Replacing Personal Injury Lawyers With the Web
You’ve been wronged. You know what to do next: You call 1-800-JUSTICE or whatever the number is, so you can get a lawyer on the line to fight for you against those villains at the insurance company.

Except this time around, you’re being offered a settlement via a site called Cybersettle. The company specializes in exactly one thing: facilitating “blind” bids between two parties to a legal dispute. You think your mashed finger is worth $20,000; maybe the city of New York agrees. But the only way to find out is to sit down and hash it out.
Cybersettle eliminates the need for everyone to comb their hair, put on a suit and head downtown. It also eliminates the need for you to hire a lawyer, if you’re comfortable with letting Cybersettle handle your case.

Law, with its enormous volume of interlocking arcana, seems prime territory for automation. Cybersettle says that it has already facilitated the settlement of over a quarter of a million claims for some of the largest insurance companies, corporations and municipalities in the country. It’s a trend that could see even less employment for lawyers used to helping their clients go through the motions on routine matters like settlements.
Keep Reading
Most Popular

The dark secret behind those cute AI-generated animal images
Google Brain has revealed its own image-making AI, called Imagen. But don't expect to see anything that isn't wholesome.

The hype around DeepMind’s new AI model misses what’s actually cool about it
Some worry that the chatter about these tools is doing the whole field a disservice.

The walls are closing in on Clearview AI
The controversial face recognition company was just fined $10 million for scraping UK faces from the web. That might not be the end of it.

This horse-riding astronaut is a milestone in AI’s journey to make sense of the world
OpenAI’s latest picture-making AI is amazing—but raises questions about what we mean by intelligence.
Stay connected

Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review
Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.