Landlord-Tenant Issue Legal Chatbot

[christyleos]

Statement of Problem: Even though laws many states in the U.S. provide tenants moderate to substantial recourse against negligent or abusive landlords, many tenants remain at a disadvantage when landlord-tenant conflicts arise. Tenants facing eviction or living in poorly maintained buildings often under-utilize legal resources at their disposal. The most common reasons one may fail to use available legal remedies seem to be:

• Lack of knowledge that a remedy exists, or that the affected tenant is entitled to use this remedy;
• Lack of knowledge about local court procedures for using a small claims court or making another type of pro se claim, including when a harmed tenant believes they are unable to access the courts without an attorney, and when they are unable to obtain free legal aid or do not know how to do so; and
• Cost of hiring an attorney (when hiring an attorney is in fact necessary), whether that cost is unaffordable or simply uneconomical compared to the value (or perceived value) of a potential claim.
• It is worth noting that many who believe that the cost of hiring an attorney is what prevents them from exercising their legal rights are often able to avoid this cost entirely if made aware of pro se and free legal aid opportunities described in subsection (B).

Proposed Solution: A chatbot inspired by the "DoNotPay" bot, which was originally created for users in Great Britain to appeal their own parking tickets. This bot would use a similar process of questioning users about their cases. The bot's AI will generate subsequent questions based on a user's previous answers. Once the bot has collected sufficient information about a case, it can suggest a course of action for the user, and even generate letters or court filings if necessary. It can also suggest points of contact for in-person legal assistance from a legal aid organization or reduced fee attorney.

Existing Solutions: There are no known chatbots or other interactive applications on major platforms. A review of the Google Play Store, Apple Store, Windows, and a wider web search revealed very few options related to legal self-help in the United States. Known online legal resources for tenants include self-help websites offering materials for self-directed research and descriptions of relevant law in varying detail, and websites for regional legal aid organizations offering information on obtaining free or reduced price legal services. It should be noted that current threats to legal aid funding nationwide increase the urgency for alternative affordable legal resources.

Technology Requirements:

• Means to build chatbot workflow/AI: Known resources include Motion AI, QnA Markup, and IBM Watson.
• Web Framework: A basic HTML/CSS/JS site may be all that is necessary. Django may be a good option if a backend framework is necessary.
• Application Platform: Heroku, Microsoft Azure, or GitHub Pages. Bluemix if IBM Watson will be used for the chatbot.
• (If building mobile applications): Android (Java) and Apple Store (Objective-C, Swift) versions of the chatbot.

Team Requirements:

• Project Manager
• Chatbot/AI Builder
• Web/Application Developer/Designer
• Subject Matter Expert
• Legal Aid Lawyer

[dylanjbarth]

I like this idea a lot! In terms of chatbot libraries, I am pretty excited about https://wit.ai/. It's open source and free, good community behind it.

[ChristianArredondo]

This is a cool idea! I am a front-end web developer and engineer.

How much can we reasonably accomplish in one day? Maybe narrowing down the dispute into one of ten categories, with one or two subcategories also determined, which leads to the bot's recommendation: links to resources and people to contact.

[meremaines]

@christyleos love your level of research here!

[kaiservonarctic]

Thank you for putting this up here, Christy! And thank you to everyone who has commented so far. Christian, to your question, this project as a whole is indeed too ambitious for one day. Perhaps we could focus on making a good model of one particular legal issue: eviction (or perhaps only eviction issues before a court hearing) for example. We can ask questions to narrow down on jurisdiction, actions taken so far by tenant and landlord, screen for possible arguments tenant can make, etc. I'm open to suggestions if you anyone recommends anything different!

[ChristianArredondo]

Is this project idea still alive? Just want to confirm a team before the weekend.

[christyleos]

I believe so - I'll be at the hackathon and will be contributing to two projects (this one included), I also expect a lot of people to attend who haven't seen the list of projects so we can rope them in the day of.

@kaiservonarctic will you be available online?

[kaiservonarctic]

Yes, I plan to be online.

[christyleos]

A few resources to start from:

http://www.houstontx.gov/housing/tenant_law_intro.html

https://www.haaonline.org/renters/

http://www.jp.hctx.net/evictions/filing.htm

http://texaslawhelp.org/issues/housing

https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/cpd/tenant-rights

https://www.depts.ttu.edu/sls/forms/Tenants-Rights-Handbook.pdf

http://guides.sll.texas.gov/landlord-tenant-law

http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/tenant-defenses-evictions-texas.html

[christyleos]

anyone who wants to work on the eviction chatbot group - join us on slack at #eviction-chatbot

[blhenschel]

Hey--I'm Ben and have been an attorney for 34 years--I saw this conversation for the first time today and am immediately responding--I have been intently thinking about the identical issue in your statement of problem and proposed solution since first learning about Josh Browder/Do Not Pay--unfortunately, my strength in the technology field is virtually nonexistent and everyone I have approached (programmers etc) laughs and says I will be wasting my time and money. However, here is what I do know: in concept, creating a Do Not Pay for Tenant's legal defense is an absolute game changer with much greater effect than beating a traffic ticket---hope someone responds to me --blhenschel@aol.com

[christyleos]

@kaiservonarctic another potential collaborator 👍

[kaiservonarctic]

@blhenschel thanks for reaching out. I would love to talk with you further. I'll email you soon or feel free to email me directly at kpjohn3@protonmail.com