policy

We Visited Rumeysa Ozturk in Detention. What We Saw Was a Warning to Us All. [Markey, McGovern, & Pressley]

On 04/25/2025, in Emotion, legislatures / government / legal, policy, political science, society, sociology, United States, by Daniel Christian

We Visited Rumeysa Ozturk in Detention. What We Saw Was a Warning to Us All. — from nytimes.com by Edward J. Markey, Jim McGovern, and Ayanna Pressley. This is a gifted article.

When we met Ms. Ozturk in Basile, she told us she feared for her life when she was taken off the streets of her neighborhood, not knowing who had grabbed her or where they were taking her. She said that at each step of her transit — from Massachusetts to New Hampshire to Vermont to Louisiana — her repeated requests to contact her lawyer were denied. Inside the detention center, she was inadequately fed, kept in facilities with extremely cold temperatures and denied personal necessities and religious accommodations. She suffered asthma attacks for which she lacked her prescribed medication. Despite all this — and despite being far away from her loved ones — we were struck by her unwavering spirit.

Why did the Trump administration target her? By all accounts, it’s because she was one of the authors of an opinion essay for The Tufts Daily criticizing her university’s response to resolutions that the Tufts student senate passed regarding Israel and Gaza.

This is not immigration enforcement. This is repression. This is authoritarianism.
.

.

Fight the Trump Administration’s Defiance of the Constitution and Courts [5calls.org]

On 04/23/2025, in dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, legislatures / government / legal, policy, political science, society, United States, by Daniel Christian

Fight the Trump Administration’s Defiance of the Constitution and Courts — from 5calls.org

On April 14th, the Trump administration openly defied a unanimous order from the Supreme Court by refusing to bring back a person they knowingly sent to a torture prison in El Salvador by mistake.
…

Since Day 1, the Trump administration has been consistently eroding the constitutional separation of powers and system of checks and balances. They have…

Repeatedly stonewalled federal district judges in court proceedings, defied orders, and threatened to impeach them
Attempted to revoke birthright citizenship
Usurped Congress’s constitutional “power of the purse” to block mandated federal funding to essential programs
Violated the First Amendment and due process rights of students and activists
+ many other items listed here…

From DSC:
Be more like Harvard.

Harvard sues the Trump administration in escalating confrontation — from washingtonpost.com by Susan Svrluga and Danielle Douglas-Gabriel
Lawsuit argues that government actions, including freezing $2.2 billion in federal funding, violated the First Amendment and didn’t follow legal procedures.

Harvard University sued the Trump administration in federal court Monday, the latest move in the escalating feud between the nation’s wealthiest school and the White House.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts against multiple federal agencies, seeks to block the Trump administration from withholding federal funding “as leverage to gain control of academic decision making at Harvard.”

Alan M. Garber, the president of Harvard, said in a message to the university community Monday that the Trump administration’s actions are unlawful and beyond the government’s authority.

From DSC:
Trump has WAAAAY overstepped his jurisdiction and has crossed boundaries left and right. He has single-handedly wreaked havoc across the world — especially with the trade wars and by undermining the Federal Reserve. But he has also trampled on the rights of people living in America. Perhaps we need to write or revisit the job description of a President of the USA. But that’s not really going to help. He wouldn’t listen to it or read it anyway.

Outdated Microschool Laws Turn Parents into Criminals [Smith Ewing]

On 04/21/2025, in Alternatives, change, changing business models, education, education reform, homeschooling/homeschoolers, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning preferences, learning spaces, legislatures / government / legal, new business models, parents/guardians, policy, United States, youth, by Daniel Christian

Outdated Microschool Laws Turn Parents into Criminals — from educationnext.org by Erica Smith Ewing
By over-regulating the pandemic-era schooling alternative, states ignore families’ constitutional rights

Public schools do not work for everyone. But options have increased since 1922, when Oregon tried to ban private education. The Supreme Court shut down that scheme fast. But now, after more than 100 years, political insiders are rallying again to stop a new source of choice.

The target this time is microschooling, a Covid-era alternative that has outlasted the pandemic. Key players in the movement will gather May 8–9, 2025, at the International Microschools Conference in Washington, D.C. I will join them.

Most likely, I will meet educators running all kinds of programs in all kinds of community spaces. Microschools blur the lines between home, public, and private schooling—combining elements from all three models.

The result is a fourth category of schooling that hinges on flexibility. Some parents pool their resources and hire outside instructors. Other groups rotate teaching duties among themselves, gathering daily or perhaps only once or twice per week. These are the do-it-yourselfers. Professionals also get involved with standalone enterprises and national networks.

4 ways community colleges can boost workforce development — from highereddive.com by Natalie Schwartz
Higher education leaders at this week’s ASU+GSV Summit gave advice for how two-year institutions can boost the economic mobility of their students.

SAN DIEGO — How can community colleges deliver economic mobility to their students?

College leaders at this week’s ASU+GSV Summit, an annual education and technology conference, got a glimpse into that answer as they heard how community colleges are building support from business and industry and strengthening workforce development.

These types of initiatives may be helping to boost public perception of the value of community colleges vs. four-year institutions.

The 2025 AI Index Report [Stanford University]

On 04/09/2025, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Africa, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Asia, bots, business, Canada, change, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, communities of practice, computer science, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, digital learning, economics, education, education technology, emerging technologies, ethics, Europe, experimentation, faculty/staff, future, game-changing environment, global / globalization, health, human-computer interaction (HCI), innovation, intelligent systems, learning ecosystem, legislatures / government / legal, mathematics, morals/values, platforms, policy, research, science, society, trends, United States, universities, workplace, by Daniel Christian

The 2025 AI Index Report — from Stanford University’s Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence Lab (hai.stanford.edu); item via The Neuron

Top Takeaways

AI performance on demanding benchmarks continues to improve.
AI is increasingly embedded in everyday life.
Business is all in on AI, fueling record investment and usage, as research continues to show strong productivity impacts.
The U.S. still leads in producing top AI models—but China is closing the performance gap.
The responsible AI ecosystem evolves—unevenly.
Global AI optimism is rising—but deep regional divides remain.
…and several more

Also see:

12 Graphs That Explain the State of AI in 2025 — from by Eliza Strickland; item via The Neuron
Stanford’s AI Index tracks performance, investment, public opinion, and more

The Neuron’s take on this:

So, what should you do? You really need to start trying out these AI tools. They’re getting cheaper and better, and they can genuinely help save time or make work easier—ignoring them is like ignoring smartphones ten years ago.

Just keep two big things in mind:

Making the next super-smart AI costs a crazy amount of money and uses tons of power (seriously, they’re buying nuclear plants and pushing coal again!).
Companies are still figuring out how to make AI perfectly safe and fair—cause it still makes mistakes.

So, use the tools, find what helps you, but don’t trust them completely.

We’re building this plane mid-flight, and Stanford’s report card is just another confirmation that we desperately need better safety checks before we hit major turbulence.

Addendum on 4/16:

Let’s impeach Donald Trump while we still have a constitutional democracy. This is unbelievable! [Christian]

On 03/26/2025, in Access to Justice (A2J), Canada, change, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, legislatures / government / legal, policy, political science, United States, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
This is unbelievable to me! I’m posting this item from Will Richardson because I agree with him 100%. I’m embarrassed to be an American right now. Again, this is unbelievable. Our nation is in an extremely dangerous situation. Donald Trump and his Republican Administration have made a mockery of justice and Donald has now put his thumb to his face and doesn’t even listen to the orders from the Justice Department anymore*.

To the Republican Leadership in our nation, may you be held accountable for your actions — and may they be remembered in the future.

And for our neighbors in Canada — as well as in other nations: Please forgive us. We are one messed-up country these days. This is NOT how many of us want our nation to be and to act.

The following posting is here on linkedin.com and here is the article that Will links out to at The Guardian.

It was surreal listening to my friends recount everything they had done to get me out: working with lawyers, reaching out to the media, making endless calls to detention centers, desperately trying to get through to Ice or anyone who could help. They said the entire system felt rigged, designed to make it nearly impossible for anyone to get out.

The reality became clear: Ice detention isn’t just a bureaucratic nightmare. It’s a business. These facilities are privately owned and run for profit.

Companies like CoreCivic and GEO Group receive government funding based on the number of people they detain, which is why they lobby for stricter immigration policies. It’s a lucrative business: CoreCivic made over $560m from Ice contracts in a single year. In 2024, GEO Group made more than $763m from Ice contracts.

— Jasmine Mooney

Also see (below excerpted from this list of articles/items):

Canadian Who Was in an ‘American Pie’ Video Says ICE Held Her for 12 Days — from nytimes.com by Neil Vigdor
Jasmine Mooney, 35, said she was put “in chains” after immigration enforcement officers flagged her visa application paperwork. The former actress was finally allowed to return to Vancouver.

Jasmine Mooney’s Immigration Lawyer Sounds US Alarm— from newsweek.com by Billal Rahman

U.S. immigration lawyer Jim Hacking says Mooney’s case is part of a rising number of incidents in the past 10 days where individuals with different immigration statuses— including one with a permanent resident card—have been detained or deported in unprecedented ways.

Hacking says he has been advising non-citizens to avoid leaving the United States, as he believes there is a growing risk they may not be allowed to return.

This warning also applies to Canadians with current or past work visas or other forms of immigration status, he adds.

* Here are but a few articles re: Trump attacking or outright disregarding the Justice Department:

Defiance and Threats in Deportation Case Renew Fear of Constitutional Crisis — from nytimes.com by Adam Liptak (DSC: This is a GIFTED article)
Legal scholars say that the nation has reached a tipping point and that the right question is not whether there is a crisis, but rather how much damage it will cause.

Over the weekend, the Trump administration ignored a federal judge’s order not to deport a group of Venezuelan men, violating an instruction that could not have been plainer or more direct.
…
The line between arguments in support of a claimed right to disobey court orders and outright defiance has become gossamer thin, they said, again raising the question of whether the latest clash between President Trump and the judiciary amounts to a constitutional crisis.

Legal scholars say that is no longer the right inquiry. Mr. Trump is already undercutting the separation of powers at the heart of the constitutional system, they say, and the right question now is how it will transform the nation.

Judge Grants the Government Another Day to Share Details on Deportation Flights — from nytimes.com by Alan Feuer (DSC: This is a GIFTED article)
Judge James Boasberg has asked the government to tell him what time two planes took off from U.S. soil and from where, what time they left U.S. airspace and what time they landed in El Salvador.

Earlier this week, department lawyers sought to cancel a hearing where they were supposed to talk about the flights in open court and then, in a highly unusual move, tried to have Judge Boasberg removed from the case altogether.

When they filed their emergency request asking for a stay on Wednesday morning, the court papers used bombastic language attacking Judge Boasberg, who has already faced calls for impeachment by President Trump and some of his congressional allies.

It’s Trump vs. the Courts, and It Won’t End Well for Trump — (DSC: This is a GIFTED article) — it is an opinion piece out at The New York Times by J. Michael Luttig (Judge Luttig was appointed by President George H.W. Bush and served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit from 1991 to 2006.)

President Trump has wasted no time in his second term in declaring war on the nation’s federal judiciary, the country’s legal profession and the rule of law. He has provoked a constitutional crisis with his stunning frontal assault on the third branch of government and the American system of justice. The casualty could well be the constitutional democracy Americans fought for in the Revolutionary War against the British monarchy 250 years ago.
…
The bill of particulars against Mr. Trump is long and foreboding. For years Mr. Trump has viciously attacked judges and threatened their safety. Recently he called for the impeachment of a federal judge who has ruled against his administration. He has issued patently unconstitutional orders targeting law firms and lawyers who represent clients he views as enemies. He has vowed to weaponize the Department of Justice against his political opponents. He has blithely ignored judicial orders that he is bound by the Constitution to follow and enforce.

Office tasks are being automated now, but nobody has answers on how education and worker upskilling should change. [Fain]

On 03/08/2025, in adult learning, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, business, career development, change, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, colleges, community colleges, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, disruption, economics, emerging technologies, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, intelligent systems, leadership, learning ecosystem, legislatures / government / legal, lifelong learning, new business models, organizational change, pace of change, policy, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, reinvent, research, skills, society, staying relevant, strategy, student-related, surviving, United States, universities, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

Blind Spot on AI — from the-job.beehiiv.com by Paul Fain
Office tasks are being automated now, but nobody has answers on how education and worker upskilling should change.

Students and workers will need help adjusting to a labor market that appears to be on the verge of a historic disruption as many business processes are automated. Yet job projections and policy ideas are sorely lacking.
…
The benefits of agentic AI are already clear for a wide range of organizations, including small nonprofits like CareerVillage. But the ability to automate a broad range of business processes means that education programs and skills training for knowledge workers will need to change. And as Chung writes in a must-read essay, we have a blind spot with predicting the impacts of agentic AI on the labor market.

“Without robust projections,” he writes, “policymakers, businesses, and educators won’t be able to come to terms with how rapidly we need to start this upskilling.”

2025 Survey of College and University Presidents
Learn about presidents’ takes on topics such as financial confidence, the 2024 election’s impact on higher ed & more.

Inside Higher Ed’s 2025 Survey of College and University Presidents was conducted by Hanover Research. The survey asked presidents from 298 public and private, largely nonprofit two- and four-year institutions timely questions on the following issues:

General financial and economic confidence, plus mergers and acquisitions
Politics, policy and the 2024 election’s impact on higher education
Public perceptions of higher ed and the value of a degree
Campus speech
Race on campus
Artificial intelligence
Environmental sustainability goals
Campus health and wellness, including student mental health
Management, governance and the hardest part about being a president

Perhaps God allowed Donald Trump to be President in order to HUMBLE the United States. [Christian]

On 02/21/2025, in change, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, Emotion, ethics, game-changing environment, legislatures / government / legal, morals/values, policy, political science, United States, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
I realize that I lose a lot of readers because I put some scripture from the Bible on this blog and I mention the names of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, and our Heavenly Father here as well. I address matters of faith from time to time. So I have hesitated greatly to put anything out here re: politics. I will lose further readership most likely.

But I can no longer be silent on the matter of Donald Trump and the Republican Administration* as a whole. Like many others, I’m very disappointed that our nation elected him — and I think it’s time we Americans took a long, hard look in the mirror on that one.

Donald Trump scorns the Constitution and he seeks to destroy our democracy — something many people have given their lives to develop and support.
He orchestrated the January 6, 2021 insurrection on the U.S. Capitol building. His supporters called for the life of the (then-current) Vice President if he didn’t do what they wanted him to do.
Speaking of the insurrection…Donald Trump is a convicted felon and would have likely lost several more court cases had he not been able to make a MOCKERY of our judicial system. His money, power, and position were able to postpone many of those court cases. As a relevant aside here, who knows how many people were given access to confidential records of the U.S. (for a price no doubt). He should be in jail right now. You and I would have been thrown in jail a looooong time ago. But Donald Trump laughs at justice — he distorts justice.
He acts like a toddler — at most, a junior high school student.
He bullies people and nations.
He threatens retribution if someone doesn’t agree with him.
He belittles people and nations.
He creates massive division, not unity. He reminds me of Adolph Hitler.
He is an embarrassment to the United States. He has destroyed so much diplomatic work and goodwill on the global stage. Our allies — or perhaps I should say former allies now — were shocked to recently hear about Donald Trump’s stances on many things.
And the tariffs aren’t helpful either. They create barriers and will likely increase prices here in the U.S.
I can’t believe a word that comes out of his mouth. For a President of the United States to exhibit this characteristic over and over again, it sets a horrible example for the younger generations to see. It further establishes a culture in America that is NOT the type of culture I want to live in or have my descendants live in. I do not support the type of culture that Donald Trump creates.

I, for one, apologize to the rest of the world that our nation elected him as President. This was a massive mistake.

So I’m beginning to think that the LORD allowed Donald Trump to become President NOT to make America Great Again (MAGA) — as that whole campaign seems to be a lie too — but rather to HUMBLE America.

By the way, I don’t think Donald Trump is a Christian — at all. Besides his hatred of the truth as well as the other items listed above…if he were truly a Christian, he would not have balked at the Bishop’s urging him to be compassionate to others (at his Inauguration). He would have listened to her wisdom. Plus, he would have put his hand on the Bible when he took his oaths.

Daniel’s prayer in Daniel 1:19 is highly relevant to the United States right now. And so is 2 Chronicles 7:14:

¹⁴if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
.

* In the past, I have voted for members of the Republican and Democratic Parties — Presidents, VPs,
Governors, Senators, Representatives, and more. But when Karl Rove & Company started
playing too many games for my taste, I moved towards voting mostly for Democrats.

To the Futurist Jack Uldrich:
Thank you for your posting entitled “A Special Edition: Jack Uldrich’s Friday Future 15: Truth, Compassion and Love.” It got me to finally write this posting that I’ve been meaning to write for several weeks now.

Like it or not, AI is learning how to influence you — from venturebeat.com by Louis Rosenberg

Unfortunately, without regulatory protections, we humans will likely become the objective that AI agents are tasked with optimizing.

I am most concerned about the conversational agents that will engage us in friendly dialog throughout our daily lives. They will speak to us through photorealistic avatars on our PCs and phones and soon, through AI-powered glasses that will guide us through our days. Unless there are clear restrictions, these agents will be designed to conversationally probe us for information so they can characterize our temperaments, tendencies, personalities and desires, and use those traits to maximize their persuasive impact when working to sell us products, pitch us services or convince us to believe misinformation.
.

2025 EDUCAUSE AI Landscape Study: Into the Digital AI Divide — from library.educause.edu

The higher education community continues to grapple with questions related to using artificial intelligence (AI) in learning and work. In support of these efforts, we present the 2025 EDUCAUSE AI Landscape Study, summarizing our community’s sentiments and experiences related to strategy and leadership, policies and guidelines, use cases, the higher education workforce, and the institutional digital divide.

At least seven items re: AI within our learning ecosystems

On 01/14/2025, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, collaboration, colleges, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, education technology, emerging technologies, ethics, experimentation, faculty/staff, future, game-changing environment, generational differences, Google, India, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, IT in HE, K-12 related, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, morals/values, NVIDIA, platforms, policy, research, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, tools, training / L&D, trends, United States, universities, vendors, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, by Daniel Christian

Students Pushback on AI Bans, India Takes a Leading Role in AI & Education & Growing Calls for Teacher Training in AI — from learningfuturesdigest.substack.com by Dr. Philippa Hardman
Key developments in the world of AI & Education at the turn of 2025

At the end of 2024 and start of 2025, we’ve witnessed some fascinating developments in the world of AI and education, from from India’s emergence as a leader in AI education and Nvidia’s plans to build an AI school in Indonesia to Stanford’s Tutor CoPilot improving outcomes for underserved students.

Other highlights include Carnegie Learning partnering with AI for Education to train K-12 teachers, early adopters of AI sharing lessons about implementation challenges, and AI super users reshaping workplace practices through enhanced productivity and creativity.

Also mentioned by Philippa:

AI for Education and Carnegie Learning’s new partnership
India emerges as Global Leader in AI Education: Bosch Tech Compass 2025 — from medianews4u.com
57% Indians receive employer-provided AI training, surpassing Germany, and other European nations
Bengaluru: India is emerging as a global leader in artificial intelligence (AI) education, with over 50% of its population actively self-educating in AI-related skills, according to Bosch’s fourth annual Tech Compass Survey. The report highlights India’s readiness to embrace AI in work, education, and daily life, positioning the nation as a frontrunner in the AI revolution.

ElevenLabs AI Voice Tool Review for Educators — from aiforeducation.io with Amanda Bickerstaff and Mandy DePriest

AI for Education reviewed the ElevenLabs AI Voice Tool through an educator lens, digging into the new autonomous voice agent functionality that facilitates interactive user engagement. We showcase the creation of a customized vocabulary bot, which defines words at a 9th-grade level and includes options for uploading supplementary material. The demo includes real-time testing of the bot’s capabilities in defining terms and quizzing users.

The discussion also explored the AI tool’s potential for aiding language learners and neurodivergent individuals, and Mandy presented a phone conversation coach bot to help her 13-year-old son, highlighting the tool’s ability to provide patient, repetitive practice opportunities.

While acknowledging the technology’s potential, particularly in accessibility and language learning, we also want to emphasize the importance of supervised use and privacy considerations. Right now the tool is currently free, this likely won’t always remain the case, so we encourage everyone to explore and test it out now as it continues to develop.

How to Use Google’s Deep Research, Learn About and NotebookLM Together — from ai-supremacy.com by Michael Spencer and Nick Potkalitsky
Supercharging your research with Google Deepmind’s new AI Tools.

Why Combine Them?
Faster Onboarding: Start broad with Deep Research, then refine and clarify concepts through Learn About. Finally, use NotebookLM to synthesize everything into a cohesive understanding.

Deeper Clarity: Unsure about a concept uncovered by Deep Research? Head to Learn About for a primer. Want to revisit key points later? Store them in NotebookLM and generate quick summaries on demand.

Adaptive Exploration: Create a feedback loop. Let new terms or angles from Learn About guide more targeted Deep Research queries. Then, compile all findings in NotebookLM for future reference.
.

Getting to an AI Policy Part 1: Challenges — from aiedusimplified.substack.com by Lance Eaton, PH.D.
Why institutional policies are slow to emerge in higher education

There are several challenges to making policy that make institutions hesitant to or delay their ability to produce it. Policy (as opposed to guidance) is much more likely to include a mixture of IT, HR, and legal services. This means each of those entities has to wrap their heads around GenAI—not just for their areas but for the other relevant areas such as teaching & learning, research, and student support. This process can definitely extend the time it takes to figure out the right policy.

That’s naturally true with every policy. It does not often come fast enough and is often more reactive than proactive.

Still, in my conversations and observations, the delay derives from three additional intersecting elements that feel like they all need to be in lockstep in order to actually take advantage of whatever possibilities GenAI has to offer.

Which Tool(s) To Use
Training, Support, & Guidance, Oh My!
Strategy: Setting a Direction…

Prophecies of the Flood — from oneusefulthing.org by Ethan Mollick
What to make of the statements of the AI labs?

What concerns me most isn’t whether the labs are right about this timeline – it’s that we’re not adequately preparing for what even current levels of AI can do, let alone the chance that they might be correct. While AI researchers are focused on alignment, ensuring AI systems act ethically and responsibly, far fewer voices are trying to envision and articulate what a world awash in artificial intelligence might actually look like. This isn’t just about the technology itself; it’s about how we choose to shape and deploy it. These aren’t questions that AI developers alone can or should answer. They’re questions that demand attention from organizational leaders who will need to navigate this transition, from employees whose work lives may transform, and from stakeholders whose futures may depend on these decisions. The flood of intelligence that may be coming isn’t inherently good or bad – but how we prepare for it, how we adapt to it, and most importantly, how we choose to use it, will determine whether it becomes a force for progress or disruption. The time to start having these conversations isn’t after the water starts rising – it’s now.

How Generative AI Is Shaping the Future of Law: Challenges and Trends in the Legal Profession — from thomsonreuters.com by Raghu Ramanathan

With this mind, Thomson Reuters and Lexpert hosted a panel featuring law firm leaders and industry experts discussing the challenges and trends around the use of generative AI in the legal profession.?Below are insights from an engaging and informative discussion.

Sections included:

Lawyers are excited to implement generative AI solutions
Unfounded concerns about robot lawyers
Changing billing practices and elevating services
Managing and mitigating risks

Adopting Legal Technology Responsibly — from lexology.com by Sacha Kirk

Here are fundamental principles to guide the process:

Start with a Needs Assessment…
Engage Stakeholders Early…
Choose Scalable Solutions…
Prioritise Security and Compliance…
Plan for Change Management…

Modernizing Legal Workflows: The Role Of AI, Automation, And Strategic Partnerships — from abovethelaw.com by Scott Angelo, Jared Gullbergh, Nancy Griffing, and Michael Owen Hill
A roadmap for law firms.

Angelo added, “We really doubled down on AI because it was just so new — not just to the legal industry, but to the world.” Under his leadership, Buchanan’s efforts to embrace AI have garnered significant attention, earning the firm recognition as one of the “Best of the Best for Generative AI” in the 2024 BTI “Leading Edge Law Firms” survey.

This acknowledgment reflects more than ambition; it highlights the firm’s ability to translate innovative ideas into actionable results. By focusing on collaboration and leveraging technology to address client demands, Buchanan has set a benchmark for what is possible in legal technology innovation.
…
The collective team followed these essential steps for app development:

Identify and Prioritize Use Cases…
Define App Requirements…
Leverage Pre-Built Studio Apps and Templates…
Incorporate AI and Automation…
Test and Iterate…
Deploy and Train…
Measure Success…

Navigating Generative AI in Legal Practice — from linkedin.com by Colin Levy

The rise of artificial intelligence (AI), particularly generative AI, has introduced transformative potential to legal practice. For in-house counsel, managing legal risk while driving operational efficiency increasingly involves navigating AI’s opportunities and challenges. While AI offers remarkable tools for automation and data-driven decision-making, it is essential to approach these tools as complementary to human judgment, not replacements. Effective AI adoption requires balancing its efficiencies with a commitment to ethical, nuanced legal practice.

Here a few ways in which this arises:

“Just 10% of law firms have a GenAI policy” [Hill] + other legaltech-related items

On 12/09/2024, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, law schools, Legal operations, legal reform, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, policy, by Daniel Christian

Just 10% of law firms have a GenAI policy, new Thomson Reuters report shows — from legaltechnology.com by Caroline Hill

Just 10% of law firms and 21% of corporate legal teams have now implemented policies to guide their organisation’s use of generative AI, according to a report out today (2 December) from Thomson Reuters.

While Thomson Reuters 2024 Generative AI in Professional Services report shows AI views among legal professionals are rapidly shifting (85% of law firms and corporate legal teams now think AI can be applied to their work) the report shows that legal organisations have a way to go in terms of setting the ground rules for the use of AI. Just 8% said that GenAI is covered under their existing technology policy, while 75% of firms said they don’t have a policy and 7% said they don’t know.

Artificial Lawyer’s 2025 Predictions – Part One — from artificiallawyer.com

I expect to see a lot more agentic AI systems in law: services that break complex tasks into component parts or checklists, complete them with a mix of software, lawyers, and allied legal professionals, then reassemble them into complex first drafts of legal work.

Ed Walters

Integrated Legal Ecosystems
The silos that have historically divided in-house legal teams, external counsel, and other stakeholders will evolve, thanks to the rise of integrated legal ecosystems. End-to-end platforms will provide seamless collaboration, real-time updates, and shared knowledge, enabling all parties to work more effectively toward common goals. Legal departments will turn to these unified solutions to streamline legal requests, offer self-service options, and improve service delivery.

Sacha Kirk

2025 will be the year of agentic AI. It will be the year that end users of legal services finally get legal work resolved for them autonomously.

Richard Mabey

AI Enhances the Human Art of In-House Counsel Leadership — from news.bloomberglaw.com by Eric Dodson Greenberg (behind a paywall)

Transactional lawyers stored prized forms in file drawers or consulted the law library’s bound volumes of forms. The arrival of databases revolutionized access to precedent, enabling faster and broader access to legal resources.

There is little nostalgia for the labor-intensive methods of the past and no argument that some arcane legal skill was lost in the transition. What we gained was increased capacity to focus on higher-order skills and more sophisticated, value-driven legal work. AI offers a similar leap, automating repetitive or foundational tasks to free lawyers for more sophisticated work.

Reflections on “US College Closures Are Expected to Soar, Fed Research Says” [Bloomberg.com]

On 12/07/2024, in 21st century, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, assessment, business side of he, change, changing business models, colleges, community colleges, cost of getting a degree, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, economics, faculty/staff, game-changing environment, higher education, ideas, law schools, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, legislatures / government / legal, liberal arts, new business models, parents/guardians, policy, reinvent, society, staying relevant, student-related, surviving, United States, universities, vendors, by Daniel Christian

US College Closures Are Expected to Soar, Fed Research Says — from bloomberg.com

Fed research created predictive model of college stress
Worst-case scenario forecasts 80 additional closures

The number of colleges that close each year is poised to significantly increase as schools contend with a slowdown in prospective students.

That’s the finding of a new working paper published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, where researchers created predictive models of schools’ financial distress using metrics like enrollment and staffing patterns, sources of revenue and liquidity data. They overlayed those models with simulations to estimate the likely increase of future closures.

Excerpt from the working paper:

We document a high degree of missing data among colleges that eventually close and show that this is a key impediment to identifying at risk institutions. We then show that modern machine learning techniques, combined with richer data, are far more effective at predicting college closures than linear probability models, and considerably more effective than existing accountability metrics. Our preferred model, which combines an off-the-shelf machine learning algorithm with the richest set of explanatory variables, can significantly improve predictive accuracy even for institutions with complete data, but is particularly helpful for predicting instances of financial distress for institutions with spotty data.

From DSC:
Questions that come to my mind here include:

Shouldn’t the public — especially those relevant parents and students — be made more aware of these types of papers and reports?
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How would any of us like finishing up 1-3 years of school and then being told that our colleges or universities were closing, effective immediately? (This has happened many times already.) and with the demographic cliff starting to hit higher education, this will happen even more now.
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Adding insult to injury…when we transfer to different institutions, we’re told that many of our prior credits don’t transfer — thus adding a significant amount to the overall cost of obtaining our degrees.
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Would we not be absolutely furious to discover such communications from our prior — and new — colleges and universities?
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Will all of these types of closures move more people to this vision here?

Relevant excerpts from Ray Schroeder’s recent articles out at insidehighered.com:

Winds of Change in Higher Ed to Become a Hurricane in 2025

A number of factors are converging to create a huge storm. Generative AI advances, massive federal policy shifts, broad societal and economic changes, and the demographic cliff combine to create uncertainty today and change tomorrow.

Higher Education in 2025: AGI Agents to Displace People

The anticipated enrollment cliff, reductions in federal and state funding, increased inflation, and dwindling public support for tuition increases will combine to put even greater pressure on university budgets.

On the positive side of things, the completion rates have been getting better:

National college completion rate ticks up to 61.1% — from highereddive.com by Natalie Schwartz
Those who started at two-year public colleges helped drive the overall increase in students completing a credential.

Dive Brief:

Completion rates ticked up to 61.1% for students who entered college in fall 2018, a 0.5 percentage-point increase compared to the previous cohort, according to data released Wednesday by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.
The increase marks the highest six-year completion rate since 2007 when the clearinghouse began tracking the data. The growth was driven by fewer students stopping out of college, as well as completion gains among students who started at public two-year colleges.
“Higher completion rates are welcome news for colleges and universities still struggling to regain enrollment levels from before the pandemic,” Doug Shapiro, the research center’s executive director, said in a statement dated Wednesday.

Addendum:

Attention Please: Professors Struggle With Student Disengagement — from edsurge.com

The stakes are huge, because the concern is that maybe the social contract between students and professors is kind of breaking down. Do students believe that all this college lecturing is worth hearing? Or, will this moment force a change in the way college teaching is done?

Learning Ecosystems

We Visited Rumeysa Ozturk in Detention. What We Saw Was a Warning to Us All. [Markey, McGovern, & Pressley]

Fight the Trump Administration’s Defiance of the Constitution and Courts [5calls.org]

Outdated Microschool Laws Turn Parents into Criminals [Smith Ewing]

Let’s impeach Donald Trump while we still have a constitutional democracy. This is unbelievable! [Christian]

Perhaps God allowed Donald Trump to be President in order to HUMBLE the United States. [Christian]

* In the past, I have voted for members of the Republican and Democratic Parties — Presidents, VPs,
Governors, Senators, Representatives, and more. But when Karl Rove & Company started
playing too many games for my taste, I moved towards voting mostly for Democrats.

Categories

Tags

* In the past, I have voted for members of the Republican and Democratic Parties — Presidents, VPs, Governors, Senators, Representatives, and more. But when Karl Rove & Company started playing too many games for my taste, I moved towards voting mostly for Democrats.

Categories

Tags

* In the past, I have voted for members of the Republican and Democratic Parties — Presidents, VPs,
Governors, Senators, Representatives, and more. But when Karl Rove & Company started
playing too many games for my taste, I moved towards voting mostly for Democrats.