Robert Ambrogi Blog
descrybe.ai, a free legal research platform that uses artificial intelligence to provide enhanced access to the law, today rolled out a major upgrade that includes a redesign of its platform, more nuanced and accurate search results, summaries of judicial opinions in Spanish as well as English, and simplified, plain-language summaries in both English and Spanish.
As I wrote about descrybe.ai last March, it uses AI to generate summaries of court opinions and make them searchable. Its mission is to democratize access to legal information and level the playing field in legal research.
With today’s upgrade, descrybe.ai has rebuilt its search from the ground up and created new summaries of all its cases using the latest large language models, which have evolved significantly since descrybe.ai first started creating summaries nearly two years ago.
“We have learned so much about how to successfully apply AI to legal research since our launch,” said cofounder Richard DiBona. “This reimagined platform is a direct result of endless hours perfecting our architecture, prompting, and processes and is also a reflection of user feedback and the gaps we have seen in the legal tech space.”
Search results include an AI-generated summary of each opinion. The user can choose to show the summary in Spanish or in a simplified form.
The search interface has been redesigned so that users can select states to search from a dropdown, rather than from a list on the sidebar. When a user conducts a search, the results page shows relevant cases, together with summaries of each case.
“The summaries are better than ever,” DiBona told me during a recent preview of the upgraded platform, which he presented along with cofounder Kara Peterson. “They’re super precise and they’re much more clear.”
Today’s upgrade adds an option at the top of the search-results page that allows a user to instantly translate the summaries into Spanish. In addition, for users at a lower reading level, they can choose to convert the summaries to simplified English or Spanish.
The simplified version shows the summary at a fifth-grade reading level.
That means each summary is now available in both standard English and simplified English and standard Spanish and simplified Spanish. The simplified versions are at a fifth-grade reading level.
If a user clicks on one of those summaries, they will go to the page containing the full opinion, which also shows a longer AI-generated summary of the opinion. The cases are not translated and remain in English.
The simplified summaries were suggested by some of the legal aid organizations the company works with, Peterson told me, as a way of increasing access to the law among those who have limited language proficiency.
The translations are created using AI, and DiBona said that descrybe.ai has had samplings of the translations verified by native Spanish speakers to ensure that they are accurate.
Summaries can also be shown in Spanish and simplified Spanish.
In addition to getting summaries in Spanish, users can now also search in Spanish.
By using the latest models, descrybe.ai’s update is now able to capture much more nuance in opinions and searches, DiBona said. “It’s even more to where it understands what you’re talking about and finds relevance in case law that it’s just so far beyond keyword search.”
As of today, descrybe.ai includes 1.2 million judicial opinions from state appellate and supreme courts in seven states: California, Florida, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina and Texas. By the end of the year, the company says, it will have 3.6 million appellate opinions from all 50 states.
Although the company is working to develop new features for which it will charge a fee, the basic legal research platform will remain free to all users, Peterson told me.
“We know that one tool — no matter how good — cannot solve the access to justice crisis,” Peterson said. “But if enough of us in the legal tech sector prioritize using AI to improve access to law and access to justice, we can collectively move the needle in a meaningful way.”