See you in court!

I went to small claims court once.

I was in college. It was a landlord thing. “They” didn’t show. My roommate and I did. So we got the $200 or whatever it was that, at the time, was definitely worth it. (While we had plenty of problems with our actual landlord – a notorious Boston student-slumlord of the era – they were usually resolved after we showed up a few times at the property manager’s office and squawked about, say, the lack of a working fridge. No, this was with another notorious student-slumlord. We had put a deposit down on an apartment, but the deal – verbal agreement, I believe – was that we had 24 hours to pull out and get our money back. “They” weren’t interested in giving us our that money back, so we took them to court. And won by default.)

I don’t think there were any lawyers in court the day we went. Just small claimants like me and my roommate, representing ourselves. I think we brought the original lease we’d signed, which may or may not have had the bit about a 24-hour out clause in it. Other than that, the only thing we knew about small claims court was that it existed.

But these days, even with the infinite information resource that is the Internet, who has the time to figure it all out for themselves? Party of the first part, party of the second part. Habeas corpus. There ain’t no San(i)ty Claus(e).

Who has the time? Oh, maybe us old semi-retired geezers, but certainly not the millennials.

And now they don’t have to, thanks to an app developed by a Stanford student that lets folks sue someone for as much as $25K.

“I think people are really upset with how the legal system works,” [Joshua] Browder said. “Lawyers say this app isn’t necessary, but if your issue is below $10,000, no lawyer is going to help, and if they do they’re going to take 50 percent of what you make.” )(Source: WaPo)

So, no one can take on a case that might take a couple of hours time to clear if there’s only $10K at stake – and they’ll only get $5K for their efforts? What a world! Must be all the law school debt folks are racking up these days. (Just imagine if you darkened a lawyer’s door with our 1970 vintage $200 claim. Even marked up for inflation, we’re talking about a bit over $500.)

How does [the app, DoNotPay] work?

Once opened, the app tells users they can sue anyone by pressing a button. The app then asks several questions about the nature of the filing, as well as users' name and location, before asking them to fill in the amount they want to sue for.

After directing the claim to one of 15 separate legal lanes -- such as an automobile accident or recovering personal property -- the app provides users with the documents necessary for their suit, including a demand letter, county filing documents and even a strategic script to read in court. Users print out the documents and mail them to the relevant courthouse, setting the lawsuit in motion.

Well, why not? You can already get info on making out a will, etc. online. Why not an app that takes care of the paperwork?

DoNotPay is free, and it’s Apple-only. In their own words:

The DoNotPay app is the home of the world's first robot lawyer. Fight corporations, beat bureaucracy and sue anyone at the press of a button.

Well, I’m going to quibble here. It’s not actually a robot lawyer. It’s not like one of those weird articulated headless robots that climb stairs and twerk to “Uptown Funk” shows up in court carrying a briefcase and talking in a robotic monotone. But that’s a quibble. Who doesn’t want to fight corporations and beat bureaucracy?

It may not be the best thing in this litigious world to be able to “sue anyone at the press of a button.” But there is, of course, a certain inevitability about this app, is there not?

Equally inevitable, lawyers aren’t all that excited about the app even though, if seems to me, they could benefit from having such easy access to documents. Nothing to stop them from using it.

And yet, lawyers they are a-sniping. One tweets:

Explain claim splitting to me. How about the difference between a statute or limitations and a statute of repose.

Given that it takes about a nanosecond to find these answers, I wouldn’t say that this is the strongest argument for seeing a lawyer vs. using DoNotPay.

In addition to suing the bastards at the press of a button, DoNotPay also lets you swipe, Tinder-like, through a listing of class action suits where there’s been a ruling to see if there’s any money growing on trees for you. Now that sounds like fun. Not enough fun to get me to convert to an iPhone. But fun.

“It seems like the only people who are benefiting from human misery are a handful of lawyers,” [Browder] said. “I hope to replace all of them by making the law free.”

Replace all the lawyers – at least those who “benefit from human misery”? Maybe the Internet really does change everything.