The Sky(net) Is Falling!: Ethical Issues Surrounding The Use of Legal Bots As Lawyer
In 2019, I predicted a number of ethical issues surrounding the use of AI lawyer-substitute programs, colloquially known as “robot lawyers” or “legal bots,” including whether such programs constitute the unauthorized practice of law.
Since then, large language models (or, “LLMs”) have only exacerbated the issue. As of September 2024, the Federal Trade Commission filed a Complaint against one of the legal bots companies that I analyzed in-depth, DoNotPay, alleging that the company falsely claimed it could provide professional legal services.
You can read my legal note analyzing the issue of legal bots as lawyer substitutes below: