HelpSelf Legal, an AI-assisted app, offers help to consumers on legal issues such as debt collection and domestic violence. As co-founder, Dorna Moini, a former trial litigator, observed, HelpSelf’s competitors might focus on serving “small businesses or higher net worth individuals with needs such as wills, trusts, and employment agreements.” HelpSelf Legal provides access to justice to those who might otherwise depend on private firms’ pro bono work or publicly funded legal services. Moini started HelpSelf to address “the disparity between technology available” to a law firm’s “pro bono clients” versus its other clientele.

Questions

1. How does the online provision of legal services resolve access to justice problems for those unable to afford a lawyer? 

2. If a lower-income individual seeks to resolve a conflict with a Fortune 500 company by using an online service or legal services app, would that individual be at a disadvantage? Explain