Robot, Esq.

IT'S EVERYONE'S FONDEST DREAM: A COMPUTER THAT WILL do your legal work and won't bill you at $400 an hour. Sorry, it's not about to happen anytime soon. But then there's Frederic Parnon, a former Manhattan litigator who left his firm five years ago to develop software that can be used to give legal advice of sorts. Working from a cramped, nondescript lab above Rockefeller Center, Parnon has spent more than $1 million of his own moneycreating a program called Jnana, which means "knowledge"in Sanskrit. Already, a handful of companies and law firms, such as General Electric, J.P. Morgan and Davis Polk & Wardwell, have bought the program and customized it for their needs. Typically the program is made available to employees through the Internet, allowing them access to advice they aren't getting–or are paying to get from law firms.