DoNotPay marketed its online subscription service as “the world’s first robot lawyer,” claiming its AI chatbot could substitute for the expertise of a human attorney - generating legal documents, giving legal advice, and even checking a small business’s website for “hundreds” of federal and state law violations from nothing but an email address. In a complaint announced in September 2024 as part of a sweep the agency called Operation AI Comply, the Federal Trade Commission charged that these claims were deceptive.
The FTC’s central allegation was about evidence: the company “did not test whether its ‘AI lawyer’ operated to the level of a human lawyer when generating legal documents and giving advice, and the company did not hire or retain attorneys to test the quality and accuracy of its service’s law-related features.” On February 11, 2025, the FTC announced it had finalized the order (the Commission had voted 5-0 to approve it on January 16, 2025). The order requires DoNotPay to pay $193,000 in monetary relief, to notify consumers who subscribed between 2021 and 2023 about the settlement, and prohibits the company from advertising that its service performs like a real lawyer unless it has evidence to back the claim.
DoNotPay had earlier drawn attention in 2023 when it floated - then cancelled - a stunt to have its AI coach a defendant through an actual courtroom hearing via earpiece. The FTC action made it one of the first US enforcement cases specifically targeting overstated AI capabilities.
Why business readers should care: the case is a clear marker that “AI washing” - overstating what an AI product can do - is treated by regulators as ordinary deceptive advertising. The operative rule is simple and old: if you claim your product performs like a professional, you need substantiation before you say it.