This A.I. lawyer can help you file for unemployment benefits

By Luke Dormehl Published April 14, 2020

Looking to avoid the stress of filing for unemployment? Simple: Get an artificial-intelligence lawyer to do it for you.

According to the latest figures, more than 16 million people in the United States have filed for unemployment benefits in recent weeks — with more than 6 million filing in the last week alone — as coronavirus-induced lockdowns have left many in the country jobless or furloughed.

While there are unemployment benefits available, though, claiming them isn’t necessarily straightforward. To help address this challenge, automated legal company DoNotPay has added unemployment filing skills to its multi-talented robot lawyer.

“DoNotPay will now help our users file and maintain unemployment status in all 50 states,” founder Joshua Browder told Digital Trends. “This includes filing all the paperwork and ‘skip waiting on hold’ if the states do require a call.”

DoNotPay Unemployment Benefit 1 — DoNotPay

The chatbot works by asking users a series of plain English questions. It then fills out their application and submits the claim as required, depending on the individual requirements of the state in question.

Browder started the A.I. legal project to help users fight parking tickets. Since then, DoNotPay has advanced into all sorts of areas — from helping you sue robocall scammers to helping protect newly unemployed people against bills they can’t afford. Unemployment assistance was the next logical step, Browder said.

“Over the past month, this has been the biggest request from our existing user base,” he told Digital Trends.

In recent months, the service has begun charging in the form of a $3 per month subscription. Users who just need unemployment help will have that fee waived.

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I'm a UK-based tech writer covering Cool Tech at Digital Trends. I've also written for Fast Company, Wired, the Guardian…

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