Developer Josh Browder, now barely drinking age here in the US, created DoNotPay as a means of automating the process of challenging parking tickets, mainly inspired by his own excessive collection of tickets generated shortly after receiving his drivers’ license. The ChatBot – a conversational interface that prompts a user to provide information that can then be leveraged by the AI to provide answers or actions – allowed users to select one of several defenses to the ticket, enter details and send an appeal generated by the app to the appropriate legal authority. Browder taught himself to code at the age of 12, and his efforts certainly haven’t been wasted – the first version of the bot in 2015 reportedly saved UK drivers approximately 2 million pounds in two months time. Buoyed by his early success, Browder has allegedly claimed his app may “take down” the legal profession, which undoubtedly will be applauded by a couple of people.

Following on the parking ticket win, Josh added new beta functionality to the app in 2017 on the heels of the massive Equifax data breach –  he apparently also was swept up into the breach (notice a trend here?). DoNotPay offered the ability to sue Equifax in small claims courts throughout the U.S. up to the small claims jurisdictional limit, ranging from $2,500 to $25,000. The new functionality basically assisted the user in preparing the forms necessary for the small claims action; you still had to serve the Complaint and attend the hearing. After entering your name and address in the app, the app generated the necessary papers to institute a small claims action in a PDF format that could be printed and filed. Providing any assistance in the process, though, is a benefit to users unfamiliar with local small claims practice who might otherwise not bother to navigate the legal maze.  And, as found with the parking tickets, users reported some success using the app to secure awards from Equifax.

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