"Every year, more than 2 million New Yorkers walk into civil courtrooms without a lawyer. They face evictions, custody disputes, benefit terminations, and immigration proceedings-adversarial processes with life-altering stakes-alone. The other side almost always has counsel. The result is not justice. It is a rout."
"The justice gap in this country is not, at its core, a funding problem. It is a knowledge problem. Legal knowledge is rationed by a licensing system that has, for generations, ensured that access to it tracks wealth."
"A better bill would target deception specifically: chatbots that claim to be licensed professionals, that create attorney-client relationships without disclosure, that fail to identify themselves as AI."
Over 2 million New Yorkers annually face civil court proceedings without legal representation, creating a justice gap rooted in knowledge rationing through professional licensing systems. This disparity disproportionately affects those without financial resources to afford counsel. Artificial intelligence offers potential to democratize legal knowledge by providing plain-language guidance through chatbots like Roxanne AI, designed as informational tools rather than lawyer replacements. However, New York State Senate bill S7263 would impose civil liability on chatbot proprietors providing substantive responses that constitute unauthorized professional practice. The legislation threatens to eliminate AI-powered access-to-justice tools before they can meaningfully address systemic inequities in legal representation.
Read at City Limits
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]