An English court has handed a victory to a law firm that uses artificial intelligence more than lawyers to bring legal claims.
Garfield, a tech company that is also a regulated law firm, helped a freelancer recover £7,000 in unpaid fees from a former client after a trial in Wandsworth County Court in May.
The case was small, but its implications are big. Garfield is part of a new class of startups trying to use artificial intelligence to make legal services cheap enough for the everyman to pursue. The company believes it is the first robo-firm to win a case in an English court.
Garfield’s software helps users chase unpaid invoices by uploading documents such as contracts and invoices, then producing legal letters and court documents. Its founder, Philip Young, a longtime litigator, said the company is starting with small debt claims because they are common, painful, and often costly for businesses to solve with traditional lawyers.
“You don’t want to spend a lot of money on lawyers to collect a £4,000 debt,” Young said. “It’s just not worth it.”
In this case, Tamires Camal Taquidir, a human-resources consultant, said she had not been paid for work she performed for a hospitality company. Young said she was originally owed about £6,000.
When she pressed the claim, the defendant denied owing her anything and brought a counterclaim of about £1,500, Young said. He said he believed the counterclaim was meant to pressure her into dropping the case or accepting a steep discount.
“To her credit, because she did have a meritorious claim, she wasn’t willing to accept that,” he said.
Garfield drafted the pretrial materials. A human barrister ultimately represented Camal Taquidir in court. She paid Garfield about £400.
After the hearing, the judge issued a decision weeks later. Her claim succeeded, and the counterclaim failed.
Young said the outcome was “very satisfactory” for Camal Taquidir and for Garfield.
The ruling has already brought Garfield a surge of attention. Young said visits to the company’s website spiked 1,000% on Monday, after The Financial Times and The Guardian published articles about the case.
Garfield has processed more than 600 claims and recovered about £500,000 for clients, Young said. He said usage has been increasing over the past six months, with early adopters giving way to larger businesses and even a regulator in England using the platform.
Young began his career at the white-shoe law firm Baker McKenzie before starting his own boutique, Cooke, Young, & Keidan. After retiring from the London firm, he started playing with ChatGPT on a family road trip. He believed the technology would transform how legal services are delivered.
Last May, Garfield became the first regulated law firm of its kind when it won approval from the Solicitors Regulation Authority, the ruling body for lawyers in England and Wales. Domestic rules let non-lawyers own or invest in law firms — a structure that makes room for law firms to take on outside capital.
Even so, Young said Garfield has not raised institutional capital. So far, the company has been funded by him and his close friends.
Young said the idea for Garfield was inspired in part by his brother-in-law, a plumber in South Yorkshire who would call him when customers failed to pay.
“In England, we’ve got a choice,” Young said. “Either we can build things to solve access to justice gaps, or we can rearrange it so that every plumber has a brother who happens to be a litigation partner.”
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