An Alberta startup is looking to streamline personal injury claims with a digital platform powered by artificial intelligent technologies.
Edmonton-based legaltech firm Painworth launched in 2020 to help accident victims with injury settlements, raising a $2M seed round led by New York’s 2048 Ventures in 2022.
The upstart recently revealed its latest tool, DAVID, which is short for Digital Attorney for Victim Injury Disputes.
The AI tool is designed to help clients navigate a process that company cofounder Mike Zouhri found frustrating when dealing with his own accident in 2019.
Gideon Christian, an AI and law professor at the University of Calgary, suggested to the Canadian Press that DAVID could be “a huge game changer.”
Painworth’s release of DAVID follows a targeted relaxing of certain legal regulations in the province.
Through the Innovation Sandbox initiative, which allows testing of innovative legal service models under supervised conditions to promote access to justice and technological advancement, the Law Society of Alberta allows Painworth’s “digital attorney” to represent clients in Alberta.
“In Alberta, the Law Society has given us permission to operate as a law firm, which means that we can now represent people in Alberta, even though we’re non-lawyers,” Zouhri informed Global News.
With the Sandbox, the Law Society says it is “creating a space where current regulations on legal service delivery can be relaxed to encourage innovation.” The environment supports potential providers in testing new ideas and models for the delivery of legal services in a controlled environment, with the IRG providing both guidance and oversight.
While the “sandbox” approach allows for novel tactics, Painworth’s AI doesn’t have free rein in court.
“Anyone who seeks representation will still have a human ultimately making the final calls,” Zouhri noted.
Using DAVID isn’t free—Painworth charges a flat 28% contingency fee—but Zouhri says the rate is lower than traditional firms.
There remain concerns around AI in the legal sector, but Zouhri says his startup respects privacy laws, adding that his product leverages proprietary tools which ensure DAVID “has no ability to ‘hallucinate,'” a common problem with AI models.
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