Bot lawyer will help homeless apply for housing

Previously, a bot lawyer helped drivers to cancel parking fines worth $ 4 million

Student Joshua Browder, developer of the automated legal aid service DoNotPay, has been programming since she was 12 years old. Photo: Joshua Browder

Last August, 18-year-old British IT student Joshua Browder opened DoNotPay , which helps car owners automatically create and send an appeal to a received receipt of a fine. The procedure is rather complicated, so not every person can undergo it independently, and the services of lawyers almost always exceed the amount of the fine. Unlike real lawyers, the bot works absolutely free.

The success of the DoNotPay service turned out to be phenomenal.

The bot-lawyer asks a few questions about the circumstances of obtaining a fine, for example, “Is the parking sign clear?”, And then draws up a legal document that can be filed for appeal.
')
In the first six months, a bot lawyer helped return fines of more than 2 million pounds ($ 3 million). The site was used by 86 thousand people. Nearly 40% of the appeals were successful because the fines were unfounded. There is nothing surprising. It is known that the city authorities receive a good income, collecting fines from motorists. Often, fines are written out to everyone without suitable grounds. In the UK, authorities collect car fines of about a billion dollars a year, equivalent.

Subsequently, the percentage of successful appeals rose to 64% , the bot lawyer himself extended his activities from London to New York, and the amount of fines returned exceeded $ 4 million. The bot remained free.

The author of the project itself was very surprised that the bot is so popular. But since it happened, Joshua decided that he would continue to help people get free legal assistance with the help of his bot. He has already trained the bot instructions for filing a flight delay complaint. The bot will also help the refugees understand the legislation of the country where they hit.

Browder’s latest project is legal assistance for homeless people who are eligible for temporary housing.

The idea arose after Joshua received a letter from a desperate woman who had been evicted from an apartment and was taken to hospital without having time to rent a house. Now, after treatment, she was horrified to imagine that she would be discharged from the hospital, and she, who was under treatment, had nowhere to go. This is a direct path to homeless life.

Over the past year and a half, the DoNotPay bot-lawyer has successfully contested over 160,000 parking fines, so the rumors about this free assistant have started to spread among the people. Joshua Browder began to receive hundreds of letters asking for help and questions of a legal nature. It is impossible to help all the people, although the British BBC channel called the student “Robin Hood of the Internet era”.

But who needs the most help and certainly doesn’t have money for a lawyer is homeless, so Joshua decided to help them. According to the laws of Great Britain, those who have just been evicted from an apartment can apply for temporary housing. But this requires filling out a questionnaire and writing a statement that people are not always able to do, like that sick woman from the hospital. Now they have the opportunity to prepare the necessary documents by simply chatting with a bot-lawyer.



In communication, a person answers several questions, such as the reason for the loss of housing, indicates his telephone and other data. As a result, the DoNotPay service generates a ready-made application, through which a person has the maximum chance of receiving temporary housing. The statement is made in a special way that maximizes chances. For example, if a person responds positively to a question about mental disorders, then when drafting a document, the bot-lawyer focuses on that.

For the UK, this is a very topical issue. According to statistics , the number of evictions from apartments is now at a record high level. Due to a reduction in the state social assistance program and a rise in rental prices, the number of evictions increased by 53% between 2010 and 2015. Last year, 42,728 families lost housing. People will become homeless if they do not find a new apartment.

In the US, this problem is even more acute, but the bot lawyer does not work there yet. Each jurisdiction has its own rules for obtaining state aid, so the program will have to be adapted.

The more popular automated legal assistance becomes, the more problems it brings to professional law firms that make huge money on legal advice. Browder says that several such firms have already approached him with a proposal to license the technology. What for? So that these firms can start automatic creation of documents for clients and reduce costs.

“Oddly enough, such“ offers of cooperation ”made me realize how much I need to replace these lawyers with a free service,” says Joshua Browder.