And he’s saved users about three million dollars’ worth of unpaid parking tickets in just five months. Who is he? He’s the world’s first robot lawyer and brainchild of Joshua Browder, a Stanford University student and self-taught coder. What does he do? Fight the people’s parking tickets.
In less than two years, Browder’s self-proclaimed “world’s first” robot lawyer helped void 160,000 parking tickets across the UK and New York area, making the chatbot an international hero in his own right simply for sticking it to the man in a way we could only imagine.
Officially dubbed “DoNotPay” (also the title of his chatbot assist website), the robo-lawyer was initially developed as a response to some of Browder’s own outstanding parking tickets. And like any good success story, the motivation to do something about it didn’t come from a sense of civic duty; alas, it came from his mom nagging him to finally pay his own way. Impressive.
More impressive? Browder’s sheer determination to not pay his parking tickets and to, instead, launch DoNotPay in September 2015, the very first version of the website that took a cool three weeks to churn out. And while the website was initially only for family and friends, it quickly gained traction among other unjustly ticketed civilians who would rather eat pig’s feet before they had to pay a parking ticket they probably deserved in all honesty. Kudos, Browder.
Today, DoNotPay continues to offer its chatbot services for free, because outsmarting the law is serious business and should never come at a price. That’s right, DoNotPay provides the consultancy and letter-writing services of a regular lawyer for nothing, and so far, it’s taken on a quarter of a million parking ticket legal cases and won 64% of those case.
All you have to do to get started is enter the details of your complaint. According to Browder, once the robot lawyer knows the issue,
“It will ask a few questions and place all the information it requires into a legally sound document, which can be sent directly to the local councils, airlines or banks, depending on what type of appeal is being generated.”
Eventually, you’ll either have to pay the parking ticket or you won’t, but despite the outcome, you won’t ever have to pay a lawyer for the service. Browder says he intends to develop the chatbot for Seattle in the future, too, with even bigger dreams of expanding his robot lawyer into totally different areas, like with helping travellers seek compensation for flight delays, aiding refugees seeking asylum, and more.
For ZBRELLA Technology Consulting, I’m Christopher Clark, goodnight and good luck.
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