When Boston software engineer Richard DiBona and his wife, marketing executive Kara Peterson, attempted to research a legal question a little over a year ago, “we quickly realized how difficult it was to find, read, or even access some case law,” said DiBona. “The law is supposed to be available to everybody, but it’s locked behind paywalls.”
Drawing on his experience using emerging technology to solve complex problems, DiBona “tinkered around” with advances in AI looking for a way to bridge the access to justice gap. By using AI that could summarize text, he developed an AI legal search engine called descrybe.ai. It provides legal research to lay people as well as lawyers.
“Think of it like Cliff Notes for case law,” he said. “It provides legal information, not legal advice.”
In the summer of 2023, he and Peterson launched descrybe.ai to the public.
Simple Interface
There is no cost to use descrybe.ai and there is no log-in.
“It’s about the simplest interface you could possibly imagine for a layperson because it was designed by laypeople,” said DiBona. “When you enter search terms, it uses natural language, so ‘golf course’ can also get results related to ‘country club’ or ‘eviction’ can be found with ‘kicked me out.’”
I tried the tool myself. I went to the home page, entered “I got popped for speeding,” checked North Carolina as the jurisdiction, and hit Search Now.
It gave me 90 cases the AI determined were like mine.
I clicked the first case: State v. Burton Court of Appeals of North Carolina, North Carolina. Dec 15, 1992. There was a summary of the opinion “written” by the AI and the full opinion that can be referenced.
DiBona said the next step is to refine the search. “It doesn’t cost you anything to just keep fine-tuning your queries. It’s meant to be a kickoff place for research and understanding. It’s not the kind of tool that’s going to say, here is the form you need to fill out, and here’s how you could argue back against it.”
Over 3 Million Opinions
Descrybe.ai currently has more than 3.3 million judicial opinions from across the United States and is continuing to accumulate more. These include all available state supreme and appellate opinions in every state plus DC since 1980, all federal, district, and appellate opinions since 1980, and all SCOTUS opinions loaded and searchable since the mid-1700s.
“Our tool is beneficial for members of the legal community that don’t have significant resources for research, such as solo, small, and mid-size law firms, people working in the justice system, and legal aid societies,” said Peterson. “But it also provides an alternative way to search case law that can augment what traditional search engines can surface.”
Descrybe.ai is getting a lot of industry attention. They have recently been named a finalist in several prestigious awards including a Webby Award, a Legalweek Leaders in Tech Law Award, and the ABA TECHSHOW Startup Alley.
The company is committed to providing its basic service for free. It does have plans to offer paid services, but the company plans to always keep the costs at a level that is accessible.
“We are an access to justice company, but we play in a different part of the funnel than some of the other organizations,” said DiBona. “We’re helping enable access to law, which is a foundational part of any access to justice work.”
“We have been called the Robin Hood of legal research,” said Peterson. “The concept that Robin Hood rebels against tyranny for the sake of the mistreated resonates.”
