Coming someday, law departments will invest in chatbots to guide clients?

I read about a company’s use of “life-like chatbots” that are “emotionally intelligent and engaging.” According to an ad from eGain Communications in KMWorld, May 2011 at Profiles 7, “The bot chats with customers, providing answers and processing data, and escalates to live agents when needed.”

A law department might build a legal chatbot (R2D2, Esq.), or entrepreneurs such as specialist law firms might train and license them, that would give guidance, smoothly answer frequently asked questions, point clients to forms and checklists, and call in the cavalry as needed. Voice recognition and natural language processing have come a long way, but the early chatbots for law-related advice might be email based.