot that can be integrated in lawyers’ websites to help consumers generate legal documents. It also assists the lawyers with client intake through their website.
  • Another bot using the name LawBot comes from the Indian company LawRato. It helps users get answers to legal questions and recommendations of a lawyer.
  • Legalibotin Spain helps users compose legal documents and contracts through Facebook Messenger.
  • In Australia, Leximade headlines. This bot can be used to generate free privacy policy documents or non-disclosure agreements. It asks questions and uses the responses to give general information and create a document with the relevant details.
  • Also in Australia, Speak with Scout is a chatbot that works through Facebook Messenger to provide legal guidance as well as references to a lawyer.
  • Still in Australia, Parker is a chatbot that uses natural language processing and IBM’s Watson platform to answer users’ questions about data breaches and privacy law.
  • In the UK, RentersUnionis a chatbot that provides legal advice on housing issues for residents of London. The bot analyses a user’s tenancy agreement and then helps generate letters or recommends appropriate action.
  • In the US, Visabot is a legal chatbot that can assist with multiple immigration issues.
  • Also in the US, and more specifically in Utah, Solosuit is a chatbot/expert system that handles debt law. It asks for all the relevant information it needs, and then fills out the appropriate legal document.

 

Also worth mentioning is that several bar associations are considering officially recognizing / approving certain bots that offer legal services. That way, legal consumers can have some reassurance that the advice they are getting is trustworthy.

 

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Legal IT

A chatbot, a robot prosecutor and a robot judge

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No, this is not the first line of a joke about three robots that walked into a bar. It refers to three items that were in the news recently. We already were familiar with chatbots and robot lawyers. Now the Order of Flemish Bar Associations have launched their own chatbot; San Francisco is running a pilot project with a robot district attorney; and Estonia plans a robot judge to handle small damages claims. Let’s have a closer look at each.

The chatbot of the ‘Orde van Vlaamse Balies’ (Order of Flemish Bar Associations)

On 10 April 2019, the ‘Orde van Vlaamse Balies’ announced the launch of its new chatbot, called Victor. The initiative was taken by some bar associations, and the chatbot is meant to facilitate access to legal assistance. It does this in two ways. On the one hand, like its British counterpart Billybot, Victor helps you find a lawyer. He asks some questions to determine what area of practice your legal issue relates to. He then suggests some nearby specialist lawyers, based on the topic and the region you live in.

But Victor does more than that. The chatbot can also check whether you are eligible for a pro bono lawyer or for other types of legal assistance like reduced fees. He will ask the relevant questions, and if you are eligible, he will let you know what documents are required. If you have further questions he can’t answer, Victor will give you the contact details of the bar association that can provide you with additional answers.

Victor can be found at www.advocaat.be, as well as on the sites of the bar associations that were involved in its development: www.baliewestvlaanderen.be, www.balieprovincieantwerpen.be, and www.balielimburg.be. Victor is only available in Dutch.

The Robot District Attorney in San Francisco

About a year ago, in May 2018, the office of the District Attorney in San Francisco decided to launch a pilot project to clear convictions using algorithmic justice. Let’s give some background information first. In November 2016, recreational use of marijuana was legalized in California. For decades before the legalization of marijuana, thousands of people had received convictions for marijuana use. And now that it had become legal, the idea was to clear those preexisting convictions, and to use an algorithm to determine which cases were eligible for record clearance. As such, the algorithm is a triage algorithm. Once it determines a case is eligible, it automatically fills out the required forms. The San Francisco District Attorney then files the motion with the court.

Since the pilot project started, it has reviewed 43 years of eligible convictions. This has led to 3 038 marijuana misdemeanors being dismissed and sealed, and to recalling and re-sentencing up to 4 940 other felony marijuana convictions.

Given the success of the project, the plan is now to expand it, to eventually clear around 250 000 convictions.

The Robot Judge in Estonia

Finally, inspired by the success of the DoNotPay chatbot that offers free legal assistance in 1 000 legal areas, the Estonian government decided some weeks ago to create its own robot judge. The robot judge is meant to adjudicate small claims disputes of less than €7 000. Officials hope that the system would help clear a backlog of cases for judges and court clerks. At present the project is still in the earliest stages, but a pilot project that deals with contract disputes is scheduled for launch later this year. Parties are expected to upload the relevant information and documents, which the system will then analyze and come to a verdict. Parties will be given the option to appeal to a human judge. AI systems have been used before to assist in the triage of cases and to assist judges in their decision-making process. An autonomous robot judge, however, is a first.

So, we now have online courts, robot lawyers, prosecutors and judges. The idea that we might one day have cases handled without intervention of human lawyers suddenly has become a lot more real.

 

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Legal IT

Legal Chatbots

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One year ago, we wrote about the world’s first robot lawyer. Donotpay.co.uk was created by Joshua Browder. It is a website with a chatbot that started off with a single and free legal service: helping to appeal unfair parking tickets. When the article was published, the services was available in the UK, and in New York and Seattle. At the time, it had helped overturn traffic tickets to the value of 4 million dollars. Apart from appealing parking tickets, the website could already assist you, too, in claiming compensation if your flight was delayed. Since then, a lot has happened. By now, DoNotPay has successfully appealed traffic tickets to the amount of 10 million dollars. But, more importantly, its activities have expanded considerably. And in the last year, several other legal chatbots have seen the light of day, as well.

Let us start with DoNotPay. A first important expansion came in March 2017, when it started helping refugees claim asylum. Using its chatbot interface, DoNotPay can offer free legal aid to refugees seeking asylum in the US and Canada, and assists with asylum support in the UK.

A second, and far more massive expansion followed only days ago, on 12 July 2017, when DoNotPay started covering a much broader range of legal issues. Its new version can offer free assistance in 1,000 legal areas, and does so across all 50 US states, as well as in the UK. It can now, e.g., assist you in reporting harassment in the workplace, or to make a complaint about a landlord; or it can help you ask for more parental leave, dispute nuisance calls, fight a fraudulent purchase on your credit card… The new DoNotPay covers consumer and workplace rights, and a host of other issues.

Browder didn’t stop there. Because he wants to address the issues of ‘information asymmetry’ and ‘inequality of arms’, as of 14 July 2017, DoNotPay is opening up so that anyone can create legal bots for free, with no technical knowledge. If you want to create your own free legal chatbot, all you have to do is fill in this downloadable form, and send it to automation@donotpay.co.uk.

Another interesting legal chatbot, is Law Bot, which was created by a team of Cambridge University law students, consisting of Ludwig Bull, Rebecca Agliolo, Nadia Abdul and Jozef Maruscak. When Law bot was launched, it only dealt with aspects of criminal law in the UK. More specifically, the bot wanted to inform people who had been the victim of a crime about their legal rights. What had motivated the creators, was the observation that most advice from lawyers on legal rights of the victims of a crime felt like it was written mainly for the use of other lawyers, rather than to help inform the general public, who were in fact the people most in need of the information. The first version of Lawbot guided its users through a series of questions and answers that helped them to assess what, from a legal perspective, may have happened to them and what they should do next, such as to formally report a crime to the police.

A second Law Bot initiative was Divorce Bot. It asks its users questions via an internet-based interface to guide them through the early days of a divorce. The chatbot explores different scenarios with them, and helps clarify their exact legal position. It also explains legal terms that are commonly used in divorce, such as ‘irretrievable breakdown‘ and ‘decree nisi‘, and provides a comprehensive breakdown of the divorce process. It gives a breakdown of the costs and forms needed, too. This way, people (in the UK) know exactly what to expect, even before they talk to a lawyer.

One of Law Bot’s co-founders also launched an AI-driven case law search engine, called DenninX. The free application’s aim is to help lawyers and law students conduct legal research on English case law by making use of AI technology, such as natural language pre-processing and machine learning.

24 July 2017 is the launch date of a new and more expanded version of Law Bot, called Lawbot-X.  Lawbot-X will now cover seven countries: Great Britain, the US, Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand. It will also be available in Chinese, for markets such as Hong Kong. The new bot further adds a case outcome prediction capability to assess the chance of winning a legal claim that the bot has analysed. The free legal bot will also operate from a new platform and will be hosted on Facebook Messenger.

[Update 25 November 2017: in October 2017, Lawbot changed its name to Casecrunch].

Another useful chatbot for legal consumers is Billy Bot. Unlike the DoNotPay and Law bot chatbots, Billy Bot does not offer legal assistance, but helps you find a lawyer, barrister or solicitor, in the UK. Billy Bot was created by Stephen Ward, a career barristers’ clerk, and founder of clerk-oriented technology company Clerksroom. Billy Bot can interface with members of the public about some of the same preliminary legal questions that barristers’ clerks often handle. It can currently refer users to appropriate legal resources and pull information from the 350 barristers’ offices. Ward intends to give it access to other systems, including scheduling and case management capabilities. It currently answers questions on LinkedIn.

Next, we have Lawdroid, which was created by Tom Martin. Lawdroid is an intelligent legal chatbot that can help entrepreneurs in the US get started by incorporating their business on a smartphone for free. No lawyer is required. Lawdroid is available on Facebook Messenger. Lawdroid, too, has expanded its services, and the company that created the bot, now also makes legal chatbots for lawyers. Referring to the important rise of chatbots, they point out that there are over 100.000 of them already on Facebook.

[Update 25 November 2017: corrected an item with regard to Lawdroid].

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