legislatures / government / legal

2020 Wolters Kluwer Future Ready Lawyer: Performance Drivers/Change in the Legal Sector

On 06/07/2020, in Access to Justice (A2J), future, law schools, Legal operations, legal reform, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, trends, by Daniel Christian

2020 Wolters Kluwer Future Ready Lawyer: Performance Drivers and Change in the Legal Sector — from globenewswire.com

Excerpt:

Top Trends and Readiness
Lawyers predicted pressure from a series of trends expected to impact their organizations over the next three years and technology topped the list. The top trends expected to have the most impact are:

Increasing Importance of Legal Technology – 76%
Meeting Changing Client / Leadership Expectations – 74%
Emphasis on Improved Efficiency / Productivity – 73%
Ability to Acquire and Retain Talent – 73%
Coping with Increased Volume and Complexity of Information – 72%

From DSC:
I can’t help but reflect on how slippery the slope is when we start talking about using drones — especially as sponsored and used by governments, including our government here in the U.S. Consider the following from The Future Institute.

Excerpt:

Eyes in the sky
As nationwide racial justice protests continue, some journalists and protestors have noticed a new addition to the armed police officers and National Guard troops: a drone flying a hexagon-shaped route 20,000 feet above the streets in Minneapolis. The drone, flown by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, is called a Predator, and is a piece of military technology used for identifying and targeting terrorists overseas. Lately, it’s become a more common sight domestically.

Last month, a number of New Yorkers witnessed a drone floating above them, barking orders to follow social distancing guidelines. The mysterious drone wasn’t official police equipment, but rather a privately owned device piloted by a man named Xavier Arthur in Queens, who was frustrated that people weren’t following stay-at-home orders. He claimed to represent the “Anti-Covid-19 Volunteer Drone Task Force.

It’s not an isolated incident. During the outbreak, drones have been used extensively to monitor residents and encourage them to stay indoors, to inspect traffic stops and hospitals, and to spray cities with disinfectants. In Paris and Mumbai, they’re patrolling social distancing violators. In China, a video clip went viral, showing a drone breaking up a mahjong game—residents had defied local orders that they stay indoors. Drones with infrared cameras also allegedly flew overhead and checked for people with fevers.

Advanced drones can pinpoint certain behaviors in crowds from high altitudes, recognize and automatically follow targets, and communicate with each other or to command centers on the ground with remarkable precision and low latency. The pandemic and protests are playing to the strengths of an emerging real-time aerial surveillance ecosystem.

3 Things You Should Know

The Flying Internet of Things is taking off.
New drones can self-destruct.
Shareable drones may drive growth in the industry.

WEDNESDAY | 6.3 | Law Insights with Bob Ambrogi and Daniel Linna, Director of Law and Technology Initiatives, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law

Notes (emphasis DSC):

Trying to build community, collaborate, work together
How do you manage a team remotely? How build community online?
Spontaneous interactions still needed
In what ways does the online ecosystem ADD to what we are doing?
Jury trial – online; equalizer for those involved in trial; “all in same space on the screen”
Start with some basic/smaller things – landlord/tenant
Racism going on heavily this week – a second pandemic
Developing a quality movement in law (Linna)
We need quality metrics and we need to measure the value being provided. What makes something effective, high-quality, and valuable? Now apply that thinking to the delivery of legal services.
Project mgmt / quality movement – less defects, etc. in 1980’s / lean thinking / 6 sigma in GE / but haven’t seen this in the area of law
Empiricism in law – 100 years ago medicine and law were in the same spot; since then medicine started more testing, empirical work, data-driven practices; but law didn’t
Daniel Linna’s blog – https://www.legaltechlever.com/
Can we come up with metrics?
Dan worked with a lawyer-assisted program in Lansing, MI – what happened? What was duration of cases? Data-driven thinking; measure; make it more of a science
Bob asked isn’t law less scientific and perhaps more art than a science?
What kinds of metrics are we talking about in litigation?
Contracts – can we figure out what adds value and what makes a contract “better?” (Insert from DSC: Better for whom though?)
What actually matters to the client? Clauses that lawyers think that are important, businesspeople don’t think are important. Risk mitigation is not all the client thinks about.
Incomprehensible contracts – too hard to understand
Natural language generation – what inputs do we need? We don’t want many contracts to be the dataset that an algorithm gets trained on.
(Insert from DSC: Daniel relayed some information that reminded me of Clayton Christensen’s disruptive thinking: 80% of impoverished folks get NOTHING. Totally disconnected. Perhaps we don’t need perfection, but even something is much better than nothing. For example, provide an online legal aid booklet to those who are trying to represent themselves.)
Go for low-hanging fruit for more empirical
Ambrogi: How does the work you are doing impact access to justice (#A2J)? How could quality movement impact police procedures? Is there applicability in terms of what you are writing about?
Human-Centered Design – uncovering biases. Why would people TRUST the criminal system if they can’t trust the CIVIL system? Perhaps if landlords thought differently. Disconnected.
Innovate, improve, project management;
Way decisions are made vary greatly; need more open data from our courts; lack of transparency from courts.
Leadership – commitment to resolve issues. Lacking vision. What do we want our legal systems to look like/act like?

Call to action:

Have or develop a quality mindset
Leadership needs to paint a vision for what the future looks like
Training around legal operations
How to measure quality and value – be more data-driven

We need disruption AND continuous improvement – not one or the other.
–Daniel Linna

Homework gap a growing focus for nonprofits, lawmakers as closures persist [De La Rosa]

On 05/22/2020, in education, education reform, education technology, internet, K-12 related, legislatures / government / legal, policy, society, sociology, student-related, United States, by Daniel Christian

Homework gap a growing focus for nonprofits, lawmakers as closures persist — from educationdive.com by Shawna De La Rosa

Excerpt:

Dive Brief:

After declaring success in the goal of connecting most schools to fast, reliable internet, nonprofit EducationSuperHighway is turning its attention to the “homework gap,” according to The Hechinger Report. More than 9 million students still lack internet access at home.
Evan Marwell, CEO and founder of EducationSuperHighway, said school closures triggered a change in attitude about the importance of home internet service for students. Now, some lawmakers indicate they are willing to spend billions of dollars to bridge that gap.
The organization launched digitalbridgeK12.org to provide detailed information on the problem, as well as recommendations for policymakers and school leaders, and advice and best practices on topics like how to collect data on connectivity at the district level or purchase in bulk.

ABA President Judy Perry Martinez on the ABA and the Profession in a Pandemic [Ambrogi]

On 05/19/2020, in 21st century, Access to Justice (A2J), ideas, law schools, leadership, legal reform, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, pace of change, policy, political science, workplace, by Daniel Christian

ABA President Judy Perry Martinez on the ABA and the Profession in a Pandemic — from lawsitesblog.com by Robert Ambrogi

Excerpt:

We talked about how she and the ABA have responded to the pandemic, including with her appointment of the Task Force on Legal Needs Arising Out of the 2020 Pandemic and, just last week, the Coordinating Group on Practice Forward. We also discussed her thoughts on the pandemic’s impacts on the profession, the justice system, and access to justice.

Young and in Legal Tech: Are You Sure You Want to Make the Leap? [Warren]

On 05/19/2020, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, career development, changing business models, entrepreneurship, human-computer interaction (HCI), innovation, law schools, Legal operations, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, programming, vendors, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

Young and in Legal Tech: Are You Sure You Want to Make the Leap? — from law.com by Zach Warren
Because of a changing law firm model, starting a legal technology company is becoming more attractive than ever for young law firm grads and associates. But legal tech founders say that while there are benefits, a smooth landing isn’t guaranteed

Excerpt:

Listening is the primary way to help balance on a precarious tightrope, Rubin adds. “It’s a delicate line to walk when you’re starting a company between being humble and really knowing that you’ve never started a company before and you haven’t been practicing for 30 years. There are a lot of things you don’t know. But also having conviction that you have an idea that you really stick to and that you believe can be a serious changemaker in an industry that has struggled with change.”

From DSC:
When reading the article below…Wayne Gretzky’s quote comes to mind here:

The legal industry needs to skate to where the puck is going to be.

ANALYSIS: The New Normal—Law Firms May Never Be the Same — from news.bloomberglaw.comby Sara Lord

Excerpt:

In our recent 2020 Legal Operations Survey, Bloomberg Law asked organizations including law firms, corporations, non-profit organizations, and academic institutions, a number of questions relating to their use of data and metrics. Included in our survey were questions relating to whether law firms measure the value of legal operations and legal technology. Responses indicated that two-thirds of law firms measure legal operations value and nearly one-quarter of law firms using legal technologies measure the value of that legal technology.

U.S. Courts: Invitation for Comment on Emergency Rulemaking

On 05/02/2020, in 24x7x365 access, Canada, change, health, ideas, law schools, Legal operations, legal reform, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, Michigan, society, United States, by Daniel Christian

Invitation for Comment on Emergency Rulemaking — from uscourts.gov
Request for Input on Possible Emergency Procedures

Excerpt:

The committees seek input on challenges encountered during the COVID pandemic in state and federal courts, by lawyers, judges, parties, or the public, and on solutions developed to deal with those challenges. The committees are particularly interested in hearing about situations that could not be addressed through the existing rules or in which the rules themselves interfered with practical solutions.

And from Canada:
Our civil justice system needs to be brought into the 21st century — from theglobeandmail.com by Rosalie Silberman Abella

Excerpt:

I’m talking of course about access to justice. But I’m not talking about fees, or billings, or legal aid, or even pro bono. Those are our beloved old standards in the “access to justice” repertoire and I’m sure everyone knows those tunes very well.

I have a more fundamental concern: I cannot for the life of me understand why we still resolve civil disputes the way we did more than a century ago.

In a speech to the American Bar Association called The Causes of Popular Dissatisfaction with the Administration of Justice, Roscoe Pound criticized the civil justice system’s trials for being overly fixated on procedure, overly adversarial, too expensive, too long and too out of date. The year was 1906.

Any good litigator from 1906 could, with a few hours of coaching, feel perfectly at home in today’s courtrooms.

Highly likely #AI-based tools like this will be integrated into these types of arenas/applications [Christian]

On 04/29/2020, in 21st century, A/V -- audio/visual, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Daniel S. Christian, digital audio, digital learning, digital video, distance education, education, education technology, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, journalism, K-12 related, languages and translation, law schools, Legal operations, legal reform, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, multimedia, Natural Language Processing (NLP), online learning, online media, online tutoring, platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, society, student-related, teaching & learning, teaching online, technologies for your home, technology (general), telecommunications, telelegal, telemedicine / telehealth / virtual health, telepresence, television, tools, training / L&D, transmedia, universities, vendors, videoconferencing, virtual field trips, virtual K-12 schools, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

DC: Otter for Teams:Useful for #legaltech?Most likely so, if not already, at least eventually. #AI-based tools like this will be integrated in2 #legaltech #legaloperations #lawschools #lawyers #legal #highereducation #telelegal #interviewing #transcription https://t.co/GgH3j3cPch pic.twitter.com/4ne2OxUgFJ

— Daniel Christian (@dchristian5) April 29, 2020

From DSC:
Some of the areas likely to see such tools integrated into their arenas, operations, and ecosystems:

379 Innovations Added to Law Firm Innovation Catalog Version 1.03 [Linna]

On 04/23/2020, in Asia, Australia, Canada, Europe, innovation, Legal operations, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, productivity / tips and tricks, technology (general), tools, UK, United States, by Daniel Christian

379 Innovations Added to Law Firm Innovation Catalog Version 1.03 — from legaltechlever.com by Daniel Linna

Law Firm Innovation Catalog Version 1.03

From DSC:
As if we needed more reason to do so…we need to be very careful what we do w/ emerging technologies from this time forth.

I found the above video at:

Monitoring Social Distancing using AI — from medium.com by Aqeel Anwar

Also see:

Machine learning could check if you’re social distancing properly at work –– from technologyreview.com by Karen Hao

[Podcasts] COVID 19: Leonard, Furlong, & Moon: The Future of Legal Services (Pts 1 & 2)

On 04/21/2020, in 21st century, Access to Justice (A2J), career development, change, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, communities of practice, competency-based learning/education, corporate / business world, Cost of legal services - including access, experimentation, law schools, leadership, Legal operations, legal reform, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, new business models, online learning, podcasting, political science, presentations, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, society, technology (general), telelegal, tools, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

Jennifer Leonard, Jordan Long, and Cat Moon

Part I — 4/10/20

This episode is the first of two episodes that discuss the future of the profession in the wake of the COVID19 crisis. Guests Jordan Furlong and Cat Moon discuss:

How COVID 19 exposes the access to justice crisis the profession has created
Why the crisis offers the opportunity to leverage technology in new ways
Why the structures and systems that have defined the profession have been so durable
Whether lawyers view the crisis as a blip or a transformation
How leaders can pivot toward innovation

From DSC:
At several points in the conversation, when Cat and Jordan were both referring to the importance of experimentation within the legal realm, I was reminded of this graphic that I did back in 2013:

I was reminded of it as well because Jennifer Leonard rightly (in my perspective), brought in higher education into the discussion at several points. There are some similarities — especially concerning power and privilege. Well, it’s now true in the legal realm as well (and probably has been true for a while…I’m just behind).

Experimentation. Experimentation. Experimentation. <– so key in the legal realm right now!

Other notes I took:

Triage: Need to deal with essentials to keep afloat. Yourself, staff, clients, cash flow. Put out the fire.
Reconstruction: In parallel, create “field hospitals.” Recession is going to have massive impacts on old systems. Need new systems. Start building institutions that work. Build as many of these as you can. Experiments. House isn’t going to be inhabitable after the fire. Need a new shelter — maybe start w/ a tent, then a cabin, then a house. Build on something small. Start building what’s going to replace the old systems.
Power and privilege imbalance is why people haven’t been able to change things. “I can make you do something for me. You come here so I can dispense justice to you.” But not just judges…throughout the system.
Public legal awareness and legal education. In high schools, universities, colleges, churches, mosques, synagogues, etc.
Higher ed and legal services? Anything we can learn from each other?
Systems created by people who rule the systems. Power imbalance exists in higher ed, but hubris is completely indefensible within the legal realm. Need much better access to legal information and legal understanding.
OS on the Mac. Don’t have another OS for legal system to move to. We need to redesign our legal OS to serve more people.
Law is society’s OS. Law is DOS-based…need Windows or Mac type of leap.
Self protectionism. Hubris. Power imbalance. Power hungry.
Yet many who enter legal profession come in wanting to make the world a better place. Why the move away from these ideals? Need more focus on developing professional identity. Structure, framework for how to be a lawyer. Students become more cynical as time goes by. Also, there’s “ladder pulling.” Pay your dues. Get hazed. I had to do it…now you have to do it. Bar Exam good example of this. Confirmation bias. It’s the way we’ve always done it.

Today, the following things ARE happening — so it CAN be done! The people in charge just didn’ want to do these things.

lawyers working from home
e-filing of documents to courts
video hearings in court
faster, cheaper, more convenient

Jennifer Leonard, Jordan Long, and Cat Moon

Part II – 4/14/20

On this second part of a two-part series, Professor Cat Moon and Jordan Furlong discuss COVID 19’s impact on legal education and law firms. The conversation explores:

The “knock out effect” the crisis has on the various parts of the lawyer formation system
Who might take ownership of coordinating the new landscape of lawyer accreditation
The opportunities lifelong learning creates for law schools to be involved in the ongoing development of legal professionals
How human-centered design and project-based learning offer ways to integrate the three sides of the Delta model of lawyer competency
How small and solo law firms might be impacted by the crisis

Notes I took:

The knock-out effect.
How can we coordinate amongst the players in the system? Will be hard, because of the existing fiefdoms. Power and authority move back up the chain to those who did the delegating in the first place. If the power has been delegated to you, you are at a disadvantage. Jordan sees an assertion of authority from a central entity — legislatures most likely; possibly courts.
This moment offers us an opportunity to experiment and to redesign our systems. Can find new ways to fulfill missions.
Have no choice but to embrace the ambiguity of the moment.
Triage, then try to build something better than what we had before.
We have to build something different. “And look, the sky’s not falling!” Think big. Act boldly in these experiments. Expand what we think is possible.
The repercussions of the Coronavirus will be with us for much longer than many think it will
Legal principles/concepts/rules. Areas of practice. Professional formation (ethics, integrity, operational aspects, & more). Know the law, but also WHY we have the law and lawyers.
Can learn “black letter law” asynchronously and via videoconferencing.
Need to expand curriculum: Project/time management, customer service, financial and tech literacy
Delta Model — a framework for developing lawyer competencies; starts in law schools; what are the skills and competencies; the foundation is the practice of law; research, issue spotting, PM, data analysis, understanding business; understanding people; wholistic approach. A lifelong journey of growth.
Law schools — 3 years, then done. Not a productive way to do things. We need to keep people on top of their game throughout a career. Is legal education a place or a system/process that you enter and re-enter again and again throughout one’s career? Wouldn’t it be great if I could access ___ modules along the way?
How are we going to create/design highly engaging online-based learning experiences? #1 on Cat’s priority list now. Got moved up the priority list.
There are pros and cons for both F2F and online-based learning. Humanizing impact when your professors are teaching from their homes.
Reframing legal education just as we are reframing courts as a service, not a place.
Blended approach can be very effective/powerful.
Need to collect data on what’s working and what’s not working.
Fundamental business model of corporate side is likely at the end of its course; law firms will need a new model for generating profit. For smaller firms, prospects are more dire as their clients are going through major negative changes. Potential unsustainability of many practices.
How can we provide different models that expand access to justice? That help develop happier and healthier lawyers?
Per legalproblemsolving.org, human-centered design is:
- …a fluid framework for discovering problems, ideating solutions, and iterating to continuously improve solutions. HCD provides a methodology for considering both legal service delivery challenges, as well as clients’ legal problems. The HCD method also serves as a tool individual law students can use to craft a rewarding, successful legal career.

Coronavirus crisis could bring big changes to legal operations [Baxter]

On 04/21/2020, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business, corporate / business world, health, law schools, Legal operations, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Coronavirus crisis could bring big changes to legal operations — from news.bloomberglaw.com by Brian Baxter

Compensation cuts, hiring freezes, and shrinking budgets are hitting in-house lawyers
Such coronavirus-linked changes could create opportunities for legal services upstarts

Excerpt:

As during past downturns, corporate counsel facing pressure to reduce costs may bring more work in-house or adopt new vendors, such as alternative legal service providers. The use of automation to perform certain legal tasks, whether through artificial intelligence or the use of contract management technology, means in-house counsel have more options than ever before, said Lee Udelsman, a managing partner and head of in-house counsel recruiting at legal consultancy Major, Lindsey & Africa.

Legal futurist Richard Susskind on Coronavirus, courts and the legal profession [Ambrogi]

On 04/17/2020, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Access to Justice (A2J), change, changing business models, future, game-changing environment, ideas, innovation, law schools, legal reform, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, new business models, policy, political science, society, by Daniel Christian

LawNext Episode 71: Legal Futurist Richard Susskind on Coronavirus, Courts and the Legal Profession — from .lawsitesblog.com by Robert Ambrogi

Excerpt:

Ever since the publication of his seminal 1996 book, The Future of Law, Richard Susskind has remained the world’s most-recognized and most-respected speaker and author on the future of legal services. But even he could not have foreseen the sudden relevance of his latest book, Online Courts and the Future of Justice.

On this episode of LawNext, Susskind joins host Bob Ambrogi for a conversation about the legal profession and the judicial system in a time of global pandemic. Will the pandemic fast-forward law’s leap into the future? Will there be fundamental change in legal services delivery? Will courts move online more quickly than even he had thought? Susskind shares his thoughts on these questions and more.

Also see:

FutureLaw 2020 [The Stanford Center for Legal Informatics]

On 04/17/2020, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Access to Justice (A2J), career development, change, changing business models, future, game-changing environment, law schools, legal reform, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, society, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

Welcome to FutureLaw 2020, hosted by CodeX – The Stanford Center for Legal Informatics. Typically held live on the Stanford campus, the FutureLaw conference focuses on the way technology is transforming the law, and redefining the methods in which individuals interact with legal systems and institutions.

Due to the current health emergency, CodeX FutureLaw 2020 has been turned into an online event to provide an opportunity for our legal tech community to connect and learn about legal tech innovations from around the world. On this webpage, you can access podcasts and videos featuring the academics, entrepreneurs, lawyers, investors, policymakers, and engineers spearheading the tech-driven transformation of our legal systems.

Learning Ecosystems

2020 Wolters Kluwer Future Ready Lawyer: Performance Drivers/Change in the Legal Sector

ABA President Judy Perry Martinez on the ABA and the Profession in a Pandemic [Ambrogi]

U.S. Courts: Invitation for Comment on Emergency Rulemaking

379 Innovations Added to Law Firm Innovation Catalog Version 1.03 [Linna]

[Podcasts] COVID 19: Leonard, Furlong, & Moon: The Future of Legal Services (Pts 1 & 2)

Legal futurist Richard Susskind on Coronavirus, courts and the legal profession [Ambrogi]

FutureLaw 2020 [The Stanford Center for Legal Informatics]

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