Most small businesses never chase unpaid invoices.
It costs more to hire the lawyer than the debt is worth.
An AI-powered firm called Garfield just proved that math doesn't have to work that way.
In May, a county court in Wandsworth, England ruled in favor of a freelancer who used Garfield to recover £7,000 in unpaid fees. The defendant had denied owing anything and filed a counterclaim of about £1,500 - a common tactic to pressure someone into dropping the case or settling for pennies.
She didn't budge. And Garfield's software handled the paperwork.
The £400 legal bill
Here's what makes this more than a small-claims footnote.
Garfield is a regulated law firm, but its workforce is mostly code. Users upload contracts and invoices. The platform spits out legal letters and court documents. A human barrister still argues the case in court, but everything leading up to that moment is automated.
For this case, the freelancer paid Garfield about £400. A traditional lawyer would have cost multiples of that - and probably would have killed the case before it started.
"You don't want to spend a lot of money on lawyers to collect a £4,000 debt," said founder Philip Young. "It's just not worth it."
Young would know. He spent years as a litigator at white-shoe firm Baker McKenzie before starting his own boutique practice. He built Garfield after messing around with ChatGPT on a family road trip and realizing the tech could reshape who gets access to legal help.
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The plumber test
Young's pitch is simple. His brother-in-law is a plumber in South Yorkshire. When customers didn't pay, he'd call his lawyer brother-in-law. Most plumbers don't have one.
"In England, we've got a choice," Young said. "Either we can build things to solve access to justice gaps, or we can rearrange it so that every plumber has a brother who happens to be a litigation partner."
Garfield has processed more than 600 claims and recovered about £500,000 for clients so far. Usage is climbing - early adopters are giving way to larger businesses, and even an English regulator has started using the platform.
Last May, Garfield became the first regulated law firm of its kind to win approval from the Solicitors Regulation Authority. The UK lets non-lawyers own or invest in law firms, which opens the door for tech-backed entrants that would struggle to launch in other countries.
Young says the company hasn't raised institutional money yet. It's been funded by him and close friends. But the ruling has already sent traffic to Garfield's website up 1,000% in a single day.
What to watch
One court win doesn't remake an industry. But it does show the model works - at least for small, straightforward claims.
The bigger question is how far the model scales. Debt collection is one lane. Contract disputes, employment claims, and landlord-tenant fights all sit in the same bucket: common, painful, and too expensive to litigate for most people.
If AI can handle the paperwork for £400 a pop, a lot of those cases suddenly look worth pursuing.
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