The promise made: replace lawyers with artificial intelligence. Launched on January 1 by Issam Reghi, a Lyon entrepreneur based in Dubai, the I-avocat application attracted the wrath of the profession in record time. The council of the Order saw red, summoning the boy to immediately remove his latest invention from the Apple and Google catalogs. Wasted effort. The young man has no intention of abdicating. However, he will have to change the name of his app. Back to the controversy.
A promo that’s a little too arrogant?
Widely relayed on social networks, the launch of the application quickly angered lawyers. In the promotional video, shot at the bottom of the steps of the old Lyon courthouse, a young woman emerges confidently from the court, smile on her lips and phone in hand, boasting of having defended herself like a pro and above all without have used a lawyer.
A voiceover explains that I-lawyer is “an artificial intelligence specialized in law, although (she) does not have an official diploma” and boasts of being “largely capable of competing with any lawyer” . Its strength, she explains: relying on “a vast database”. Eleven million precisely which compile the “last 50 years of court decisions” as well as the programs of bar and judicial schools.
“Where a lawyer would take a year, I only take a minute. Where a lawyer would have cost you 1,000 euros, I only cost 69 euros,” the marketing campaign continues. Enough to light the fuse.
What pissed off the lawyers the most?
Very quickly, the magistrates reacted on social networks, reporting erroneous information. “She invents laws for you, like the law of July 30, 2020 on nitrous oxide cited below, which does not exist,” mocked Me Eolas, the star lawyer on X, while a colleague said ironically impatient “to see an AI pleading in court”. But not only. The main problem ? The name of the application illegally using the name of lawyer, points to the profession. Because anyone who claims to practice the profession of lawyer must have a diploma.
In reaction, Amaury Sonet, member of the council of the Order, sent a letter to Issam Reghi, asking him to expressly remove the app from the Google and Apple catalogs, under penalty of prosecution.
What future for the application?
The contractor’s response was quick. No question of giving in. “I have not removed it and I will not remove it,” taunts the thirty-year-old through a press release posted on social networks. “What you find to reproach us for is in no way legally enforceable,” he argues, recalling that the application “does not describe itself as a lawyer”, but rather as an artificial intelligence.
“Today, justice is not easy to access. A person with a small budget will not have the same chances of winning their case as a person with significant means,” Issam Reghi further argues, specifying that the “goal is to restore fairness to justice.”
If, at first, the person concerned indicated that he refused to change the name of his application, preferring to settle this matter in court, he changed his mind since Monday. “From February 5, we will call it I-Legal,” he confirms to the Progress.