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A 19-Year-Old Made A Free Robot Lawyer That Has Appealed $3M In Parking Tickets (businessinsider.com)
schwit1 writes: Hiring a lawyer for a parking-ticket appeal is not only a headache, but it can also cost more than the ticket itself. Depending on the case and the lawyer, an appeal -- a legal process where you argue out of paying the fine -- can cost between $400 to $900. But with the help of a robot made by British programmer Joshua Browder, 19, it costs nothing. Browder's bot handles questions about parking-ticket appeals in the UK. Since launching in late 2015, it has successfully appealed $3 million worth of tickets. He is cutting into the government trough and lawyers' jobs. That's a double whammy. How long is it before the bar association and government get automated lawyers disqualified?
A world with less lawers is a nicer world.
OR usher in the new age of high-frequency lawmaking! Though, with the way our congress is moving right now, it would likely get stuck in a recursion trying to pass and repeal laws over and over again.
I'm not going to hire any robot lawyer unless it can prove it is soulless.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
In the UK, there is no monopoly on giving legal advice — only six things in the legal sphere require particular entitlement ("reserved activities"):
Anyone can give legal advice, so prohibiting just software from doing so would seem a very odd move.
The professional body for solicitors in England and Wales — the Law Society — recently released a report on "The Future Of Legal Services" and, at section 4.2, it talks through (very briefly) a number of the technology changes which will either be useful to solicitors or else challenging them.
I doubt that many parking tickets are contested with lawyers either way. The robot is taking jobs that the lawyers weren't getting.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Have gnu, will travel.
Since when are Chat-Bots Ro-Bots? Did I miss something about ELIZA being the first femal robot?
no thats not entrapment.
but what you wrote is ignorance.
and as long as language is a thing, regardless of its level of complexity, lawyers will be needed.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
it is sometimes illegal to use do-it-yourself kits
No... it is NOT unlawful to use them. However, the results of using the kits, might not be as intended, due to the differences in the law, and the ways some jurisdictions will interpret the templated materials.
It is possible, for example, that your template Will might not work as it is supposed to, or might not meet requirements for enforceability on certain intended parts of the document in a jurisdiction the document was not designed for.
Except when you do, of course.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Unsurprisingly there are a lot of comments already concerning the implications of this web site to the role of a lawyer, but maybe there is an even more important aspect here. The "success rate" statistics would seem to imply that the issuance of parking tickets in the UK is significantly more aggressive than it should be. Now this could be for a number of reasons [under-qualified ticket wardens, poor quality signs, or, perhaps, inappropriate guidance given regarding when to issue. Non-UK readers may like to know that the UK has a long and very tempestuous relationship with parking supervision; until relatively recently landowners could either clamp parked cars or have an "agent" do it for them; sadly the number of these agencies that were cowboys and scammers caused outrage and fortunately the practice was banned... When I worked in local government ~ 20 years ago, we adjusted the total price of parking tickets and fines to ensure that we recovered the cost of maintaining the car parks, providing security lighting and CCTV, collecting litter, etc, but nothing else. The car parks were basically zero-profit, cost-recovery exercises. Since then, however, government funding has changed massively, and the issue of parking tickets could well [sorry, not entirely sure either way] be a lucrative source of income for some. The success of this web site may have less to do with the need for legal skills than the likely dubious grounds under which a ticket was issued in the first place. Now what would be really interesting would be if Joshua Browder [the site developer] could pull some statistics from the site that could show which locations had the most over-turned tickets. If there were patterns in *that* data, then there might be grounds to take a closer look at the issuing agency in an attempt to put things right. Let's hope that he considers doing just that...
I'm pretty sure that I can not only give you legal advice but I can practice it on your behalf. I'm also reasonably certain that I can charge for that service so long as I make it clear that I am not actually a lawyer. I have actually not just given legal advice to friends, I've gone in and represented them in a court of law, spoken with the DA on their behalf, and even arranged a plea agreement, twice, on behalf of a friend. All of which is perfectly legal - though I've never charged for the service. I believe I can charge for it so long as I do not portray myself as a lawyer or do the few things that are strictly within the purview of those who have passed the bar.
Due to a long story, I am even a notary public. So, I can do some of it. I am not a lawyer. I've never actually charged money for my help and I am not skilled enough to do so. But, if it's something simple and you're just going to be pleading guilty then you don't really need much. 'Snot hard, really.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
One of her coworkers (a surgeon) gave her the name of a lawyer and suggested calling him. She did just to see how they could possibly get her out of a speeding ticket. The lawyer said that the speeding ticket will be negotiated down to a non-moving violation such as improper parking. She would have to pay the full fine for the speeding ticket plus the lawyer's fee, but it wouldn't affect her insurance rates or add points to her license.
She went along to see if it would work and sure enough, the ticket was negotiated down and she paid the fine and lawyer's fee- IRIC the lawyer charged $150. No points, no increase in insurance rates.
My wife finished her anesthesiology residency just a few years ago, so life as 1%ers is pretty new to us. This event was a real eye opener. I guess this is how the 1% gets away with murder. I can't imagine what it's like to be a 0.1%er.
Parking tickets are not a "trough"
Driving is one of the most heavily subsidized personal actions in the world.
Parking fees and fines are a very very small tip of the balance back toward something remotely resembling a level playing field. Just pay for your parking and if you screw up, pay the fine and move on. You're still tens of thousands of dollars ahead of whe you would be if you actually have to pay for all that infrastructure, hit to mention the war and the pollution.
That's was my first thought, it's likely a robot issued the fine, so it's obvious a robot should have the right to dispute it.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
High frequency lawmaking would only benefit the robotic lawyers to the further detriment of traditional lawyers. This is one profession which AI could seriously bring huge benefits at the cost of many jobs. The entry level lawyer basically spends their life doing searches of laws to find something relevant to their bosses clients' cases, something that computers have been better at for almost 2 decades now.
Sorry - Here is a corrected version :
85% of lawyers have no good background in science and engineering. I took a para legal course and under the family law, I was able to replace 48 pages of legal statements(descriptive), by one fully loaded flowchart. We tested it with over 100 cases and it showed the right solution. My friend is a lawyer and he validate it. I had generated over 100 templates in MS Word (sorry, that is what they use), and a data base to answer questions and based on it to select the right legal brief form where just replace the variable names by actual party names. Every thing is done completely correctly. I have submitted most of them trough my lawyer to appropriate court and none had been rejected. The point it, most lawyers do not draft any thing, their para legal do the bull work. So, this robotic lawyer is in the right step. All intellectual laws should be routed through AI based legal learning systems and the mystery is removed. Tons of money and time can be saved. This boy is in the right direction and get a senior , trustworthy law student to help you
Although it's reasonable to appeal parking tickets, and a 40% success rate suggests far too many bullshit ones are being issued, there's something else in the article that hasn't been discussed:
He's 19 and he's received 30 parking tickets since he passed his test.
In the UK that means he's getting at least 10 parking tickets per year. I'm averaging less than one per decade. The issue isn't the parking rules or enforcement, the issue is that this guy is quite clearly some form of total cunt.
Learn to fucking park.