No, not the pop singing duo from the Beach Boys days; this is Christopher Holly (the “DAWSON Product Owner”) and Tenille Lenard (the “DAWSON Product Specialist”), live from The Glasshouse in the City Taxed but Unrepresented, debuting the all-new, user-friendly, jim-handy online petition generator. Apparently Chris is the man who gave us DAWSON, hence he is the “Owner.”

The robopetitioner is for the self-represented only; no practitioners need apply, although Judge Ronald L. (“Ingenuity”) Buch noted the extensive attendance of the LITC crowd. Glad they could make it, as this presentation was not recorded and won’t be repeated. I wonder how many of the 80% of Tax Court petitioners who are self-represented, and for whose benefit this platform was devised, were available at Noon Eastern Time on a Tuesday.

Judge Ingenuity Buch assures us that the generator uses no AI, but is run by and for the petitioner on his/her own device (laptop, desktop, tablet, or smartphone). So the answer to my blogpost “AI Comes to Second Street, NW?” 6/28/24, is definitely no.

It’s a simple online form-fill, takes only PDF attachments, full of warnings to redact PII, easy to return to previous pages to correct. No discussion of “Save” function, but I suppose it’s easy enough to save one’s submission, or print it from the docket page once it’s filed. I challenged the insufficiency of the product’s warning to doublecheck filing deadlines, but Tax Court eschews the complexities thereof, leaving the selfies to seek salvation in fear and trembling.

Would this product have saved Antawn Jamal Sanders? See my blogpost “In the Midnight Hour,” 6/20/23.

OK, so the product is definitely a good thing.

Now for Taishoff’s gripes.

Why was this webinar not recorded? Was it so far beyond Tax Court’s capabilities? The DEI series was recorded and is available on the Tax Court website. While that series is all very commendable, would not the hapless, feckless pro se, who, Judge Ingenuity Buch tells us, represents no less than eighty (count ’em, eighty) percent of all petitioners, be served at least equally well if s/he could watch this demonstration before venturing onto the platform?

As for the Captain, were I the one who perpetrated the rollout of DAWSON (see my blogpost “Up DAWSON’s Creek,” 10/12/21), I don’t know I’d exert any immoderate haste to claim parentage.