legal technologies

Juris announces launch of AI powered software to help people solve their own legal problems

On 01/23/2020, in Access to Justice (A2J), Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Cost of legal services - including access, innovation, intelligent systems, law schools, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, society, by Daniel Christian

Juris announces launch of AI powered software to help people solve their own legal problems — from finance.yahoo.com

Excerpt:

Legal technology company Juris has announced the launch of their service, DepositLetter, an online tool built to recover illegally withheld security deposits on behalf of renters. Customers complete a five-minute online interview and Juris does the rest automatically to show their former landlord that they know their rights under the law, to demand their money back, and even threaten to sue. DepositLetter is the first service built on the Juris Virtual Legal Assistant platform, a law-powered A.I. expert system made to help people solve their own legal problems.

Also see:

Millennial lawyers demand mobility. Are law firms ready to provide it? from law.com by Alex Babin
Like it or not, remote work is coming to the legal world. Even among law firms, the development of policies to accommodate work performed away from the office appears to be a notable trend.

Excerpt:

Like it or not, remote work is coming to the legal world. Even among law firms, where I am repeatedly reminded that the adoption of technology tends to lag behind other workplaces and industries, the development of policies to accommodate work performed away from the office appears to be a notable trend. In part, this is being driven by increasing numbers of millennials in the legal workforce. According to a 2019 Deloitte survey, nearly 75% of millennials think a “work-from-home” or “work remotely” policy is important. But the changing perspective is also very likely a function of a broader transition in the legal industry toward technology-enabled efficiency.

The Future of Lawyers: Legal Tech, AI, Big Data And Online Courts — from forbes.com by Bernard Marr

Excerpts:

In his brand new book Online Courts and the Future of Justice, Richard argues that technology is going to bring about a fascinating decade of change in the legal sector and transform our court system. Although automating our old ways of working plays a part in this, even more, critical is that artificial intelligence and technology will help give more individuals access to justice.
…
The first generation is the idea that people who use the court system submit evidence and arguments to the judge online or through some form of electronic communication.
…
The second generation of using technology to transform the legal system would be what Richard calls “outcome thinking” to use technology to help solve disputes without requiring lawyers or the traditional court system.
…
Some of the biggest obstacles to an online court system are the political will to bring about such a transformation, the support of judges and lawyers, funding, as well as the method we’d apply. For example, decisions will need to be made whether the online system would be used for only certain cases or situations.

Ultimately, we have a grave access-to-justice problem. Technology can help improve our outcomes and give people a way to resolve public disputes in ways that previously weren’t possible. While this transformation might not solve all the struggles with the legal system or the access-to-justice issue, it can offer a dramatic improvement.

The LexBlog Excellence Awards 2019 Winners

On 01/15/2020, in blogs / blogging / vlogging, law schools, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, society, training / L&D, by Daniel Christian

Categories

Awards will be presented for outstanding posts in the following categories. Unless stated otherwise, posts can relate to any subject or area, provided it is related to the practice or theory of law. The post must have been published in 2019.

Best News or Trend Analysis: For outstanding analysis of legal news, developments or trends.
Best Legal Analysis: For outstanding analysis and explication of a judicial opinion, legislative development or regulatory development.
Best Breaking News Post: For outstanding same-day or second-day reporting of a legal news development.
Best Explanatory Post: For outstanding writing in helping the reader comprehend the impact or significance of a legal story, development or trend.
Best ‘How-To’ Post: For outstanding writing in helping the reader understand how to handle a legal matter or issue.
Best Commentary/Advice for Legal Professionals: For outstanding writing offering commentary or advice for legal professionals on the business or practice of law.

Some solid articles from Modern Law [published on 1/30/19]

On 01/15/2020, in career development, change, changing business models, disruption, emerging technologies, future, game-changing environment, ideas, innovation, law schools, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, society, strategy, technology (general), UK, United States, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

Excerpts:

Why the traditional US model of educating tomorrow’s lawyers must change [Carpenter]

On 01/15/2020, in 21st century, career development, change, education technology, ideas, law schools, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, by Daniel Christian

Why the traditional US model of educating tomorrow’s lawyers must change — from iam-media.com by Megan Carpenter
Disruption is increasingly affecting the legal services industry but legal education is not evolving fast enough. Greater specialisation in areas like IP, argues Franklin Pierce School of Law dean Megan Carpenter, could improve the training of lawyers and non-lawyers alike

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

But the legal education we need today is not the one-size-fits-all model of the past. For 150 years, law schools and the legal services industry have combined to make legal education a precious commodity, bundled in a very specific way. Like the cable industry or print news media of yore, the education that qualifies people for the legal profession in the US has been one-size-fits-all, without regard to particular practice areas or specialisations and without responding to the diversification of the legal services market.

The legal profession should take a page from the playbook of the medical profession here. Under “healthcare occupations”, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook lists 46 professions, from doctors and nurses to physician assistants, medical extenders, technologists and technicians. Yet, under “Legal Occupations”, the BLS Handbook lists only five positions. By failing to adapt like the medical industry has to a variety of roles for different types of legal professionals, including education that fits those roles, the haves and have-nots of legal knowledge have been defined in a way that is not sustainable and fails to reflect the needs of the marketplace.

Law schools should not resist the expanding market for alternative legal service providers and legal tech; rather, they should lead the charge to provide legal education to people who need it, even if in a different form than such education has taken in the past. There should be more undergraduate and community-college programmes that provide appropriate legal training. The University of Arizona College of Law launched the first undergraduate bachelor degree in law in the US in collaboration with the broader university and other schools should do the same.

From DSC:
I’ve also been thinking about the need for more specializations within law schools, the legal realm, and in the Bar Exam itself.

In the future, will this be happening more in the United States?

On 01/09/2020, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, law schools, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, society, tools, UK, United States, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
In the future, will this be happening more in the United States? I’d say yes, most likely. I’d also add consumers to this new type of online-based offering as well.

“LawBite is an online legal platform powering a fully SRA regulated UK law firm providing fast, expert, affordable legal services for businesses of all sizes.”

How AI is disrupting the legal tech industry [Chau]

On 01/07/2020, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, change, changing business models, collaboration, emerging technologies, ideas, innovation, law schools, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, new business models, strategy, trends, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

How AI is disrupting the legal tech industry — from itproportal.com by Derek Chau
Law firms will benefit from a growing ability to deliver high-value, strategic services while leveraging the ability of AI to execute lower value tasks.

Excerpt:

As increasingly complex AI solutions emerge, the technology continues to capture imaginations across the legal community. AI has become a catalyst for change within the legal ecosystem. And as platforms become more sophisticated, companies have begun to tap into ever-expanding automation and scalability.

Potential impacts/applications include:

Legal research (due diligence)
Predicting legal outcomes
Contract management
Intellectual property law

This reality is driven by the democratisation of legal services as a result of AI integrations. The movement is poised to lower the costs associated with corporate transactions, legal research, IP transactions, and related services. As such, law firms will benefit from a growing ability to deliver high-value, strategic services while leveraging the ability of AI to execute lower value tasks.

‘Fundamental shift’ is transforming the delivery of legal services, new report concludes [Cassens Weiss]

On 01/07/2020, in change, changing business models, disruption, law schools, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, new business models, tools, trends, United States, universities, using teams, workplace, by Daniel Christian

‘Fundamental shift’ is transforming the delivery of legal services, new report concludes — from abajournal.com by Debra Cassens Weiss

Excerpt:

“Revolutionary changes are afoot” in the market for legal services, according to a new report.

Clients are actively managing their relationships with outside counsel, nonlaw competitors are gaining ground, and law firms are responding to market changes in innovative ways, the report says.

The 2020 Report on the State of the Legal Market was released Monday by Georgetown Law’s Center on Ethics and the Legal Profession and Thomson Reuters Legal Executive Institute. It is available for download here.

However, taking that view is seeing only one side of the story. Over this same period, there has been mounting evidence that the underlying model itself is changing, that clients, non-law firm competitors, and even many law firms are now operating with very different assumptions about the role law firm services should play in the legal ecosystem and how such services should be delivered. In the past year or so, this evidence has grown to the point that it seems apparent that a fundamental shift is now well underway.

Also see:

A Future Focus: The Success of Legal Tech Depends on Transformation, Not Automation — from law.com by Zach Warren
Legal technology has incrementally shifted law in recent years, but true transformation isn’t incremental. The next decade has the potential to change that.
Legal Tech’s Predictions for Legal Innovation in 2020 — from law.com by Zach Warren
From blockchain and cryptocurrency to new skillsets for lawyers, here’s what lawyers and technologists see as the future of law—coming in 2020.

Lori Lorenzo, research and insights leader of chief legal officer program, Deloitte: “Catching-up and keeping-up with tech advancements for the legal function will remain a top goal for chief legal officers in 2020. Of course, addressing legal team tech skills gaps may drive inclusion of professionals with diverse skillsets, like data scientists, automation experts and the like, into the legal function.”

Legal Tech’s Predictions for Artificial Intelligence in 2020 — from law.com by Zach Warren
We may not have robot lawyers, but lawyers and technologists agree that artificial intelligence will have a major impact on the legal profession in 2020.

Excerpts:

Alex Babin, CEO, Zero: “The biggest gains from automating legal practices will be time saved and improved workflow efficiencies as the AI ‘takes over’ more laborious tasks including litigation support, email, e-discovery, and the use of databases for case management. Lawyers will begin to trust in this process, letting AI perform these basic tasks such as auto-filing document and email for compliance. AI will enhance corporate and regulatory reporting and improves contract creation and management.”

Scott Forman, shareholder, Littler Mendelson and founder of Littler CaseSmart and Littler onDemand: “Data analytics and AI have already fundamentally changed the delivery of legal services, but I expect 2020 to bring a greater understanding of how these technologies enhance, rather than overtake, the work of lawyers. While robots and technology will never replace lawyers, they provide data and insight enabling lawyers to do their jobs faster and better. This includes automating aspects of the legal process—so that lawyers can focus on top-of-the-pyramid work—as well as synthesizing and serving up information that guides litigation strategy, identifies potential areas of risk and moves toward predicting legal outcomes.”

AI fears subside: Most see fundamental change, but not job loss [Ready] + an item on legal engineering

On 01/04/2020, in career development, law schools, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, workplace, by Daniel Christian

AI fears subside: Most see fundamental change, but not job loss — from .law.com by Frank Ready
ILTA released a new Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning report that alludes to fundamental changes coming for the legal industry—but those disruptions may not be happening where one would expect.

Excerpt:

A new Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning report published last week by the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) indicates that while law firms may be expecting AI to yield “fundamental change” within the industry, lawyers shouldn’t count on a significant portion of the work they perform being replaced by software.

Also see:

Legal engineering: A growing trend in software development — from techrepublic.com by Scott Matteson

Some of the topics/items mentioned include:

Technologists join lawyers in creating the legal realm of the future.
Future lawyers will need to either have project managers on staff or be able to manage projects themselves.
Lifelong learning is now critically important. One doesn’t necessarily need to be able to code, but one needs to be constantly learning.
Need to understand legal principles but you will also need to have augmented skills (which will differ from person to person)
New business and delivery models. Don’t presuppose that the current model will always be around.
There will be fewer traditional roles/practices. Traditional roles are sunsetting; new skillsets are needed.
Students: Do your due diligence; read up on the industry and think about whether there’s a good fit. Learn your craft. Get experience. Be who you are. Bring your unique brand to the table.

Online courts, the future of justice and being bold in 2020 [Kaplan]

On 01/03/2020, in future, ideas, innovation, internet, law schools, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, by Daniel Christian

Online courts, the future of justice and being bold in 2020 — from abajournal.com by Ari Kaplan

Excerpt:

Ari Kaplan: How do you define online courts?

Richard Susskind: I describe two aspects of online courts in the book. The first is ‘online judging,’ which supports the idea that human judges, not artificial intelligence, should decide cases, not in a physical courtroom or through oral hearings but by the submission of evidence and arguments by the parties online. It is an asynchronous hearing system where the parties pass messages and arguments to the judge remotely and receive responses in kind. I am entirely open to the argument that this is not suitable for all cases, but there are many low-volume matters for which it is simply disproportionate to take the day off work or for lawyers to take up a court’s time to resolve relatively modest difficulties and differences. The second aspect of online courts is, in a way, more controversial. I call it ‘extended courts’ and suggest that it should be part of the court function to provide a range of tools to help the parties understand their rights and obligations. These resources could help them formulate arguments, gather and organize evidence, and provide ways for the parties to resolve disputes with one another similar to online alternative dispute resolution. This combination of judges making decisions online together with an extended court structure will greatly increase access to justice.

Addendum on 1/7/20:

Online Courts and the Future of Justice from State Courts on Vimeo.

Legal Tech Broke Investment Record in 2019 as Sector Matures [Skolnik]

On 12/30/2019, in change, law schools, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, productivity / tips and tricks, tools, trends, United States, by Daniel Christian

Legal Tech Broke Investment Record in 2019 as Sector Matures — from biglawbusiness.com by Sam Skolnik

Excerpts:

Investments in legal tech soared past $1 billion in 2019
Key legal tech conference boasted record attendance

Legal technology deals and investments stayed on a fast track in 2019 as the sector becomes increasingly relevant to how Big Law firms and corporate legal divisions operate. Legal tech investments flew past the $1 billion mark by the end of the third quarter. It hit that mark for the first time the year before.

Also see:

Legal Tech’s Predictions for E-Discovery in 2020 — from law.com by Zach Warren
From ephemeral messaging to global expansion and beyond, lawyers and technologists believe e-discovery will show no signs of stagnation in 2020.

“E-discovery sits at the intersection of two industries not known for diversity: legal and high-tech. Despite what can feel like major wins, statistics paint a bleak picture—most U.S. lawyers are white, managing partners are primarily male, and only 2% of partners in major firms are black; leadership at e-discovery companies has historically reflected this demographic. The next decade will see a major shift in focus for leadership and talent development at e-discovery providers as we join law firms and corporate legal departments in putting our money where our mouths are and deliver recruitment and retention programs that fight discrimination and actively recruit, retain, and promote women, minority, and underserved talent.”

Sarah Brown, director of marketing, Inventus

Don’t trust AI until we build systems that earn trust [Marcus]

On 12/21/2019, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, emerging technologies, engineering, ethics, innovation, law schools, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, mathematics, morals/values, platforms, society, technology (general), the downsides of how people use tech, trends, United States, by Daniel Christian

Don’t trust AI until we build systems that earn trust — from economist.com
Progress in artificial intelligence belies a lack of transparency that is vital for its adoption, says Gary Marcus, coauthor of “Rebooting AI”

Excerpts:

Mr Marcus argues that it would be foolish of society to put too much stock in today’s AI techniques since they are so prone to failures and lack the transparency that researchers need to understand how algorithms reached their conclusions.
…
As part of The Economist’s Open Future initiative, we asked Mr Marcus about why AI can’t do more, how to regulate it and what teenagers should study to remain relevant in the workplace of the future.

Trustworthy AI has to start with good engineering practices, mandated by laws and industry standards, both of which are currently largely absent. Too much of AI thus far has consisted of short-term solutions, code that gets a system to work immediately, without a critical layer of engineering guarantees that are often taken for granted in other field. The kinds of stress tests that are standard in the development of an automobile (such as crash tests and climate challenges), for example, are rarely seen in AI. AI could learn a lot from how other engineers do business.

The assumption in AI has generally been that if it works often enough to be useful, then that’s good enough, but that casual attitude is not appropriate when the stakes are high. It’s fine if autotagging people in photos turns out to be only 90 percent reliable—if it is just about personal photos that people are posting to Instagram—but it better be much more reliable when the police start using it to find suspects in surveillance photos.

2019 Solo & Small Firm [American Bar Association]

On 12/12/2019, in career development, law schools, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, society, technology (general), tools, workplace, by Daniel Christian

2019 Solo & Small Firm — from the American Bar Association (ABA)

Excerpt:

Solos and small firms are in a unique position to leverage technology in order to become more sustainable and competitive with larger firms and alternative legal service providers—they have the ability to be more agile than larger firms because of their size. There are numerous technology options available and many are solo and small firm budget-friendly. Consumers are demanding convenience, transparency, and efficiency from the legal profession. Attorneys must be adaptable to this driving force. The legal profession has some of the highest rates of addiction, depression, and suicide. Women are leaving the profession in droves and lawyers are struggling to find work-life balance. Technology use can reduce human error, increase efficiency, reduce overhead, provide flexibility, enhance attorney well-being, and better meet client needs.

Learning Ecosystems

The LexBlog Excellence Awards 2019 Winners

Some solid articles from Modern Law [published on 1/30/19]

Why the traditional US model of educating tomorrow’s lawyers must change [Carpenter]

In the future, will this be happening more in the United States?

‘Fundamental shift’ is transforming the delivery of legal services, new report concludes [Cassens Weiss]

AI fears subside: Most see fundamental change, but not job loss [Ready] + an item on legal engineering

Online courts, the future of justice and being bold in 2020 [Kaplan]

Legal Tech Broke Investment Record in 2019 as Sector Matures [Skolnik]

2019 Solo & Small Firm [American Bar Association]

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