Garfield AI no legal fat cats

A new AI law firm handles the small claims court paperwork for you

- Philip Young, Garfield AI

People don't pay small businesses because they know they can get away with it: small business owners don't have the time to pursue debtors through the courts and lawyers are too expensive. A new AI law firm claims to wipe away those barriers. Garfield AI is a service that manages the entire small claims court process from beginning to end. From polite chaser letters to a bundle of documents ready to present to the court, the AI pretty much handles everything, working for fees that most lawyers would laugh at.

But could you really trust an AI bot to deliver a court victory for you? The company's CEO and co-founder talked to PC Pro to explain why you should.

PC Pro: Why did you create Garfield AI? What problems were you trying to solve?

Philip Young: I was a lawyer for 25 years in City of London, and I did a lot of big-ticket litigation and commercial stuff. I've always been a giant nerd, I've always loved computers, I've always done programming since I learned from the 8-bits in the 1980s. And then ChatGPT 3.5 was released, and that was when I first really became interested in LLMs.

The more I played with them, the more I thought this thing is really going to be revolutionary for a lot of knowledge-based industries, and particularly for law, where obviously I have a huge background.

The obvious problem to solve was my brother-in-law Andy's problem. He's a plumber and Andy's problem, like all small business people, is from time to time they do some work for somebody who then just doesn't pay them. They can't keep up with their paperwork.

They certainly don't have time to write lots of chasing letters, and they find lawyers and the law process really daunting, and lawyers are uneconomic to play into that level.