By Cat Woods -
The new AI-based platform called Hear Me Out was launched recently by NSW Attorney General Michael Daley. The platform enables lawyers and consumers to access AI-powered tools to ascertain where to make a complaint, and how (online, by phone or email, or in-person).
Hear Me Out is NSW-focused for now, but with avenues to federal complaint bodies. States will be added incrementally, with Victoria the next in line.
The project is a blueprint for cooperation between the public and private sectors in the service of community, and justice reform. Hear Me Out is an initiative of the non-profit human rights legal firm National Justice Project, which partnered with the UNSW Kaldor Centre and Portable Australia to develop the app. They also collaborated with Macquarie University, K&L Gates, Microsoft and Josef, a Melbourne-founded app offering automated legal advice.
The goal of Hear Me Out is that rather than queuing at legal centres, going directly to the NSW Ombudsman, or ringing local community legal services with queries, consumers will feel empowered to access factsheets and guidance about making a formal complaint about their experience with private and public services (police, council, transport, public health service, etc.). Where the platform does not provide comprehensive assistance, there is guidance on who to contact for help and support. At present the app is offered in English only, but there are plans to expand to other languages.
George Newhouse is the CEO of the National Justice Project.
He says, “The reason why we developed Hear Me Out is because the National Justice Project gets a lot of calls each week from people complaining about systemic problems. Not every client has a case, and we don’t have the resources to run every case. One of the solutions was to assist people with some self-directed complaint-making tools.”
Hear Me Out is also proving useful for lawyers.
“Lawyers don’t generally use these self-help type tools, but people just don’t know which way to turn when it comes to navigating complaint processes. Lawyers aren’t trained on making complaints, so this tool is proving useful. It’s also useful for electoral officers who want to provide their constituents with fact sheets and guidance,” Newhouse says.
There are more than 300 complaint processes Australia-wide, making it complicated and time-consuming. In the six-month pilot period, community legal organisations accessed the app on behalf of their clients to make more than 400 complaints. To that end, it’s a tool that is hugely beneficial for lawyers who are short on time and resources. To date, the majority of complaints relate to human rights, police, legal, and discrimination complaints, along with business disputes and consumer rights.
Newhouse tells LSJ Online, “In NSW alone there are 70 different complaint pathways, and it’s an incredibly confusing exercise for individuals to find the right place to go. So, we’ve developed a tool that with the minimum of information provided, can direct you to the right place to make a complaint. When we developed the app, we considered a chatbot-style format, but people don’t have the patience for a series of screening questions. The AI tool is good at determining the appropriate place to make a complaint based on the prompt ‘Tell us what happened’.”
The app enables users to identify the organisation they wish to complain about, to understand the complaint process, identify available support options, access fact sheets, and the right place to make the complaint.
At present, with more than 300 different complaint processes nationally, it is difficult to ascertain how many complaints are made quarterly and annually, how many complaints are solved according to the complainant’s desired solution, how many complaint processes are abandoned midway through due to overly complicated requirements, and whether the complaint results in systemic changes that may benefit the broader consumer base. Hear Me Out does not collect this sort of information, but there is an intention to eventually form a data-based picture of how users interact with the app, the types of concerns people are raising, and which resources are most practical for users.
Newhouse says, “We are consciously not collecting data that identifies users. We do keep data about the question asked by the user and the response the AI platform gives, so that we can tune the AI triage tool to make sure that it’s getting things right. We don’t ask name, address, nor contact information. Stage two of the project, within 12 months, is to use AI to help users to make the complaints. We want people to enter data about their complaint, then they won’t need to continue to input the same details over and over again, which can be retraumatising.”
Where there is transparency over the complaint process, and people feel empowered to make a complaint, systemic change can and has been implemented. Disability advocacy groups and individual users of Sydney’s public transport system complained to the Transport for NSW authority, leading to the eventual installation of ramps, lifts, and audiovisual systems in 2016 via the Transport Access Program.
Like previous National Justice Project initiatives, such as Call It Out and Copwatch, Hear Me Out was a collaborative effort. More than 75 fact sheets were a collective contribution from firms including Gadens, Wotton Kearney, Hall & Wilcox, King & Wood Mallesons, Baker McKenzie, Squire Patton Boggs, Clifford Chance, and K&L Gates.
Newhouse readily accedes this app is only necessary because the complaint process is so complex, and government is not incentivised to enable individuals to make complaints easily.
He says, “[Working out the complaints process] is so confusing and convoluted. Making a medical complaint is way more complicated than going to the NSW Ombudsman, for example. All these processes are different, but they shouldn’t be.”
The next stage of Hear Me Out involves allowing users to make their complaint via the app, expanding to Victoria, and including fact sheets and guidance in languages other than English.
“We’ve been talking with Microsoft, which say they can translate our work into multiple languages already, and we’ll have to sit down and work with them on that. People in marginalised communities often have language barriers, so it’s definitely on our agenda,” Newhouse says.
Newhouse is aware that there have been plenty of negative stories and fears around AI replacing jobs or distorting information. He hopes that this project offers evidence of how useful AI can be for efficiency.
“I think it’s inevitable that lawyers will turn to AI for productivity gains,” he says.
“I use AI to assist my legal practice, so lawyers are already using AI tools to streamline their workload. These sort of apps, like Hear Me Out, are for people who aren’t eligible for public legal services, or can’t afford a lawyer to take up an action. Lawyers should not fear Hear Me Out, because wherever a financial compensation is possible, we strongly recommend through the AI platform that the user see a lawyer.”
Emma Lambert is a Senior Project and Policy Officer at the NSW Ombudsman’s Office. She was on secondment to the National Justice Project throughout the creation of Hear Me Out. She tells LSJ Online, “I have spent 13 years in government complaint handling roles – seven [years] with the NSW Ombudsman and six with the Office of the Legal Services Commission. The secondment was to provide National Justice Project with specialist knowledge on complaint handling systems and processes as well as to map the various complaint avenues available to the public of NSW.”
She says, “Hear Me Out has the potential to empower people to speak up and to equip them with the knowledge and confidence to find the right complainant body and effectively engage with it to give themselves a better chance of having their issue resolved.”
