Young: Judges keen on AI service
Other solicitors are using the first regulated law firm based entirely on artificial intelligence (AI) to collect their own debts, it has emerged.
Philip Young, solicitor and founder of Garfield.AI, which specialises in debt collection, told Legal Futures that 60% of law firms users were seeking to recover their own debts of £10,000 or less rather than the debts of their clients.
In May, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) described [1] its decision to authorise the law firm, whose offering is solely provided by an AI-powered litigation assistant, as a “landmark moment for legal services in this country”.
Garfield is designed to be white-labelled by law firms as well as being used by small businesses. It charges £2 to write a ‘polite chaser’ letter and £7.50 for a letter before action.
Mr Young said that of the non-lawyers using Garfield, who make up three-fifths of users, there was a “really interesting mix – from sole traders to really big companies”, including accountants and doctors working as private consultants.
He was conscious when he was building Garfield, which welcomed its first users in March, that it should be accessible for high street law firms lacking the funds to invest in AI products.
There were now “more than a dozen” law firms using the service, many of which did not have “debt recovery practices of their own”, and Garfield was in any case not suitable for cases which needed detailed costs assessments, with the result that most cases involved fixed fees.
Mr Young, an experienced commercial litigator, said City law firms always had some clients who owed them small amounts of money, which the firms regarded as an “annoyance” rather than something to focus on.
Accountancy firms were also using Garfield and he was aiming to “let in accountancy firms in greater numbers in September to collect their own debts”, when the service could offer “some extra things” they had requested.
Medical consultants were using the service to collect debts from patients, often when the cost of treatment was not fully covered by medical insurance.
Unlike big businesses, doctors took the “politest possible approach” to their debtors, always sending chaser letters before any letter before action.
Garfield issued its first claim forms at the end of last month and debts had already been paid as a result of those claims.
Mr Young said he was “pleasantly surprised” by the reaction from lawyers to Garfield.
“Lawyers tend to be seen as ‘small c’ conservative and resistant to rapid change, but the overwhelming majority of comments we have received have been very kind and positive.”
Mr Young thought this was because lawyers “care passionately about justice”, even if they were in well-paid jobs in the City, and welcomed a service that aimed to solve “societal problems”.
They could see that “AI is coming” and “would much prefer to see it designed and built by lawyers”. He said Garfield was designed for a specific purpose, so it was not a case of “AI eats the world”.
He added that there was “quite a lot we can build in the debt space” before Garfield moved on to other types of claim. The service would be expanding in the next few months to cover both landlord and tenant debts and loan-related debts.
In a separate interview with former lawyer and legal marketer Holly Cope for her More Than a Lawyer podcast, Mr Young said that whenever he had shown Garfield to the judiciary, they were “excited about it”.
He said Garfield could take litigants in person out of the system and show them how to present their cases effectively, saving judicial time.
One senior judge said he believed Garfield could “ultimately influence corporate behaviour”, because some big companies acted in the way they did knowing that many people would not bring claims.
If people could assert their legal rights “really easily”, it could “change executive decision-making”.
Mr Young said Garfield had agreed with the SRA that it would do a “six-month stealth roll-out” after it was authorised in March. However, as its presence was noticed by journalists, it had to do a public launch.