Hear Me Out, a free, user-friendly website, is helping people understand and exercise their legal rights when lodging a complaint.
Built in collaboration with the National Justice Project and the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, Hear Me Out is one of the world’s first generative AI legal self-help tools, designed to simplify the complaints process.
Co-founder of the platform and Director of the Kaldor Centre, Professor Daniel Ghezelbash said, “We were in the right place at the right time. We had the perfect use case when AI started to get a lot of hype, we got funding and were able to hit the ground running.”
From chatbots to an industry-first AI platform
When people experience injustice, resolving it can be overwhelming. With more than 320 complaint bodies across Australia, the system is complex and fragmented.
“About six years ago, I became really interested in the opportunities for applying tech in the ‘access to justice’ space,” Daniel said.
The idea for Hear Me Out came from an earlier collaboration with the National Justice Project, focused on building chatbots to assist with writing discrimination complaints. It led to the realisation that the biggest barrier wasn’t writing complaints, it was knowing where to send them.
“Most lawyers didn’t know where to direct people,” Daniel said.
“That’s how we came up with the idea for Hear Me Out. We wanted to build a platform where anyone who has experienced injustice can jump on, type in their own words what happened, and the platform will quickly tell them whether their experience constitutes a complaint as well as where to go.”
While developing Hear Me Out, the team prioritised making it user-friendly.
A UX-driven design process ensures the platform is accessible for all users, and Microsoft technology supports its adaptability as AI models evolve.
Retrieval-augmented generation
Unlike many AI tools, Hear Me Out doesn’t rely on reinforcement learning. Instead, it uses retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), a framework that allows LLMs to combine with external knowledge bases, in this case with law firms nationwide contributing thousands of hours of pro bono work. By adopting this approach, Hear Me Out has assured accuracy, transparency and the platform can evolve as laws and regulations change.
This use-case is unique because very few humans previously performed the tasks the technology supports. It assists in an area of law that wasn’t properly resourced or understood.
“No one was doing this job, it was a gap in the industry and even lawyers found it very difficult to navigate,” Daniel said.
Impact and national expansion
Since its launch, Hear Me Out has received strong support from complaint bodies, including the NSW Ombudsman and the Australian Human Rights Commission. By reducing the volume of misdirected complaints, the platform has saved time for agencies and improved outcomes for the public.
The tool has been available in NSW since March 2025 and has just launched in Victoria with a new feature – a generative AI-powered complaint- writing tool. A staged rollout will follow across other states and territories, with a national footprint planned. with a new feature – a generative AI-powered complaint writing tool. A staged rollout will follow across other states and territories, with a national footprint planned.
To date, most complaints lodged through the app relate to human rights, police, legal and discrimination complaints.
An international presence
Daniel’s vision for Hear Me Out is for it to become a legal diagnosis tool, a one-stop shop where people can type in any legal issue and receive clear guidance on next steps.
“This is a proof of concept for applying generative AI in the ‘access to justice’ space. We’ve shared how we built it with other legal bodies, so it’s as replicable as possible. We’ve even had conversations with the UK Law Society about building something similar,” Daniel said.
Read more about the award-winning Hear Me Out on the UNSW Newsroom.
- Log in to post comments