Robot lawyers can now come to your defence, courtesy a 19-year old

It has been said that the only good lawyer is a dead one. Which means the world just got its first good lawyer actually capable of helping. And what's more, it comes courtesy of a 19-year old programmer.

Stanford University student Joshua Browder has developed a robot that actually interacts with clients to give them legal counsel and even generates custom appeals. Since he launched it in 2015, initially to help motorists appeal parking fines, it has already saved users over $3 million.

That is an amazing figure on its own, but it's even more amazing given that it deals with just the United Kingdom and isn't even a year old. Its success is making people sit up and actually ask questions about how the future of practicing law will be.

Also read: Does technology destroy jobs? Data from 140 years says no

Browder's venture was born out of necessity after he received 30 parking fines in 9 months for reasons he calls "trivial".

Unwilling to cough up and armed with a fascination for the law, Browder spent hours writing appeals, many of which were successful. Most people in his position would celebrate the wins, curse at the losses and move on. Or just park more carefully. Which is why most people don't have wildly successful websites.

Browder scanned thousands of legal documents released under the UK's Freedom of Information Act and created the website DoNotPay.co.uk. The website allows users to pick one of the 12 options of defence against parking fines and generates custom appeals based on details entertained. All for free. Browder even handled user queries on his own, personally responding to each one.

Within months, the website had already appealed tens of thousands of parking fines, 39.1% of which were successful, according to a user poll. But as the website's popularity grew, Browder found himself unable to respond to thousands of queries on his own.

Now, most people in his position would sell some ad-space, hire a skeletal team to deal with queries and get fat off of the money rolling in. But that's because most people are self-serving and/or lazy.

Also read: You'd think killer robots would be illegal. Instead, we're building more everyday

The bot works on a conversation algorithm which uses keywords, pronouns and sentence structure to understand the user's issue and respond appropriately. The bot's algorithm also helps it learn and improve with each new interaction.

Browder isn't even done yet. He's trying to get his parking fine appealing algorithm adopted by self-driving car manufacturers, potentially creating a world where programs and not people are appealing parking fines in the future.

Browder's even working on an Arabic-conversant robot to help refugees apply for asylum.

The case against robot lawyers

Browder's website is an example of the many ways in which artificial intelligence is reshaping the job market. According to recent research released at the World Economic Forum (WEF), 5 million jobs are expected to be taken by robots by 2020 itself. The WEF even called this figure 'conservative'.

Also read: Robots are so mainstream, we're now having sex with them. Say hello to Sexbot

However, while bots may not dispel the need for human lawyers, they will help law firms cut costs and, indeed, staff, by handling more mundane matters. Things like drafting simple contracts and mining through countless documents for case-relevant evidence will eventually be the sole domain of bots.

In fact, a study by Winston and Strawn, a leading international law firm, showed that software was more efficient than human reviewers at research. What's more, the study even showed that technology cut the review process time by a third.

Also read: Transformers, eat your heart out: giant fighting robots are now real

And hopefully bill them a little less as well.

More in Catch:

Where humans fear to tread: robots are the future of disaster relief

Robots judging beauty pageants? Hello 2016!

Disney has a science research wing. And it's f@*%!#g epic!

Computers wrote 1 billion articles last year. Will journalists soon be extinct?