ROBOT LEGAL AID
My One-Pager Concept for Solving Legal Aid Worldwide Forever
SEND IN THE ROBOTS!
There are literally thousands of legal aid clinics around the world providing pro bono (pro bono publico) i.e. free of charge legal help to those in need. You may know that lawyers have an ethical duty to provide such service to the public. #A2J
Today, these typically consist of physical IRL in person meet-ups at schools, libraries, churches, bar associations, and community centers.
With the advent and maturation of AI, chat technologies (and the two blended), and real time translation, transcription, and even voice-to-text and text-to-voice technologies this important global public resource deserves a much needed help.
“Solving Legal Aid Globally Forever”
Problems:
1. Legal aid spread out all over the place fighting and competing over limited resources, fundraising, organizing, budgets, scheduling, “setting up” costly and untimely iterations and interations repeated.
2. Each group is trying to “reinvent the wheel” on their own, for their own programs, and in silos costing more time and resources.
3. Most importantly, clients who need the help the most, and have the least resources, have to sacrifice the most to participate, and often cannot participate at all.
4. Legal aid clients thus get ‘short shrift’ compared to what is possible. Paying clients get white glove treatment, available when they need on their terms. Legal aid clients must be there (e.g.) “4-6pm in person at Lutheran church ‘with your papers.”
These are “information starved” (usually one attorney stepping in the door for a ‘top of his or her head’ advisement, and “time starved” (only a few moments, only a few hours per week or month at fixed times.
Paying clients often receive the assistance of 2-3 lawyers.
But, what if we could give legal aid clients 5, or 10, or even 50 lawyers? And at no charge.
We can!
CONCEPT: An global multilingual chat website/app powered by AI and linking any client with dozens of lawyers anywhere anytime any language worldwide.
Effectively a “roll up” of legal aid attorneys locally, county, state, country, internationally. Bringing willing minds together in the digital space, and inviting clients who need assistance.
Benefits
Participating attorneys earn “___ credits” = visibility on website = the more help you provide the higher you are ranked and the more visible you are to the public, worldwide.
Backed by generative AI, basic helps could be delivered immediately.
Client could ask anytime day or night 24/7 from their phone or computer (we can add talk phone if we want).
These into a queue/list for five or dozens of lawyers to opine via chat.
Immediate results/answers; in less than a week even more fulsome responses.
Clients receive good and multiple detailed feedback and people to call from a variety of lawyers, angles, ideas and suggestions.
Attorneys can volunteer right from their desktop, home, or even while out.
SOTA + best in practice anonymization and security.
Legal aid clients can receive “more law” and “better law” than their paying counterparts even with this mechanism.
Not an enemy to clinics.
All, each, any clinic attorney anywhere could have on their smartphone/laptop as a ‘force multiplier’ for in person consultations, to which they can refer then share/discuss with/for client.
Live lawyers on the chat.
Lawyers leaving chat answers for later review, and pointers for other lawyers.
Lawyer and legal aid client then have MORE resource, not less.
Clinics would reduce their budgets and could more effectively and instantly share resources.
AI market growth beneficial.
Over time an operating-informed database would be compiled and grown of real-time real-scenario fact pattern advisements to further use as source content for generative AI auto-tool.
* * * Our robots are designed to be our assistance, our tools, to amplify our plans and efforts. It seems to me that in the context of legal aid, this would be a great use case and beneficial to so many and fill much-bemoaned gaps in legal services through AI.