legislatures / government / legal

Experts say 23% of lawyers’ work can be automated—law schools are trying to stay ahead of the curve [Hess]

On 02/09/2020, in analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, data related items, law schools, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, lifelong learning, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

Experts say 23% of lawyers’ work can be automated—law schools are trying to stay ahead of the curve — from cnbc.com by Abigail Hess

Excerpts:

While law school graduates out-earn those with just a high school or bachelor’s degree on average, the legal profession is not immune to the same technological trends that have touched essentially every industry.

Advances in technology such as artificial intelligence allow modern software to scan legal documents, streamline communications and find relevant casework for lawyers. McKinsey estimates that 23% of work done by lawyers can be automated by existing technology.
…
Another way law schools are working to increase their value proposition is by offering more lifelong learning resources.

Greif argues that to a significant extent, law schools have always been centers of lifelong learning, through conferences and collaboration with local bar associations, but says that some schools have been ramping up their offerings.

How Blockchain’s ‘paradigm shift’ puts more pressure on legal’s tech evolution [Dipshan]

On 02/04/2020, in 21st century, Blockchain, computer science, human-computer interaction (HCI), innovation, law schools, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, platforms, programming, Web3, by Daniel Christian

How Blockchain’s ‘paradigm shift’ puts more pressure on legal’s tech evolution — from law.com by Rhys Dipshan
As part of the Legalweek 2020 Q&A series, Legaltech News speaks with blockchain researcher and entrepreneur Bettina Warburg on blockchain’s potential disruption in the legal space, what attorneys most misunderstand about the technology, and more.

Excerpt:

Artificial intelligence may still take up much of spotlight these days, but it’s far from the only technology that can fundamentally alter how the legal industry, and the broader economy, operates.

Blockchain technology, for instance, has wide-reaching consequences for record keeping, contracting, data governance and identity management. And beyond that, it may even change how the digital economy functions and work as underlying driver for integrated, autonomously running machines. What all this means for attorneys is that specialization, technical skills, and more technology knowledge will likely become even more important than it is today.

We are not just in the days of Bitcoin, where one user transfers bitcoin to another user’s account. Instead, blockchain should be understood as part of an evolution toward a third generation Web (called Web3) that provides us with virtual machines that are stateful.

Web3 will be the basis of our transition from a digital economy to a decentralized economy. The economic opportunities of the decentralized economy can include wholly new business models: everything from fractionalized ownership and rights to assets that are secured digitally, to new kinds of verifiable and unique assets (such as virtual world avatars), to the ability for machines to transact with one another autonomously. A stateful virtual machine essentially allows us to have a shared verified reality upon which to transact digitally.

While it may sound futuristic, it is also the most obvious use for a digital infrastructure that can verify the transaction of value.

How wary lawyers are embracing new tech [Purkis & Osborne in the UK]

On 02/03/2020, in 21st century, career development, change, changing business models, law schools, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, new business models, society, UK, Uncategorized, workplace, by Daniel Christian

How wary lawyers are embracing new tech — from lawgazette.co.uk by Sophia Purkis & Nadia Osborne

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

There has been an eruption of innovation in legal technology – and the role of the lawyer is evolving in consequence. From law firms and corporate practices, to the operation of the court system and management of documentation, technology is changing what we do, how we do it and where we can do it from.

PwC’s annual law firm survey 2019 found that eight of the top 10 firms identified technology as the key change in growth in the next two to three years. In November 2019, the Law Society published a paper, Lawtech: a comparative analysis of legal technology in the UK and in other jurisdictions, recognising the need for domestic lawyers to stay informed and up to date to remain competitive.

Lawyers are instinctively risk-adverse but the successful ones recognise the inevitability of change and opportunities. The introduction of technology requires investment of finance, time and resource. However, the steady march of technology and client and staff demands mean we must embrace the use of legal technology. It is vital to enable legal professionals to collaborate flawlessly with colleagues and clients, and to keep up with other professions and businesses. We must, however, not forget to be mindful of each other and not lose the ability and opportunity to communicate with each other personally. Machines think in binary terms and sometimes things are not that simple.

Artificial Intelligence is transforming the legal industry [Farmakis]

On 02/01/2020, in 21st century, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, career development, change, changing business models, Cost of legal services - including access, disruption, innovation, law schools, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, new business models, platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, tools, by Daniel Christian

Artificial Intelligence is transforming the legal industry — from law.comby Christian A. Farmakis
Artificial intelligence (AI) is adding efficiencies and transforming businesses everywhere, and legal practices are no exception.

Excerpts:

How is AI technology disrupting the legal industry?
AI legal technology won’t replace lawyers, but these tools will drastically change the way lawyers provide services for their clients. While estimates vary, 23%t to 35% of a lawyer’s job could be automated. As a result, lawyers will need to be more strategic and supervisorial, able to act as project managers and supervise the information being fed into systems, and knowledgeable about the assumptions underlying the machine learning algorithms.
…
What will be the next wave of AI legal technology?
The next generation, which is starting to hit the market now, will be document automation and legal research and writing tools, as well as predictive technology tools. For example, a contract can be put through an algorithm in order to identify how risky it is. It could be used to determine how likely it is to go into litigation or if it complies with the company’s internal contract procedures and policies.

Another use is analytic tools that can measure efficiency and pricing of the legal services. E-billing and practice management tools could measure whether a service contract should cost $2,500, not the $7,500 that’s being charged. In other instances, AI could help firms do estimates for alternative fee arrangements.

Lawyers: Meet the CEO trying to make you obsolete [Goodnow]

On 01/27/2020, in 21st century, Access to Justice (A2J), career development, law schools, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, United States, using teams, vendors, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Lawyers: Meet the CEO trying to make you obsolete — from abovethelaw.com by James Goodnow
Call it a drive for increased access to the legal system, call it a grab for cash, the legal and business worlds are getting more comfortable with nonlawyers handling issues traditionally reserved for attorneys.

Excerpt:

Mehta and Factor aim to take a bite out of the segment of the legal market that has previously been off-limits to anyone except Biglaw attorneys: challenging, sophisticated contract negotiations and compliance.
…
Factor’s secret sauce is combining attorneys, nonattorney legal professionals, and curated technology into an efficient package. Factor’s team of hundreds of in-house lawyers oversee nonattorneys specially trained in contract management, compliance issues, and leading-edge technology. The goal, of course, is to bring the cost of even highly complex transactions down to a minimum.

Make no mistake: a new front has opened up in the war between alternative legal service providers and traditional law firms.

From DSC:
While I don’t think lawyers will become obsolete, the amount of technology being integrated into law firms and throughout the legal realm is definitely on the increase. I don’t see that trend slowing down, but rather picking up steam.

How to block Facebook and Google from identifying your face [Haselton]

On 01/25/2020, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Facebook / Meta Platforms, Google, law schools, legislatures / government / legal, platforms, policy, political science, the downsides of how people use tech, by Daniel Christian

How to block Facebook and Google from identifying your face — from cnbc.com by Todd Haselton

Excerpt:

A New York Times report over the weekend discussed a company named Clearview AI that can easily recognize people’s faces when someone uploads a picture.
It scrapes this data from the internet and sites people commonly use, such as Facebook and YouTube, according to the report.
You can stop Facebook and Google from recognizing your face in their systems, which is one step toward regaining your privacy.
Still, it probably won’t entirely stop companies like Clearview AI from recognizing you, since they’re not using the systems developed by Google or Facebook.

How technology and law changes for career development [Ghadawala]

On 01/24/2020, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, career development, change, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, corporate / business world, Cost of legal services - including access, emerging technologies, innovation, intelligent systems, law schools, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, by Daniel Christian

How technology and law changes for career development — from lawtechnologytoday.org by Manan Ghadawala

Excerpt:

But things have been changing in technology and law over the years. Let us look at these developments in technology and law and also see how technology already [is] — and will — impact legal careers.
…
Joni Pirovich from Hall & Wilcox explained, “As technology trends are pervasive across all industries, it’s now incumbent upon law firms to ensure lawyers have a good starting language to interpret technology concepts and how they interact with legal principles.”

The increase in law firm technology did surprise some people. Forbes found out that there was a 713% jump in investments in technology for law firms in 2018—almost 1.63 billion USD—bolstered mostly by the arrival of eDiscovery, which is an electronic method for finding important information specific investigations or suits.

#Automation #MachineLearning #AI #BigData

Ohio, Illinois, & Michigan courts using technology to bring their services to the people [Houlberg]

On 01/24/2020, in law schools, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, Michigan, policy, technology (general), by Daniel Christian

Ohio, Illinois, & Michigan courts using technology to bring their services to the people — from iaals.du.edu by Michael Houlberg

Excerpt:

Each of these three technological expansions within the courts align with IAALS’ Eighteen Ways Courts Should Use Technology to Better Serve Their Customers, in which we examine ways that existing technologies can be leveraged to improve court users’ experiences.

Why you should care about what’s happening with law schools and the legal realm in general!

On 01/23/2020, in 21st century, Access to Justice (A2J), Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, career development, change, collaboration, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, emerging technologies, entrepreneurship, ethics, faith, future, game-changing environment, global / globalization, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, law schools, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, morals/values, online learning, pace of change, platforms, policy, political science, professional development, society, technologies for your home, technology (general), the downsides of how people use tech, trends, Uncategorized, United States, universities, vendors, vision/possibilities, youth, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
As some of you may know, I’m now working for the WMU-Thomas M. Cooley Law School. My faith gets involved here, but I believe that the LORD wanted me to get involved with:

Using technology to increase access to justice (#A2J)
Contributing to leveraging the science of learning for the long-term benefit of our students, faculty, and staff
Raising awareness regarding the potential pros and cons of today’s emerging technologies
Increase the understanding that the legal realm has a looooong way to go to try to get (even somewhat) caught up with the impacts that such emerging technologies can/might have on us.
Contributing and collaborating with others to help develop a positive future, not a negative one.

Along these lines…in regards to what’s been happening with law schools over the last few years, I wanted to share a couple of things:

1) An article from The Chronicle of Higher Education by Benjamin Barton:

2) A response from our President and Dean, James McGrath:

From DSC:
I also wanted to personally say that I arrived at WMU-Cooley Law School in 2018, and have been learning a lot there (which I love about my job!). Cooley employees are very warm, welcoming, experienced, knowledgeable, and professional. Everyone there is mission-driven. My boss, Chris Church, is multi-talented and excellent. Cooley has a great administrative/management team as well.

There have been many exciting, new things happening there. But that said, it will take time before we see the results of these changes. Perseverance and innovation will be key ingredients to crafting a modern legal education — especially in an industry that is just now beginning to offer online-based courses at the Juris Doctor (J.D.) level (i.e., 20 years behind when this began occurring within undergraduate higher education).

My point in posting this is to say that we should ALL care about what’s happening within the legal realm! We are all impacted by it, whether we realize it or not. We are all in this together and no one is an island — not as individuals, and not as organizations.

We need:

Far more diversity within the legal field
More technical expertise within the legal realm — not only with lawyers, but with legislators, senators, representatives, judges, others
Greater use of teams of specialists within the legal field
To offer more courses regarding emerging technologies — and not only for the legal practices themselves but also for society at large.
To be far more vigilant in crafting a positive world to be handed down to our kids and grandkids — a dream, not a nightmare. Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.

Still not convinced that you should care? Here are some things on the CURRENT landscapes:

You go to drop something off at your neighbor’s house. They have a camera that gets activated. What facial recognition database are you now on? Did you give your consent to that? No, you didn’t.
Because you posted your photo on Facebook, YouTube, Venmo and/or on millions of other websites, your face could be in ClearView AI’s database. Did you give your consent to that occurring? No, you didn’t.
You’re at the airport and facial recognition is used instead of a passport. Whose database was that from and what gets shared? Did you give your consent to that occurring? Probably not, and it’s not easy to opt-out either.
Numerous types of drones, delivery bots, and more are already coming onto the scene. What will the sidewalks, streets, and skies look like — and sound like — in your neighborhood in the near future? Is that how you want it? Did you give your consent to that happening? No, you didn’t.
…and on and on it goes.

Addendum — speaking of islands!

Palantir CEO: Silicon Valley can’t be on ‘Palo Alto island’ — Big Tech must play by the rules — from cnbc.com by Jessica Bursztynsky

Excerpt:

Palantir Technologies co-founder and CEO Alex Karp said Thursday the core problem in Silicon Valley is the attitude among tech executives that they want to be separate from United States regulation.

“You cannot create an island called Palo Alto Island,” said Karp, who suggested tech leaders would rather govern themselves. “What Silicon Valley really wants is the canton of Palo Alto. We have the United States of America, not the ‘United States of Canton,’ one of which is Palo Alto. That must change.”

“Consumer tech companies, not Apple, but the other ones, have basically decided we’re living on an island and the island is so far removed from what’s called the United States in every way, culturally, linguistically and in normative ways,” Karp added.

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.

Gartner: 10 ways technology will change what it means to be human [Kelly]

On 01/21/2020, in emerging technologies, future, game-changing environment, ideas, intelligent systems, internet, IT in HE, journalism, law schools, legislatures / government / legal, machine-to-machine communications, platforms, policy, political science, society, strategy, technology (general), vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

Gartner: 10 ways technology will change what it means to be human — from campustechnology.com by Rhea Kelly

Excerpts:

Gartner’s top 10 strategic predictions for technology are:

“By 2023, the number of people with disabilities employed will triple due to AI and emerging technologies, reducing barriers to access.”
“By 2024, AI identification of emotions will influence more than half of the online advertisements you see.”
“Through 2023, 30 percent of IT organizations will extend BYOD policies with ‘bring your own enhancement’ (BYOE) to address augmented humans in the workforce.”
“By 2025, 50 percent of people with a smartphone but without a bank account will use a mobile-accessible cryptocurrency account.”
“By 2023, a self-regulating association for oversight of AI and machine learning designers will be established in at least four of the G7 countries.”
“By 2023, 40 percent of professional workers will orchestrate their business application experiences and capabilities like they do their music streaming experience.”
“By 2023, up to 30 percent of world news and video content will be authenticated as real by blockchain countering deep fake technology.”
“Through 2021, digital transformation initiatives will take large traditional enterprises on average twice as long and cost twice as much as anticipated.”
“By 2023, individual activities will be tracked digitally by an ‘Internet of Behavior’ to influence benefit and service eligibility for 40 percent of people worldwide.”
“By 2024, the World Health Organization will identify online shopping as an addictive disorder, as millions abuse digital commerce and encounter financial stress.”

Facial recognition, location tracking and big data will allow organizations to monitor individual behavior and link that behavior to other digital actions, Gartner said, noting that “The Internet of Things (IoT) – where physical things are directed to do a certain thing based on a set of observed operating parameters relative to a desired set of operating parameters — is now being extended to people, known as the Internet of Behavior (IoB).”

From DSC:
That last quote about the “Internet of Behavior (IoB)” should disturb us. I don’t want that kind of world for the next generation.

Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should. Another unintended consequence appears on the landscapes. [Christian]

On 01/18/2020, in 21st century, adjunct faculty, Amazon, Apple, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, colleges, community colleges, computer science, corporate / business world, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, emerging technologies, engineering, ethics, Facebook / Meta Platforms, faculty/staff, future, Google, higher education, ideas, law schools, legislatures / government / legal, Microsoft, morals/values, platforms, political science, programming, research, social learning / networks, social media, society, student-related, teachers, technology (general), the downsides of how people use tech, United States, universities, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
I’ll say it again, just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.

From the article below…we can see another unintended consequence is developing on society’s landscapes. I really wish the 20 and 30 somethings that are being hired by the big tech companies — especially at Amazon, Facebook, Google, Apple, and Microsoft — who are developing these things would ask themselves:

“Just because we can develop this system/software/application/etc., SHOULD we be developing it?”
What might the negative consequences be?
Do the positive contributions outweigh the negative impacts…or not?

To colleges professors and teachers:
Please pass these thoughts onto your students now, so that this internal questioning/conversations begin to take place in K-16.

Report: Colleges Must Teach ‘Algorithm Literacy’ to Help Students Navigate Internet — from edsurge.com by Rebecca Koenig

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

If the Ancient Mariner were sailing on the internet’s open seas, he might conclude there’s information everywhere, but nary a drop to drink.

That’s how many college students feel, anyway. A new report published this week about undergraduates’ impressions of internet algorithms reveals students are skeptical of and unnerved by tools that track their digital travels and serve them personalized content like advertisements and social media posts.

And some students feel like they’ve largely been left to navigate the internet’s murky waters alone, without adequate guidance from teachers and professors.

Researchers set out to learn “how aware students are about their information being manipulated, gathered and interacted with,” said Alison Head, founder and director of Project Information Literacy, in an interview with EdSurge. “Where does that awareness drop off?”
…
They found that many students not only have personal concerns about how algorithms compromise their own data privacy but also recognize the broader, possibly negative implications of tools that segment and customize search results and news feeds.

From DSC:
Very disturbing that citizens had no say in this. Legislators, senators, representatives, lawyers, law schools, politicians, engineers, programmers, professors, teachers, and more…please reflect upon our current situation here. How can we help create the kind of future that we can hand down to our kids and rest well at night…knowing we did all that we could to provide a dream — and not a nightmare — for them?

The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It — from nytimes.com by Kashmir Hill
A little-known start-up helps law enforcement match photos of unknown people to their online images — and “might lead to a dystopian future or something,” a backer says.

His tiny company, Clearview AI, devised a groundbreaking facial recognition app. You take a picture of a person, upload it and get to see public photos of that person, along with links to where those photos appeared. The system — whose backbone is a database of more than three billion images that Clearview claims to have scraped from Facebook, YouTube, Venmo and millions of other websites — goes far beyond anything ever constructed by the United States government or Silicon Valley giants.

Excerpts:

“But without public scrutiny, more than 600 law enforcement agencies have started using Clearview in the past year…”

Clearview’s app carries extra risks because law enforcement agencies are uploading sensitive photos to the servers of a company whose ability to protect its data is untested.

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.

Learning Ecosystems

How Blockchain’s ‘paradigm shift’ puts more pressure on legal’s tech evolution [Dipshan]

How wary lawyers are embracing new tech [Purkis & Osborne in the UK]

Lawyers: Meet the CEO trying to make you obsolete [Goodnow]

Ohio, Illinois, & Michigan courts using technology to bring their services to the people [Houlberg]

Gartner: 10 ways technology will change what it means to be human [Kelly]

The LexBlog Excellence Awards 2019 Winners

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