2020 in review: Legal software for working remotely — from abajournal.com by Nicole Black
Excerpts:
State Court Budget Forecast: Stormy with Rising Backlogs — from law360.com by Andrew Strickler
Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
As state lawmakers begin preparing for upcoming legislative sessions amid a resurgent pandemic, a scattered but largely grim outlook for state court funding is beginning to take shape.
With some judicial administrators already dealing with staggered budgets and new technology costs, experts and advocates say court leaders have their work cut out for them to convince budget analysts and lawmakers to pay for pandemic recovery efforts.
Perhaps nowhere is the coming financial strain more apparent than in Florida, where legislators began gathering Tuesday in Tallahassee to face a historic $5.4 billion budget deficit over the next two years.
There, court leaders have drawn on their experiences dealing with a crush of foreclosures and other litigation following the 2008 financial crisis to project that nearly 1 million additional cases will be in front of the state’s trial courts by the middle of 2021.
…
In New York, where the next fiscal year promises to include a gaping $14.5 billion budget hole, dozens of appellate judges over age 70 are being forced into retirement, a move court administrators said would save $55 million in the coming years and help prevent staff layoffs.
Addendum on 11/24/20:
The recordings of every Civil Justice Fest webinar are now available! Visit https://t.co/TCyoXN26aj to start watching, and keep an eye out for the #12DaysofCivilJustice beginning this Friday! pic.twitter.com/SEW0Ll6glj
— MasonLEC (@MasonLEC) November 24, 2020
Civil Justice Fest: A Month of Dialogues On the Most Pressing Civil Justice Issues — from vimeo.com
Judicial Education Program & Congressional Civil Justice Academy Law & Economics Center Antonin Scalia Law School George Mason University November 2020 Virtual
The Observatory — from orrick.com with thanks to Gabe Teninbaum for mentioning this resource in his Lawtomatic Newsletter (Issue #112, 11/18/20)
The Observatory is an interactive platform that allows you to do a preliminary analysis of 600+ legal technologies in the market today (including some developed by Orrick):
- Gain insight into features of legal tools
- View leading categories of legal tech, from artificial intelligence to workflow automation
- Understand tech use-cases for litigation, transactional and general solutions
- Identify legal tech companies with diverse leadership
Excerpt from Gabe’s newsletter:
Bloomberg Law 2021 — from pro.bloomberglaw.com
Excerpt:
Our Bloomberg Law 2021 series sets the stage for a new year, previewing the themes and topics that our experts will be watching closely, so you can effectively navigate the dynamic legal landscape. Our team of experienced legal analysts leverages the latest data and technology to deliver expert perspectives on the legal market to the legal market.
How to Work Remotely as a Lawyer: A Guide — from clio.com by Teresa Matich; with thanks to Nelson Miller for this resource
Excerpt:
Whether you’ve looked at working remotely as a lawyer in the past (or as a paralegal, legal assistant, legal professional) with dreams of traveling the world, or whether you’re looking into it for the first time now, this guide contains clear, practical tips for opening a remote legal practice without interruption. We’ll cover:
Important New Report on Essential Lawyering Skills — from bestpracticeslegaled.com by John Lande
Excerpt:
Ohio State Professor Deborah Jones Merritt and Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System Research Director Logan Cornett just published an important report, Building a Better Bar: The Twelve Building Blocks of Minimum Competence, based on insights from 50 focus groups.
They found that minimum competence consists of 12 interlocking “building blocks,” including the ability to interact effectively with clients, communicate as a lawyer, and see the “big picture” of client matters.
They propose 10 recommendations that courts, law schools, bar associations, bar examiners, and other stakeholders should consider in their efforts to move towards better, evidence-based lawyer licensing.
Illinois Supreme Court Issues Pandemic-Related Court Orders, Expands Criminal Appeals Pro Bono Program — from legaltechmonitor.com by Laura Bagby
Excerpt:
The Order on Remote Jury Selection in Civil Matters permits circuits to conduct jury selection in civil cases via video conference. This expands upon rules that were amended in May to support the use of remote hearings.
Meet the Hackers Who Are Reengineering Legal Operations Technology — from onit.com
Excerpt:
Are you ready for a friendly legal operations technology competition? These legal leaders raised their hands and said, “Hack, yeah!”
Two weeks ago, we announced our new hackathon: Hack the House.
The competition unites Onit customers, partners and staff to re-imagine legal operations technology. With the no-code Onit Apptitude platform, they’re creating Apps to address real challenges faced by corporate legal departments.
The competition, held in conjunction with Cosmonauts, welcomes five teams, including Team IP, Team HR, Team Europe, Team Diversity and Team Pro Bono. Each team has three weeks to identify a problem, define requirements and build the solution.
Also see:
Also see:
Addendum on 10/28/20:
Main players in the Legal Operations Software Global market: SimpleLegal, TeamConnect, Lawtrac, Acuity ELM, eCounsel, LexisNexis CounselLink, BusyLamp, DataStore, Dazychain, Intellinx, Law Vu and others. (source)
Attorneys create free, virtual clinic to give immigrant Asian business owners legal help — from chicago.suntimes.com by Elvia Malagón
Lawyers Helping Our Community helps the Chinatown business community with civil issues ranging from evictions to insurance claims.
Excerpt:
Those memories are why Yang, a commercial finance attorney at the Katten Muchin Rosenman law firm, recently co-founded a free, virtual legal clinic aimed at those in the Asian community in Chicago whose primary language isn’t English.
Lawyers Helping Our Community, under the umbrella of the Chicago Volunteer Legal Services, launched in June as a completely virtual clinic to help the Chinatown business community with civil issues such as evictions and insurance claims.
…
The clinic, which includes about 60 volunteer attorneys and law students, has worked with about 30 clients. The volunteers speak various languages like Korean, Mandarin and Cantonese, Yang said.
From DSC:
Who needs to be discussing/debating “The Social Dilemma” movie? Whether one agrees with the perspectives put forth therein or not, the discussion boards out there should be lighting up in the undergraduate areas of Computer Science (especially Programming), Engineering, Business, Economics, Mathematics, Statistics, Philosophy, Religion, Political Science, Sociology, and perhaps other disciplines as well.
To those starting out the relevant careers here…just because we can, doesn’t mean we should. Ask yourself not whether something CAN be developed, but *whether it SHOULD be developed* and what the potential implications of a technology/invention/etc. might be. I’m not aiming to take a position here. Rather, I’m trying to promote some serious reflection for those developing our new, emerging technologies and our new products/services out there.
On LawNext: Rocket Lawyer Founder Charley Moore — from lawsitesblog.com by Bob Ambrogi; with thanks to Gabe Teninbaum for this resource from his Lawtomatic Newsletter
Excerpt
In September, Rocket Lawyer became the first national company approved to participate in Utah’s regulatory sandbox, a pilot program for licensing new and alternative forms of legal providers and services. For Charley Moore, who founded Rocket Lawyer in 2008, it was yet another step in his quest to deliver high-value legal services at an affordable price.
…
In this episode of LawNext, Moore recounts the founding and development of Rocket Lawyer and its expansion into Europe starting in 2012. He also explains why he wanted the company to participate in the Utah sandbox and what he expects to happen there. Finally, as one of the few Black CEOs in legal tech, Moore discusses his thoughts on expanding diversity in the industry.
Also see:
Also from Gabe, see:
Justice-as-a-Service — from Henrik Zillmer
Excerpts:
There’s a new wave of customer empowerment coming. It’s called Justice-as-a-Service (JaaS), and you need to know about it because it benefits you – you just don’t know it yet.
Justice-as-a-Service is an on-demand service, powered by tech, that challenges private and public companies by representing the consumer in their fight for justice/compensation based on laws, consumers’ rights, and contract of carriage.
Why is there a need for JaaS?
Technologies that enable legal and compliance leaders to spot innovations — from helpnetsecurity.com
COVID-19 has accelerated the push toward digital business transformation for most businesses, and legal and compliance leaders are under pressure to anticipate both the potential improvements and possible risks that come with new legal technology innovations, according to Gartner.
Excerpt:
To address this challenge, Gartner lists the 31 must-watch legal technologies to allow legal and compliance leaders to identify innovations that will allow them to act faster. They can use this information for internal planning and prioritization of emerging innovations.
Also see:
(with a shoutout to Nicola Shaver for this resource)
Also see:
Envisioning the future of law — from abovethelaw.com by Ken Crutchfield
We’ve seen a transformation underway within the legal industry for some time now, and the pandemic is continuing to accelerate these changes.
Excerpt:
We’ve seen a transformation underway within the legal industry for some time now, and the pandemic is continuing to accelerate these changes. From what we have observed in recent months, many of the technologies that were reshaping the practice of law have now become necessary, and resistance to digital workflows is no longer a viable option for many legal professionals. In the midst of this transformation, we can draw some observations about how the industry can cope with what’s next.
The justice gap in the United States is striking. It ranks 103rd out of 126 countries in accessibility and affordability of civil legal services, according to a World Justice Project survey. More than 80% of those in poverty, as well as a majority of middle-income Americans, receive inadequate civil legal assistance, the nonprofit Legal Services Corporation found.
From DSC:
If the public doesn’t have access to justice — and the majority of those involved with civil-based law cases (vs. criminal law cases) don’t — the system has failed. Throughout the last several years, I have thought about the topic of access to justice (#A2J) many times on my walks past the Michigan Hall of Justice building in Lansing, Michigan.
I am hoping that a variety of technologies can help address this problem — at least in part. The impact of the Covid19 pandemic is pushing us in the right direction, but it never should have taken that horrendous event to occur in order for such innovations and changes to take root.
6 “Do not deny justice to your poor people in their lawsuits.
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