In January, Tech Times reported about a new website started by a college student in the UK that uses what it calls the world's first ever robot lawyer. The site has had such remarkable success in helping London drivers beat parking tickets that it has expanded across the pond to New York City, with plans to also cater those in Seattle and other U.S. cities.
The student, Joshua Browder, is only 19 years old and hails from England, but attends Stanford University in California. He started his site after receiving several parking tickets in London.
"I didn't want to pay it, so I become an expert in parking tickets," Browder says. "I started doing it for friends and family, and then I decided it would be a good school project, so I made the website."
The website first focused on London parking tickets only, but in May it expanded to include New York City. The site uses the "world's first robot lawyer" to ask questions about parking tickets and then uses the information in order to help drivers find a way out of paying them.
The user must first sign up for the DoNotPay website, which operates completely free of charge and does not take any commission on the amount saved by the driver when it helps him or her beat their ticket. Then the robot lawyer begins by introducing itself:
"Hello, I am the first robot lawyer," it says. "I can answer questions, draft documents and send appeals. At the moment, I can help with parking tickets (New York and UK), delayed flights/late trains (EU) and claiming PPI. Talk to me by typing in the message box below or ask 'what can you do' for a list of some examples."
Utilizing algorithms in the same way as a chatbot, the robot then ascertains the needs of the client, requests the necessary information, analyzes it, and helps find a solution that it aids the user in implementing.
The robot has been extremely successful so far, as Browder claims that his success rate in helping Londoners beat parking tickets has been a whopping 64 percent, with 160,000 of 250,000 tickets having been dismissed. While the site has been up for just more than a month in New York, Browder boasts of an impressive 41 percent success rate, with 10,000 out of 24,000 tickets having gotten dismissed so far as a result of using his website.
Browder has pledged never to charge users to access his services, promising that he is "doing it as a public service. Someone who can't afford a ticket is the most vulnerable, and I don't want them to have to pay half the cost of the ticket to defend themselves."
Other sites designed to help drivers plagued with parking tickets charge, while live attorneys charge up to $150 for their services. Browder plans to continue expanding his site's reach, with Seattle being added to the list of eligible cities shortly.
