WRAITH CASE STUDY AUGUSTA PINE
IDENTITY SECURITY DIVISION
THE LAWYERBOT INCIDENT DEbrIEF
The first time I was arrested, I was sixteen.
I met Prefect on a sunny downtown street in Alexandria, Virginia.
The neighborhood was a tourist trap—it was all old-fashioned cobblestones and quaint little shops designed to look colonial.
Prefect’s black SUV looked thoroughly out of place.
He had double-parked, entrapping a car with a private security logo.
The owner of said car was a middle-aged white man with a utility belt, a receding hairline, and a frustrated glower.
But he didn’t do more than glare at Prefect from a safe distance.
He was probably hired by the local homeowners association and knew better than to annoy someone with actual power.
I walked toward Prefect, carrying two to-go cups. “You’re double-parked,” I said.
Prefect shrugged. “I’m allowed.”
“This was, like, seven dollars,” I said, handing him a cup. “The only coffee place had artisanal beans or something like that.”
“I’ll make sure you’re reimbursed.” Prefect took his coffee and held it under his nose, closing his eyes and inhaling deeply. His expression held the kind of peace and contentment of a man kneeling in church.
I let him have his moment. Exactly one moment. Then I said, “So, why are we here?”
He opened his eyes, and with that, he was all business again.
“Someone’s hacked an app,” he said. “Or so we think. It’s a … delicate situation.”
“Which app did they hack?”
His mouth twisted up at one corner. “Lawyerbot.”
I blinked. “Someone’s hacked Lawyerbot?”
“Possibly,” said Prefect. “That’s the thing. We don’t know. We’ve been asked to look into it.”
“Since when does ISD do personal favors?”
“Since the CEO of Lawyerbot is a friend of the head of the Department of Defense,” said Prefect dryly.
“Okay.” I drew out the word. “So the CEO thinks his app has been hacked. Did they find evidence? Leaked emails on the dark web? Missing files? A copycat app?” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the security guard walking toward a group of young women in college sweatshirts.
Despite what looked like a thirty-year age gap, his body language was flirtatious.
I could see his mouth moving, even if I couldn’t hear the words.
The young women were instantly wary, edging away from him.
“No,” said Prefect. “The app”—he made the word sound dirty—“has a certain win rate. It is predictable. With the algorithm and experience of those involved, there shouldn’t be any surprises.”
“Oh,” I said, understanding. “They’re losing cases.”
Prefect’s frown deepened. “Actually, they’re winning.”
I gaped at him. “Wait, so the CEO thinks he’s been hacked because his app is doing too well?”
“The app has a tiered payment system,” said Prefect.
“There’s the cheapest subscription, the mid-range, and the most expensive.
The cheapest one is just an algorithm. The midrange has access to one or two lawyers available for chats, but it’s never the same lawyer.
And the most expensive will have a dedicated lawyer for chats, if only for brief consults. ”
I took a sip of my coffee. It tasted too bitter. “So, the more money you pay, the better defense you get.”
“Precisely.” Prefect sighed. “But suddenly, the cheapest tier is winning almost eighty percent of its cases.”
“Is that good?” I asked.
He nodded. “Very experienced and educated human lawyers often don’t have such a good win rate. For an algorithm, it’s unheard of. As good as AI can be at some things … the law isn’t one of them.”
I glanced past Prefect. The security guard was still talking to the girls, leaning on their car with a kind of indolent confidence. The girls were smiling, but in that strained way that conveyed more fear than friendliness.
“The problem is that fewer people are paying for the higher tiers,” Prefect continued. “Which is losing the app money.”
“So we need to investigate to see if someone changed the algorithm to be good at defending people,” I said. “Next, we’ll see if there are any puppies for you to kick.”
Prefect looked about as happy as I felt.
“It’s a proprietary algorithm. If it has been hacked, it’s because someone used identity theft.
It does fall under our purview.” He took a long drink of his coffee.
“I was thinking we could look at a few cases before and after the win rate changed. See if the program responded differently.”
The security guard stood between the girls and their car. “Please,” one of the girls was saying. “We just want to go.”
“What’s the rush?” The guard was smiling smugly, leaning against the closed driver’s side door.
“Or,” I said, “we could test the app ourselves.”
Then I picked up a brick.
Lawyerbot was born, like so many inventions, out of opportunism.
It began in the late twenties, after a couple pandemics and an economic crash.
Society came to a grinding halt and then tried to limp back to normalcy—to varied levels of success.
One of the aspects of society that had trouble finding its feet was the justice system.
There weren’t enough public defenders. Those who stuck around were overworked and underpaid.
People found themselves on waiting lists, unable to afford a private attorney while waiting for a public defense lawyer’s schedule to free up.
People lost their jobs because they were stuck in jail or ended up with fines they couldn’t negotiate their way out of.
And so along came Lawyerbot: the first virtual defense lawyer.
Technically a defendant couldn’t be represented by an app. The founding fathers wouldn’t have approved. But a person could represent themselves pro se—and if they happened to be following the advice of an app, that was their choice.
It wasn’t really a choice. But the illusion made the whole system seem less dysfunctional.
If I’d gone to court, I probably would’ve been repped by Lawyerbot.
My parents were middle class, but with three kids to feed and put through school, there hadn’t been a lot of money left over.
I had occasionally imagined what my life would have been like if I hadn’t taken Prefect’s offer.
If I had simply let the justice system take its course.
I probably would’ve ended up in a jail just like this one.
“I can’t believe you did that,” said Prefect. He leaned against the wall, arms crossed. He had pulled rank as my guardian to stay with me. “I had a plan, Augusta.”
“I can’t believe you can’t believe I would do that,” I replied. “Now, give me your phone.”
“I hate that I followed that sentence,” he muttered, and handed me his phone. He carried an old-fashioned one—a slip of glass that shifted from transparent to opaque as needed. I normally used my ringware and visor, but the cops had confiscated those.
While Prefect might have grumbled throughout the process of arresting me, he had still downloaded the app and made an account. “If you boot it up, it’s considered a billable hour,” he said. “Even if you don’t use it for the full hour. It’s still eighty dollars.”
I winced, imagining how hard it would be for most people to afford that. “Just for the lowest tier?”
He nodded.
I opened the app.
A cartoon of a man wearing a business suit appeared. He had dark hair, a serious face, and bore an uncanny resemblance to Prefect. I glanced at him, then back at the app.
“What?” he said.
“Nothing,” I said. “Just wondering if you were spawned by a computer program.”
Above the cartoon appeared a word bubble: Hello, I am Lawyerbot. Let’s get you justice! The bubble expanded to take up the whole screen, and I was in the chat.
I typed in, I have been arrested for throwing a brick through a private security guard’s windshield. He was harassing some women.
Three dots appeared. It was just for show.
I wasn’t chatting with a person. When Lawyerbot first launched, the chatbot had responded to queries instantly and it had put people off.
Having those three dots, the pause, and the illusion that there was a person behind the screen made customers trust it more.
I am sorry to hear that, the chatbot wrote back. Have charges been filed?
No, I typed back.
Three dots. Undoubtedly the app was checking my location, the local time, and what court I would end up in.
Do not talk to the cops came the reply. The next step, if they decide to charge, will be arraignment.
They’ll decide whether to set a bond or take you into custody. Is this your first offense?
I briefly considered telling the app that I was guilty of felony murder. But that would just confuse the program. Yes.
This time, the pause was longer.
Are there witnesses who saw the harassment?
That made me pause. I had honestly thought the app would skip over that part.
“Okay, this app is better than I thought it would be,” I said. “It wants to know about witnesses.”
Prefect stood at my shoulder, reading the chat. “Well, go ahead and answer.”
I did. Yes. Three women.
Did you get their information? Do you have any way to contact them?
I have their phone numbers, I answered. Prefect had made sure to get them, just in case. And the license plate of the security guard.
Three dots. Send over the plate number. I will see if any previous charges have been filed against him.
“Can Lawyerbot check plate numbers?” I asked.
Prefect was frowning. “No, it doesn’t have access to that kind of information. Or, rather, it shouldn’t. It’s designed to offer general advice, not to do research. That’s reserved for the lawyers working at the higher tiers.”
I was typing in the plate number already. “Well, let’s see if it does.”
We waited for about fifteen minutes before the three dots appeared again.