Pacific Legal Education and Outreach Society (PLEO) is pioneering new ways to provide legal education to nonprofits. At the March 11, 2025 TechSoup Connect Canada event Minnie Karanja (Acting Director of Innovation and Engagement), and Kris Elgstrand (Head of Communications) shared insights into their development of an AI-powered chatbot aimed at making legal information more accessible.
Why Legal Education for Nonprofits Matters
PLEO has been providing legal education to nonprofits for over 20 years. Initially focused on the arts sector, they have since expanded to serve organizations across Canada. Their mission is to make legal guidance more accessible through innovative tools such as LawForNonprofits.ca.
Key legal challenges nonprofits face include:
- Record keeping – Ensuring compliance with regulations
- Privacy laws – Understanding personal information protection
- Employment regulations – Navigating contracts and labor laws
To address these concerns, PLEO developed a range of accessible legal resources, including fact sheets, FAQs, self-assessment tools, and legal guides.
Introducing the AI Chatbot
PLEO’s latest innovation is an AI-powered chatbot, designed to offer nonprofits an intuitive, conversational way to access legal information. This chatbot is built using retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), a model trained primarily on PLEO’s verified legal content to ensure accuracy and reliability.
Key Features of the Chatbot:
- Conversational Interface – Users can ask legal questions naturally, as they would with a lawyer.
- Verified Knowledge Base – The chatbot pulls from PLEO’s repository of vetted legal information.
- Guided Navigation – Helps users refine their legal questions and locate the most relevant information.
- Guardrails for Accuracy – Strict controls prevent misinformation by keeping responses within PLEO’s area of expertise.
The chatbot aims to enhance existing legal resources by providing another avenue for nonprofits to obtain quick and reliable answers.
Challenges in AI Chatbot Development
Developing a chatbot for legal education comes with unique challenges:
- Ensuring accuracy – Unlike general AI assistants, the chatbot must provide legally sound guidance. Early testing revealed that the chatbot sometimes pulled from non-vetted sources, requiring further refinement.
- Balancing accessibility and depth – The chatbot must be detailed enough to offer useful answers while remaining easy to navigate.
- Guardrails and Testing – Implementing restrictions on what topics the chatbot addresses, such as avoiding advice on real estate law or tax-specific charity regulations.
- Continuous testing – PLEO’s team, including legal experts, conducts rigorous testing using real nonprofit legal queries to refine responses.
The Role of Testing in AI Implementation
PLEO’s development team emphasized that testing is the most time-intensive part of the chatbot’s creation. Their process involves:
- Developing a standardized set of legal questions
- Evaluating chatbot responses for accuracy and relevance
- Rating chatbot performance using a structured review system
- Refining AI behavior through iterative updates
Unlike other AI applications designed for exploratory research, this chatbot must provide precise and actionable legal guidance, making ongoing refinement essential.
Lessons for Nonprofits Exploring AI
For nonprofits considering AI-powered solutions, PLEO’s journey offers valuable takeaways:
- Start with a strong knowledge base – AI is only as good as the data it’s trained on.
- Ensure legal compliance – If your chatbot provides legal or policy guidance, ensure it is built with reliable, vetted sources.
- Focus on accessibility – Provide multiple ways for users to engage with content (e.g., fact sheets, step-by-step guides, and AI-powered assistance).
- Test rigorously – AI responses should be reviewed and refined by experts to maintain trust and accuracy.
For organizations looking for a lightweight way to explore AI, try experimenting with ChatGPT’s custom GPT builder, which allows users to train AI on specific internal documents and workflows.
Conclusion
PLEO’s AI chatbot is a promising step toward democratizing legal information for nonprofits. By combining structured legal resources with conversational AI, they are making complex legal topics more accessible, actionable, and affordable for organizations with limited budgets.
For those interested in learning more, visit:
🔗 LawForNonprofits.ca
🔗 Pacific Legal Education and Outreach
📺 Watch the full event replay
As AI tools continue to evolve, nonprofits have exciting opportunities to enhance service delivery, streamline operations, and increase accessibility. PLEO’s chatbot development offers a compelling model for organizations looking to integrate AI into their work while maintaining high standards of accuracy and reliability.