Can ChatGPT replace lawyers? AI-powered robot lawyer is already winning cases and even sued for malpractice

With artificial intelligence's ability to automate repetitive tasks, analyse data, and provide valuable insights, it is fast changing the way legal professionals work and challenging traditional notions of legal practice. The rapidly changing landscape is forcing lawyers to upskill and present multiple skills that present them to be indispensable or at the very least, irreplaceable by AI.

A lawyer's job at the beginner level involves reviewing documents, filing and extracting clauses. According to a report by Gartner, a big legal expense in transactions is the time associates need to review numerous agreements in the due diligence process. Machine learning software reduces the time required to review each agreement by automatically identifying key provisions (for example, change of control) and helping to organise the review process. Providers have claimed 20 per cent to 80 per cent time savings, and anecdotal law firm reports support that range. Some general counsel invests those savings in having the law firm review a larger number of agreements than it otherwise would, which reduces deal risk.

However, the utility of AI tools primarily ends here. Further to this many tools have been developed that prepare contracts, arguments for cases and even find precedents but with huge margins for errors.

DoNotPay, a tool that has been pegged as the world's first robot lawyer, founded by Joshua Browder, a Stanford University computer scientist, in 2015 is an AI chatbot as a legal services tool meant to help people deal with minor legal issues such as late fees, fines and traffic tickets.

As of 2023, the DoNotPay has been used in 250,000 cases and won 160,000 of them, with a success rate of 64 per cent, the company said in a statement. However, the founder and the company have been sued in a class action lawsuit.

One of the complaints claimed that DoNotPay was anything but legally competent. "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," complainant Jonathan Faridian's lawyers wrote in their suit.

Faridian in his suit against the company stated that he was a paying DoNotPay customer, and used the site to draft demand letters, an independent contractor agreement, a pair of LLC operating agreements, and several court filings, which were messy, full of errors and some were never even delivered.

Another lawsuit claimed that the complainant wanted their "not at fault" plea changed by DoNotPay but instead, it led to them having to pay a fine they were trying to fight. Another complaint alleged that the company never responded to the summons he was trying to fight, leading to additional penalties.

Dr Arvind Singhatiya, founder of Legalkart, in a Linkedin post, explained that the AI bot is not different from the skilled Arjuna and is in need of strategic direction. Be the Krishna for the Arjun and win the battle on any field.

"Most international law firms have already shifted resources from hiring/retaining associates to making stuff like their own ChatGPT version for law. AI could easily be powerful enough to replace both lawyers and judges in the coming few decades (maybe not as it exists today). But I think strong policy considerations may prompt governments to restrict AI from completely replacing lawyers," said Devarsh Saraf, a law student at Columbia University and co-founder ArbDossier.

Allen & Overy, a leading M&A litigation firm in February this year announced the launch of 'Harvey' an AI bot based on OpenAI's GPT-4 for legal work while also reportedly experiencing a high attrition rate. The name of the bot is seemingly inspired by the protagonist of the legal drama, SUITS.

Tools like ChatGPT and DoNotPay have emerged as strong resources for creating first drafts of documents and other timesaving activities but neither are the fully dependable, nor a complete lawyer by itself.

"No robot can replace human skills. We are living in times that is a fusion of mankind's advance, AI, robotics, IoT, it's all a storm of technological progress happening at a whirlwind pace. So, technology may help you research better, predict the outcomes of a case but it cannot become a lawyer or a judge. It simply cannot replace interpersonal relationships nor with ambiguous situations and borderline cases which require human dexterity," explained Dr Nilima Chandiramani, Prinicipal, Nari Gursahani Law College, Mumbai University.

A lawyer can manage his day using AI tools, and large volumes of legal documents, contracts, and case law can be reviewed in a short period of time. It can also help identify patterns and insights that may be missed by human review. Relevant case law, statutes, and regulations can be easily found which in turn saves time and increase efficiency. Lawyers can also make more informed decisions with easily analysed data through AI. However, a robot lawyer is just not something that the world seems to be ready for.

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