No one has the time to read every legal case — not even law students and lawyers. Researching cases can be a tedious and time-consuming process that involves finding and wading through lengthy legal opinions, said Richard DiBona.
While DiBona isn't a lawyer, he has an interest in law and has found that finding judicial opinions via Google isn't expeditious and other legal search engines can be very pricey.
DiBona and his wife and co-founder Kara Peterson, a communications professional, recently launched descrybe.ai. The legal AI platform is powered by OpenAI and CourtListener and allows users to read and search summaries of judicial opinions.
DiBona described this new project as CliffsNotes for legal cases.
An AI-powered side hustle
DiBona grew up in Connecticut, studied computer science at Marist College and then moved to Boston. He’s worked at several Boston-area giants, including TJX and Wayfair. He now lives in Newton and works for a device company in Marlborough.
DiBona has always tinkered on side projects during his career. One project, called Episend, won an award from the Massachusetts Innovation and Technology Exchange. When AI became a hot topic at the beginning of 2023, he began experimenting with how the technology would integrate with the legal system.
He began feeding legal cases into AI and having it summarize the information. Then, he added more cases and the ability to search the summaries using natural language. This means it can find relevant cases without having to match exact words.
“I was able to do things like, 'Show me law cases involving a weapon left in a dumpster.' It finds them all like instantly,” DiBona said.
Building a platform
In February, DiBona began building his own AI-powered legal research platform. DiBona has had computers running around the clock uploading cases, state by state, via CourtListener from January 1, 1980 forward. DiBona estimates the computers have logged about 80,000 hours of work so far. Descrybe.ai only searches information from the cases uploaded into it, DiBona said, not the internet. After finishing the state courts, DiBona plans to move onto the federal court system.
This month, descrybe.ai launched with a 30-day free trial and monthly price of $24.
DiBona said he sees descrybe.ai as a B2B startup that could work with law firms or law schools.
While DiBona said lawyers have some search engine options, they’re very expensive. And it still takes time to read through the “legalese” of documents and determine if they’re relevant. DiBona said lawyers could use descrybe.ai as a way to cut down the time and costs they spend reviewing cases. Their research might not end with descrybe.ai, but DiBona said it could help them find the right cases to pursue.
“It tells you right away whether the case is relevant to what you want to do or what you need. It’s not the ending place, but it points you in the right direction,” DiBona said.
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