He conveys a hint of regret, akin to a young doctor tasked with breaking grave news.

“Every company that exists today will either embrace AI or perish,” declares Robbie Epstein.

At 25, the founder of YesLawyer envisions a transformation of the $370 billion U.S. legal sector, paralleling AI’s profound impact on the field of medicine.

Back in 2019, a UK study on breast cancer showcased AI’s capabilities. Google’s AI for reading mammograms reduced false positives by 5.7% and false negatives by 9.4%, outshining some of the best radiologists in tumor detection.

This AI achieved superior results by recognizing intricate patterns after processing extensive datasets.

Epstein’s software reads every client communication, every document, and every piece of evidence – giving it a view of the overall legal picture that no human would have the capacity to replicate. 

Traditional mid-size firms might handle a few thousand cases per year.

YesLawyer has processed 15,000 in less than 12 months with a growing network of human lawyers supported by software designed to handle the grunt work.

‘This is what no one else has,’ Epstein tells the Daily Mail. ‘The same way healthcare is built… you start seeing patterns.’

The UPenn graduate already has $5 million in investor backing.

Kim Kardashian plays the role of Allura Grant in the legal drama series All’s Fair, which premiered on Hulu last month

Epstein’s platform operates through a handful of US states that have deregulated legal ownership rules, allowing non-lawyers to own law firms.

From this base, YesLawyer offers same-day consultations with licensed attorneys in 45 states.

Most accident claims follow predictable patterns, Epstein says, but the system is designed to catch the exceptions that might slip past a traditional practice.

A human lawyer working isolated cases would struggle to spot three people in different states describing the same product defect, or may fail to notice when individual employment disputes reveal company-wide discrimination.

Robbie Epstein, the 25-year-old founder of YesLawyer

Almost 90 percent of civil legal problems reported by low-income Americans receive inadequate or no professional help, according to the Legal Services Corporation.

‘If someone has a claim worth ten thousand dollars, there’s no way for them to bring that case,’ Epstein says.

Court filing fees alone can run to $1,000, making small claims economically unviable.

‘But if a thousand people have the same $10,000 claim? Suddenly, that’s a $10 million problem. That’s what the system is built to detect,’ the young businessman explains.

He believes the law is poised for a digital breakthrough that will revolutionize the industry, in the same way telehealth changed medicine during the pandemic. Once considered dangerous, nobody thinks twice now about online consultations. 

The broader legal tech market is booming. Investors poured a record $2 billion into the sector last year.

Nearly a third of lawyers now use AI tools for drafting, research, and document review, according to the American Bar Association.

Harvey AI, the industry’s ChatGPT equivalent, secured $300 million in funding in early 2025, at an $8 billion valuation.

But the rush to adopt has brought chaos.

From Oregon to New York, courts have warned of an ‘epidemic’ of hallucinated legal filings packed with fake case law and nonsense citations.

In 2024, a Manhattan judge fined two attorneys $5,000 after their ChatGPT-assisted brief cited six imaginary rulings.

‘These cases are damaging the reputation of the bar,’ ethics professor Stephen Gillers told the New York Times.

‘Lawyers everywhere should be ashamed of what members of their profession are doing.’

Even major firms have slipped.

In November, Buchalter LLP narrowly avoided sanctions in a federal case in Portland after submitting a filing containing two AI-generated citations.

The judge let them off after a public apology, a $5,000 donation to legal aid, and a promise to retrain staff.

Other AI skeptics warn of broader economic headwinds.

MIT economist Daron Acemoglu estimates generative AI will significantly affect just 5 percent of US job tasks this decade, far below the disruption many investors expect.

More than $2.7 trillion was wiped off US stock markets on November 20 amid mounting concerns over an AI bubble.

But Epstein, like many AI backers across the economy, sees the technology as an existential inevitability.

‘I don’t like saying wipe-out,’ he says. ‘But if every firm has to choose between using [AI] and not, the ones that don’t… I don’t see how they compete.’