The 20-year-old wants to automate lawyers out of existence
A computer science student has moved into the house Mark Zuckerberg used to rent to spend his days trying to “take down” lawyers with artificial intelligence (AI) bots.
Joshua Browder is the brains behind ‘robot lawyer’ DoNotPay — a programme which helps users with the likes of travel delay compensation and parking tickets. Stanford University student Browder, then 19, told Legal Cheek at the time of its launch: “Lawyers all over the world should be very scared of this technology.”
Now 20, Browder’s confidence in his free lawbot service shows no signs of waning. In a tell-all interview with the Sunday Times, he said:
No one can stop me in the world.
Browder, from Hendon, London, is hoping the next few months will see him raise venture capital — the next step in his plan to automate lawyers out of existence. He is working through the profession one sector at a time: divorce, train ticket refunds, council tax and criminal defence all get a name check in the piece. Browder noted:
I want to be the go-to platform for all legal help.
Whether you think it’s ambitious or ridiculous, it’s hard to deny Browder’s busy schedule. He spends nights drinking Diet Coke and “vile” food replacement liquid Soylent to get through his coding. The computer whizz admits his Stanford studies have become a “side project” and that he has considered dropping out.
AI aside, the print interview also gave readers an insight into Browder’s less than typical family history.
Not only is he the great grandson of former Communist Party head and double US presidential candidate Earl Browder, his father, Bill, is a big name too.
Stanford graduate Bill is the Chief Executive Officer of a top investment fund, Hermitage Capital Management, and a fierce critic of Russian corporate governance. After being expelled from the country, he wrote a book about Russian corruption and the death of his former lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who Bill claimed: “was murdered as my proxy. If Sergei had not been my lawyer, he would still be alive today.”
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