W360 (Justice in action) student Trevor Fletcher writes about his legal technology project in this blog written for Open Justice Week 2025.

Access Trevor's chatbot here : SheildAI Chatbot

My Open Justice Legal Tech Project was an awesome opportunity to apply the skills I had gained during my legal studies. I chose whistleblowing for the legal service delivery of my chatbot, ShieldAI. I identified this legal need based on the dismal three percent success rate of litigants in persons (LiP) who had been dismissed by their employers after making a protected disclosure. This area of law is complex, particularly on what legally qualifies as a protected disclosure. During research and project implementation, I continuously revisited my personas for an all-inclusive user-centric service. My aim was to express my legal professional identity in the chatbot design with focus on empathy (anxiety with whistleblowers) whilst maintaining legal ethics and values by being aware of biases and recognising heuristics to avoiding inaccurate conclusions. 

ShieldAI equips users with legal guidance on qualifying their protected disclosure and how to legally protect users by linking their legal issue to relevant case law. ShieldAI takes the user on a journey through the legal complexities of becoming a whistleblower without drowning the user in legal jargon. Parts of whistleblowing law are vague, and I was transparent about this complexity in the chatbot. ShieldAI also highlighted the potential of the employer’s zealous advocacy and aimed to limit the loneliness by partnering with the user in guidance and services. The Open Justice Legal Tech Project focuses on skills development, and I can say with certainty that this was the case during chatbot implementation. I improved my existing skills and developed new skills, including iteration in agile methodology which breaks down projects into manageable sizes and continuous improvement.