Get a Parking Ticket? A New “Robot Lawyer” May Soon Be Able to Help

The future is now–there’s a robot lawyer that can get you out of parking tickets in the United Kingdom…sort of. Joshua Browder, 19, who is certainly way more impressive than I was at the same age, made a “robot lawyer” that helps people appeal parking tickets. Since the site, donotpay.co.uk launched late in 2015, it has appealed more than $3 million in parking tickets, and it may soon make its way across the pond to the United States.

Browder is now a freshman at Stanford University, and he launched donotpay.co.uk (aka the robot lawyer) last year. It’s still in beta mode right now, but the full version will go live this spring.

The concept is pretty simple–if you need to appeal a parking ticket you go to the site and it takes you step-by-step through the process. According to Business Insider:

Once you sign in, a chat screen pops up. To learn about your case, the bot asks questions like ‘Were you the one driving?’ and ‘Was it hard to understand the parking signs?’ It then spits out an appeal letter, which you mail to the court. If the robot is completely confused, it tells you how to contact Browder directly.

The robot lawyer is also being taught how to help people navigate certain insurance claims and deal with delayed or cancelled flights.

So, the robot lawyer isn’t a lawyer exactly, but rather a tool that can automize tasks that were traditionally done by a lawyer–and often done expensively. Of course, the robot lawyer cannot dispense subjective legal advice, because that is something that only humans can legally do.

Robot lawyer is, however, learning:

Browder programmed his robot based on a conversation algorithm. It uses keywords, pronouns, and word order to understand the user’s issue. He says that the more people use the robot, the more intelligent it becomes. Its algorithm can quickly analyze large amounts of data while improving itself in the process.

Browder has big plans for this kind of tech–he’s starting to program in New York City laws, and he’s working on a version that will help Syrian refugees apply for asylum. Browder’s tech, whether or not you want to call it a “robot lawyer,” is pretty cool, and it’s certainly a cost and time-saving measure. I don’t think we’ll see robots arguing in a courtroom anytime soon, but we may all have an easier time when we get into a scuffle with a broken parking meter.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.