Introducing the Somerville Law Bot
A free way to ask an AI about Somerville law
A few months ago I grabbed a copy of all of Somerville’s laws so I could drop them into ChatGPT/Claude and ask questions.
I had a lot of fun asking questions (“Aren’t leaf blowers banned in July?”, “Can I ride a horse down Highland Ave?”, “Does the city have an official hay weigher?”)
This ended up being rather useful, so I decided to whip up a tool so other residents could enjoy the same ability:
To be clear: the bot’s outputs are fallible, and are not legal advice. If you’ve got a high-impact decision to make, you should definitely talk to a lawyer. But for getting quickly oriented when the stakes are lower, I found it to be a handy option! The bot attempts to cite the relevant parts of our municipal code when it answers, so you can confirm exact quotations yourself.
After every answer, you’ll have the option to rate its helpfulness and accuracy. I’ll review these reports regularly and use the failures to tune the bot’s responses.