Survey Results Predict Top Legal Technology Trends for 2024 — from jdsupra.com

In the 2023 Litigation Support Trend Survey, U.S. Legal Support asked lawyers and legal professionals what technology trends they observed in 2023, and how they expect their use of technology to change in 2024.

Now, the results are in—check out the findings below.

Topics included:

  • Use of Artificial Intelligence
  • Prevalence of Remote Depositions
  • Digital Reporting

Speaking of legaltech and/or how emerging technologies are impacting the legal realm, also see:

 

Learners’ Edition: AI-powered Coaching, Professional Certifications + Inspiring conversations about mastering your learning & speaking skills

Learners’ Edition: AI-powered Coaching, Professional Certifications + Inspiring conversations about mastering your learning & speaking skills — from linkedin.com by Tomer Cohen

Excerpts:

1. Your own AI-powered coaching
Learners can go into LinkedIn Learning and ask a question or explain a challenge they are currently facing at work (we’re focusing on areas within Leadership and Management to start). AI-powered coaching will pull from the collective knowledge of our expansive LinkedIn Learning library and, instantaneously, offer advice, examples, or feedback that is personalized to the learner’s skills, job, and career goals.

What makes us so excited about this launch is we can now take everything we as LinkedIn know about people’s careers and how they navigate them and help accelerate them with AI.

3. Learn exactly what you need to know for your next job
When looking for a new job, it’s often the time we think about refreshing our LinkedIn profiles. It’s also a time we can refresh our skills. And with skill sets for jobs having changed by 25% since 2015 – with the number expected to increase by 65% by 2030– keeping our skills a step ahead is one of the most important things we can do to stand out.

There are a couple of ways we’re making it easier to learn exactly what you need to know for your next job:

When you set a job alert, in addition to being notified about open jobs, we’ll recommend learning courses and Professional Certificate offerings to help you build the skills needed for that role.

When you view a job, we recommend specific courses to help you build the required skills. If you have LinkedIn Learning access through your company or as part of a Premium subscription, you can follow the skills for the job, that way we can let you know when we launch new courses for those skills and recommend you content on LinkedIn that better aligns to your career goals.


2024 Edtech Predictions from Edtech Insiders — from edtechinsiders.substack.com by Alex Sarlin, Ben Kornell, and Sarah Morin
Omni-modal AI, edtech funding prospects, higher ed wake up calls, focus on career training, and more!

Alex: I talked to the 360 Learning folks at one point and they had this really interesting epiphany, which is basically that it’s been almost impossible for every individual company in the past to create a hierarchy of skills and a hierarchy of positions and actually organize what it looks like for people to move around and upskill within the company and get to new paths.

Until now. AI actually can do this very well. It can take not only job description data, but it can take actual performance data. It can actually look at what people do on a daily basis and back fit that to training, create automatic training based on it.

From DSC:
I appreciated how they addressed K-12, higher ed, and the workforce all in one posting. Nice work. We don’t need siloes. We need more overall design thinking re: our learning ecosystems — as well as more collaborations. We need more on-ramps and pathways in a person’s learning/career journey.

 

The biggest things that happened in AI this year — from superhuman.ai by Zain Kahn

January:

  • Microsoft raises eyebrows with a huge $10 Billion investment in OpenAI.

February:

  • Meta launches Llama 2, their open-source rival to OpenAI’s models.
  • OpenAI announces ChatGPT Plus, a paid version of their chatbot.
  • Microsoft announces a new AI-powered Bing Search.

March:

  • OpenAI announces the powerful GPT-4 model, still considered to be the gold standard.
  • Midjourney releases V5, which brings AI-powered image generation one step closer to reality.
  • Microsoft launches Copilot for Microsoft 365.
  • Google launches Bard, its rival to ChatGPT.

…and more


AI 2023: A Year in Review — from stefanbauschard.substack.com by Stefan Bauschard
2023 developments in AI and a hint of what they are building toward

Some of the items that Stefan includes in his posting include:

  • ChatGPT and other language models that generate text.
  • Image generators.
  • Video generators.
  • AI models that that can read, hear, and speak.
  • AI models that can see.
  • Improving models.
  • “Multimodal” models.
  • Training on specific content.
  • Reasoning & planning.
  • …and several others

The Dictionary.com Word of the Year is “hallucinate.” — from content.dictionary.com by Nick Norlen and Grant Barrett; via The Rundown AI

hallucinate
[ huhloo-suh-neyt ]

verb
(of artificial intelligence) to produce false information contrary to the intent of the user and present it as if true and factual. Example: When chatbots hallucinate, the result is often not just inaccurate but completely fabricated.


Soon, every employee will be both AI builder and AI consumer — from zdnet.com by Joe McKendrick, via Robert Gibson on LinkedIn
“Standardized tools and platforms as well as advanced low- or no-code tech may enable all employees to become low-level engineers,” suggests a recent report.

The time could be ripe for a blurring of the lines between developers and end-users, a recent report out of Deloitte suggests. It makes more business sense to focus on bringing in citizen developers for ground-level programming, versus seeking superstar software engineers, the report’s authors argue, or — as they put it — “instead of transforming from a 1x to a 10x engineer, employees outside the tech division could be going from zero to one.”

Along these lines, see:

  • TECH TRENDS 2024 — from deloitte.com
    Six emerging technology trends demonstrate that in an age of generative machines, it’s more important than ever for organizations to maintain an integrated business strategy, a solid technology foundation, and a creative workforce.

UK Supreme Court rules AI is not an inventor — from theverge.com by Emilia David

The ruling follows a similar decision denying patent registrations naming AI as creators.

The UK Supreme Court ruled that AI cannot get patents, declaring it cannot be named as an inventor of new products because the law considers only humans or companies to be creators.


The Times Sues OpenAI and Microsoft Over A.I. Use of Copyrighted Work — from nytimes.com by Michael M. Grynbaum and Ryan Mac

The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement on Wednesday, opening a new front in the increasingly intense legal battle over the unauthorized use of published work to train artificial intelligence technologies.

The suit does not include an exact monetary demand. But it says the defendants should be held responsible for “billions of dollars in statutory and actual damages” related to the “unlawful copying and use of The Times’s uniquely valuable works.” It also calls for the companies to destroy any chatbot models and training data that use copyrighted material from The Times.

On this same topic, also see:


Apple’s iPhone Design Chief Enlisted by Jony Ive, Sam Altman to Work on AI Devices — from bloomberg.com by Mark Gurman (behind paywall)

  • Design executive Tang Tan is set to leave Apple in February
  • Tan will join Ive’s LoveFrom design studio, work on AI project

AI 2023: Chatbots Spark New Tools — from heatherbcooper.substack.com by Jeather Cooper

ChatGPT and Other Chatbots
The arrival of ChatGPT sparked tons of new AI tools and changed the way we thought about using a chatbot in our daily lives.

Chatbots like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Bing Chat can help content creators by quickly generating ideas, outlines, drafts, and full pieces of content, allowing creators to produce more high-quality content in less time.

These AI tools boost efficiency and creativity in content production across formats like blog posts, social captions, newsletters, and more.


Microsoft’s next Surface laptops will reportedly be its first true ‘AI PCs’ — from theverge.com by Emma Roth
Next year’s Surface Laptop 6 and Surface Pro 10 will feature Arm and Intel options, according to Windows Central.

Microsoft is getting ready to upgrade its Surface lineup with new AI-enabled features, according to a report from Windows Central. Unnamed sources told the outlet the upcoming Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6 will come with a next-gen neural processing unit (NPU), along with Intel and Arm-based options.


How one of the world’s oldest newspapers is using AI to reinvent journalism — from theguardian.com by Alexandra Topping
Berrow’s Worcester Journal is one of several papers owned by the UK’s second biggest regional news publisher to hire ‘AI-assisted’ reporters

With the AI-assisted reporter churning out bread and butter content, other reporters in the newsroom are freed up to go to court, meet a councillor for a coffee or attend a village fete, says the Worcester News editor, Stephanie Preece.

“AI can’t be at the scene of a crash, in court, in a council meeting, it can’t visit a grieving family or look somebody in the eye and tell that they’re lying. All it does is free up the reporters to do more of that,” she says. “Instead of shying away from it, or being scared of it, we are saying AI is here to stay – so how can we harness it?”



What to Expect in AI in 2024 — from hai.stanford.edu by
Seven Stanford HAI faculty and fellows predict the biggest stories for next year in artificial intelligence.

Topics include:

  • White Collar Work Shifts
  • Deepfake Proliferation
  • GPUs Shortage
  • More Helpful Agents
  • Hopes for U.S. Regulation
  • Asking Big Questions, Applying New Policies
  • Companies Will Navigate Complicated Regulations

Addendum on 1/2/24:


 

Microsoft New Future of Work Report 2023 — from microsoft.com by various authors; via Stefan Bauschard

Throughout 2023, AI and the future of work have frequently been on the metaphorical – and often literal – front page around the world. There have been many excellent articles about the ways in which work may change as LLMs are increasingly integrated into our lives. As such, in this year’s report we focus specifically on areas that we think deserve additional attention or where there is research that has been done at Microsoft that offers a unique perspective. This is a report that should be read as a complement to the existing literature, rather than as a synthesis of all of it.

This is a rare time, one in which research will play a particularly important role in defining what the future of work looks like. At this special moment, scientists can’t just be passive observers of what is happening. Rather, we have the responsibility to shape work for the better. We hope this report can help our colleagues around world make progress towards this goal.
.

Microsoft New Future of Work Report 2023

Excerpt:

Analyzing and integrating may become more important skills than searching and creating 
With content being generated by AI, knowledge work may shift towards more analysis and critical integration

  • Information search as well as content production (manually typing, writing code, designing images) is greatly enhanced by AI, so general information work may shift to integrating and critically analyzing retrieved information
  • Writing with AI is shown to increase the amount of text produced as well as to increase writing efficiency (Biermann et al. 2022, Lee et al 2022)
  • With more generated text available, the skills of research, conceptualization, planning, prompting and editing may take on more importance as LLMs do the first round of production (e.g., Mollick 2023).
  • Skills not directly to content production, such as leading, dealing with critical social situations, navigating interpersonal trust issues, and demonstrating emotional intelligence, may all be more valued in the workplace (LinkedIn 2023)
 

K12 District-Level Perspectives on AI — from aiforeducation.io by Amanda Bickerstaff, Dr. Patrick Gittisriboongul, Samantha Armstrong, & Brett Roer

Want to know how K12 schools are navigating the adoption of AI and what district-level leaders really think about GenAI EdTech tools?

Join us for this free webinar where we discussed AI technology, literacy, training, and the responsible adoption of GenAI tools in K12. Our panel explored what is working well – and not so well – across their districts from a school leader and practitioner’s perspective.


ChatGPT Has Changed Teaching. Our Readers Tell Us How. — from chronicle.com by Beth McMurtrie and Beckie Supiano

Those vastly different approaches to college writing pretty much sum up the responses to generative AI: They’re all over the map.

One year after its release, ChatGPT has pushed higher education into a liminal place. Colleges are still hammering out large-scale plans and policies governing how generative AI will be dealt with in operations, research, and academic programming. But professors have been forced more immediately to adapt their classrooms to its presence. Those adaptations vary significantly, depending on whether they see the technology as a tool that can aid learning or as a threat that inhibits it.

Nearly 100 faculty members shared their stories. While not a representative sample, they teach at a wide range of institutions: 15 community colleges, 32 public and 24 private four-year colleges or universities, seven international institutions, and one for-profit college. They teach a variety of subjects, including animal science, statistics, computer science, history, accounting, and composition. Many spent hours learning about AI: enrolling in workshops and webinars, experimenting with the tools, and reading articles, so that they could enter the fall semester informed and prepared.


The Disruption of AI in CTE Is Real — from techlearning.com by Annie Galvin Teich
An ACTE expert panel urges CTE educators to jump on the AI train as it’s already left the station

10 Best Practices for AI and CTE 

  1. Embrace AI and use it first for simple tasks to create efficiencies. Then use it to individualize instruction and for formative assessment tools aligned to standards.
  2. Be creative and conscious of internal bias and ethics. Focus on DEI and access.
  3. Encourage students to use apps and tools to start moving toward an integrated curriculum using AI.
  4. Prepare students for jobs of the future by partnering with industry to solve real problems.
  5. …and others

How are universities responding to generative AI? — from medium.com by Nic Newman
What’s next for higher education as we enter a new wave of edtech innovation: AI-powered learning

Where will AI make a big difference?
At Emerge, we have identified eight high-level trends — what we’re calling “engines of opportunity”. These eight “engines of opportunity” capture our ideas about how AI is being used to drive better practice and outcomes in HE, now and into the future.

They fall into two main categories:

  • Making learning more engaging: solutions that scale high quality pedagogy at low cost.
  • Making teaching more efficient: solutions that save educators and organisations time and money.

 

The rise of AI fake news is creating a ‘misinformation superspreader’ — from washingtonpost.com by Pranshu Verma
AI is making it easy for anyone to create propaganda outlets, producing content that can be hard to differentiate from real news

Artificial intelligence is automating the creation of fake news, spurring an explosion of web content mimicking factual articles that instead disseminates false information about elections, wars and natural disasters.

Since May, websites hosting AI-created false articles have increased by more than 1,000 percent, ballooning from 49 sites to more than 600, according to NewsGuard, an organization that tracks misinformation.

Historically, propaganda operations have relied on armies of low-paid workers or highly coordinated intelligence organizations to build sites that appear to be legitimate. But AI is making it easy for nearly anyone — whether they are part of a spy agency or just a teenager in their basement — to create these outlets, producing content that is at times hard to differentiate from real news.


AI, and everything else — from pitch.com by Benedict Evans


Chevy Chatbots Go Rogue — from
How a customer service chatbot made a splash on social media; write your holiday cards with AI

Their AI chatbot, designed to assist customers in their vehicle search, became a social media sensation for all the wrong reasons. One user even convinced the chatbot to agree to sell a 2024 Chevy Tahoe for just one dollar!

This story is exactly why AI implementation needs to be approached strategically. Learning to use AI, also means learning to build thinking of the guardrails and boundaries.

Here’s our tips.


Rite Aid used facial recognition on shoppers, fueling harassment, FTC says — from washingtonpost.com by Drew Harwell
A landmark settlement over the pharmacy chain’s use of the surveillance technology could raise further doubts about facial recognition’s use in stores, airports and other venues

The pharmacy chain Rite Aid misused facial recognition technology in a way that subjected shoppers to unfair searches and humiliation, the Federal Trade Commission said Tuesday, part of a landmark settlement that could raise questions about the technology’s use in stores, airports and other venues nationwide.

But the chain’s “reckless” failure to adopt safeguards, coupled with the technology’s long history of inaccurate matches and racial biases, ultimately led store employees to falsely accuse shoppers of theft, leading to “embarrassment, harassment, and other harm” in front of their family members, co-workers and friends, the FTC said in a statement.


 

Tips on making professional-looking, engaging videos for online courses — from timeshighereducation.com by Geoff Fortescue
Making videos for online classes doesn’t have to be costly. Here are ways to make them look professional on a budget

During lockdown, we were forced to start producing videos for Moocs remotely. This was quite successful, and we continue to use these techniques whenever a contributor can’t come to the studio. The same principles can be used by anyone who doesn’t have access to a media production team. Here are our tips on producing educational videos on a budget.

 

The Evolution of Collaboration: Unveiling the EDUCAUSE Corporate Engagement Program — from er.educause.edu

The program is designed to strengthen the collaboration between private industry and higher education institutions—and evolve the higher education technology market. The new program will do so by taking the following actions:

  • Giving higher education professionals better access to corporate thought leaders who can help create change at their institutions
  • Educating corporate partners on the nuances of higher education and the major challenges it faces so that they can help provide meaningful solutions
  • Giving the EDUCAUSE staff and leadership better access to corporate change-makers in order to advocate for change on behalf of our institutional community
  • Providing the institutional community with higher-quality content and services from companies that are deeply invested in the success of higher education
  • Providing the corporate community with custom-built packages that allow more meaningful connections with the institutional community—not only at our in-person events but also through online opportunities year-round

By building better bridges between our corporate and institutional communities, we can help accelerate our shared mission of furthering the promise of higher education.


Speaking of collaborations, also see:

Could the U.S. become an “Apprentice Nation?” — from Michael B. Horn and Ryan Craig

Intermediaries do the heavy lifting for the employers.


Bottom line: As I discussed with Michael later in the show, we already have the varied system that Leonhardt imagines—it’s just that it’s often by chaos and neglect. Just like we didn’t say to 8th graders a century ago, “go find your own high school,” we need to design a post-high school system with clear and well-designed pathways that include:

  1. Apprenticeships outside of the building trades so students can learn a variety of jobs by doing the job.
  2. Short-term certificates that lead to jobs without necessarily having the college degree immediately, but having the option to return for a college degree later on.
  3. Transfer pathways where credits earned in high school really count in college and the move from two-year college to any four-year institution is seamless.

? Listen to the complete episode here and subscribe to the podcast.

 

Prompt engineering — from platform.openai.com

This guide shares strategies and tactics for getting better results from large language models (sometimes referred to as GPT models) like GPT-4. The methods described here can sometimes be deployed in combination for greater effect. We encourage experimentation to find the methods that work best for you.

Some of the examples demonstrated here currently work only with our most capable model, gpt-4. In general, if you find that a model fails at a task and a more capable model is available, it’s often worth trying again with the more capable model.

You can also explore example prompts which showcase what our models are capable of…


Preparedness — from openai.com

The study of frontier AI risks has fallen far short of what is possible and where we need to be. To address this gap and systematize our safety thinking, we are adopting the initial version of our Preparedness Framework. It describes OpenAI’s processes to track, evaluate, forecast, and protect against catastrophic risks posed by increasingly powerful models.


Every Major Tech Development From 2023 — from newsletter.thedailybite.co
The yearly tech round-up, Meta’s smart glasses upgrade, and more…

Here’s every major innovation from the last 365 days:

  • Microsoft: Launched additional OpenAI-powered features, including Copilot for Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft 365, enhancing business functionalities like text summarization, tone adjustment in emails, data insights, and automatic presentation creation.
  • Google: Introduced Duet, akin to Microsoft’s Copilot, integrating Gen AI across Google Workspace for writing assistance and custom visual creation. Also debuted Generative AI Studio, enabling developers to craft AI apps, and unveiled Gemini & Bard, a new AI technology with impressive features.
  • Salesforce: …
  • Adobe: …
  • Amazon Web Services (AWS): …
  • IBM:  …
  • Nvidia:  …
  • OpenAI:  …
  • Meta (Facebook):
  • Tencent:
  • Baidu:

News in chatbots — from theneurondaily.com by Noah Edelman & Pete Huang

Here’s what’s on the horizon:

  • Multimodal AI gets huge. Instead of just typing, more people will talk to AI, listen to it, create images, get visual feedback, create graphs, and more.
  • AI video gets really good. So far, AI videos have been cool-but-not-practical. They’re getting way better and we’re on the verge of seeing 100% AI-generated films, animations, and cartoons.
  • AI on our phones. Imagine Siri with the brains of ChatGPT-4 and the ambition of Alexa. TBD who pulls this off first!
  • GPT-5. ‘Nuff said.

20 Best AI Chatbots in 2024 — from eweek.com by Aminu Abdullahi
These leading AI chatbots use generative AI to offer a wide menu of functionality, from personalized customer service to improved information retrieval.

Top 20 Generative AI Chatbot Software: Comparison Chart
We compared the key features of the top generative AI chatbot software to help you determine the best option for your company…


What Google Gemini Teaches Us About Trust and The Future — from aiwithallie.beehiiv.com by Allie K. Miller
The AI demo may have been misleading, but it teaches us two huge lessons.

TL;DR (too long, didn’t read)

  1. We’re moving from ‘knowledge’ to ‘action’. 
    AI moving into proactive interventions.
  2. We’re getting more efficient. 
    Assume 2024 brings lower AI OpEx.
  3. It’s multi-modal from here on out. 
    Assume 2024 is multi-modal.
  4. There’s no one model to rule them all.
    Assume 2024 has more multi-model orchestration & delegation.

Stay curious, stay informed,
Allie


Chatbot Power Rankings — from theneurondaily.com by Noah Edelman

Here’s our power rankings of the best chatbots for (non-technical) work:

1: ChatGPT-4Unquestionably the smartest, with the strongest writing, coding, and reasoning abilities.

T1: Gemini Ultra—In theory as powerful as GPT-4. We won’t know for sure until it’s released in 2024.

2: Claude 2Top choice for managing lengthy PDFs (handles ~75,000 words), and rarely hallucinates. Can be somewhat stiff.

3: PerplexityIdeal for real-time information. Upgrading to Pro grants access to both Claude-2 and GPT-4.

T4: PiThe most “human-like” chatbot, though integrating with business data can be challenging.

T4: Bing ChatDelivers GPT-4-esque responses, has internet access, and can generate images. Bad UX and doesn’t support PDFs.

T4: BardNow powered by Gemini Pro, offers internet access and answer verification. Tends to hallucinate more frequently.

and others…


Midjourney + ChatGPT = Amazing AI Art — from theaigirl.substack.com by Diana Dovgopol and the Pycoach
Turn ChatGPT into a powerful Midjourney prompt machine with basic and advanced formulas.


Make music with AI — from aitestkitchen.withgoogle.com re: Music FX


 

 

Regarding this Tweet on X/Twitter:


To Unleash Legal Tech, Lawyers And Engineers Need To Talk — from forbes.com by Tanguy Chau

Here, I’ll explore some ways that engineers and lawyers see the world differently based on their strengths and experiences, and I’ll explain how they can better communicate to build better software products, especially in AI, for attorneys. Ideally, this will lead to happier lawyers and more satisfied clients.


Zuputo: Africa’s first women-led legal tech startup launches — from myjoyonline.com

A groundbreaking legal tech startup, Zuputo, is set to reshape the legal landscape across Africa by making legal services more accessible, affordable, and user-friendly.

Founded by Jessie Abugre and Nana Adwoa Amponsah-Mensah, this women-led venture has become synonymous with simplicity and efficiency in legal solutions.


 

AI Is Transforming Corporate Learning Even Faster Than I Expected — from joshbersin.com by Josh Bersin

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

Of all the domains to be impacted by AI, perhaps the biggest transformation is taking place in corporate learning. After a year of experimentation, it’s now clear that AI will revolutionize this space.

Here’s a simple example. I asked Galileo™, which is powered by 25 years of research and case studies, “How do I deal with an employee who’s always late? And please give me a narrative to help?” Rather than take me to a course on management or show me a bunch of videos, it simply answered the question. This type of interaction is where much of corporate learning is going.

In all my years as an analyst, I’ve never seen a technology with so much potential. AI will revolutionize the L&D landscape, reinventing how we do our work so L&D professionals can spend time consulting with the business.

 

 

Channel 1 -- personalized gloabl news network powered by generative AI

From DSC:
Hhhhhmmmmm……not sure yet that this is a good idea. But I doubt there’s any stopping it.

 



How AI ‘sees’ the world – what happened when we trained a deep learning model to identify poverty — from theconversation.com by Ola Hall Hamid Sarmadi Thorsteinn Rögnvaldsson

Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have created a step change in how to measure poverty and other human development indicators. Our team has used a type of AI known as a deep convolutional neural network (DCNN) to study satellite imagery and identify some types of poverty with a level of accuracy close to that of household surveys.


E.U. reaches deal on landmark AI bill, racing ahead of U.S. — from washingtonpost.com by Anthony Faiola, Cat Zakrzewski and Beatriz Ríos (behind paywall)
The regulation paves the way for what could become a global standard to classify risk, enforce transparency and financially penalize tech companies for noncompliance.

European Union officials reached a landmark deal Friday on the world’s most ambitious law to regulate artificial intelligence, paving the way for what could become a global standard to classify risk, enforce transparency and financially penalize tech companies for noncompliance.

Along these lines, also see:


 

 

Google hopes that this personalized AI -- called Notebook LM -- will help people with their note-taking, thinking, brainstorming, learning, and creating.

Google NotebookLM (experiment)

From DSC:
Google hopes that this personalized AI/app will help people with their note-taking, thinking, brainstorming, learning, and creating.

It reminds me of what Derek Bruff was just saying in regards to Top Hat’s Ace product being able to work with a much narrower set of information — i.e., a course — and to be almost like a personal learning assistant for the course you are taking. (As Derek mentions, this depends upon how extensively one uses the CMS/LMS in the first place.)

 

Can new AI help to level up the scales of justice?


From DSC:
As you can see from the above items, Mr. David Goodrich, a great human being and a fellow Instructional Designer, had a great comment and question regarding the source of my hope that AI — and other forms of legaltech — could significantly provide more access to justice here in America. Our civil justice system has some serious problems — involving such areas as housing, employment, healthcare, education, families, and more.

I’d like to respond to that question here.

First of all, I completely get what David is saying. I, too, have serious doubts that our horrible access to justice (#A2J) situation will get better. Why? Because:

  • Many people working within the legal field like it this way, as they are all but assured victory in most of the civil lawsuits out there.
  • The Bar Associations of most of the states do not support changes that would threaten their incomes/livelihoods. This is especially true in California and Florida.
  • The legal field in general is not composed, for the most part, of highly innovative people who make things happen for the benefit of others. For example, the American Bar Association is 20+ years behind in terms of providing the level of online-based learning opportunities that they should be offering. They very tightly control how legal education is delivered in the U.S.

Here are several areas that provide me with hope for our future


There are innovative individuals out there fighting for change.
And though some of these individuals don’t reside in the United States, their work still impacts many here in America. For examples, see:

There are innovative new companies, firms, and other types of organizations out there fighting for change. For examples:

There are innovative new tools and technologies out there such as:

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) 
    • AI and machine learning remain pivotal in legaltech, especially for in-house lawyers who deal with vast quantities of contracts and complex legal matters. In 2024, these technologies will be integral for legal research, contract review, and the drafting of legal documents. Statistics from the Tech & the Law 2023 Report state more than three in five corporate legal departments (61%) have adopted generative AI in some capacity, with 7% actively using generative AI in their day-to-day work. With constant improvements to LLM (Large Language Models) by the big players, i.e. OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft (via OpenAI), 2024 will see more opportunities open and efficiencies gained for legal teams. (Source)
    • From drafting contracts to answering legal questions and summarising legal issues, AI is revolutionising the legal profession and although viewed with a sceptical eye by some law firms, is generally perceived to be capable of bringing huge benefits. (Source)
    • Legal bots like Harvey will assist lawyers with discovery.
  • Technology-assisted review (TAR) in e-discovery
  • Due to COVID 19, there were virtual courtrooms set up and just like with virtual/online-based learning within higher education, many judges, litigants, lawyers, and staff appreciated the time savings and productivity gains. Along these lines, see Richard Susskind’s work. [Richard] predicts a world of online courts, AI-based global legal businesses, disruptive legal technologies, liberalized markets, commoditization, alternative sourcing, simulated practice on the metaverse, and many new legal jobs. (Source)

There are innovative states out there fighting for change. For examples:

  • Utah in 2020 launched a pilot program that suspended ethics rules to allow for non-lawyer ownership of legal services providers and let non-lawyers apply for a waiver to offer certain legal services. (Source)
  • Arizona in 2021 changed its regulatory rules to allow for non-lawyer ownership. (Source)
  • Alaska with their Alaska Legal Services Corporation
  • …and others

And the last one — but certainly not the least one — is where my faith comes into play. I believe that the Triune God exists — The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit — and that the LORD is very active in our lives and throughout the globe. And one of the things the LORD values highly is JUSTICE. For examples:

  • Many seek an audience with a ruler, but it is from the Lord that one gets justice. Proverbs 29:26 NIV
  • These are the things you are to do: Speak the truth to each other, and render true and sound judgment in your courts; Zechariah 8:16 NIV
  • …and many others as can be seen below

The LORD values JUSTICE greatly!


So I believe that the LORD will actively help us provide greater access to justice in America.


Well…there you have it David. Thanks for your question/comment! I appreciate it!

 

7 legaltech trends to watch in 2024 — from lexology.com by Sacha Kirk

Legal technology, or ‘legaltech’, is transforming the legal sector by automating processes and enhancing the provision of legal services. As we approach 2024, several trends within this field are particularly worth keeping an eye on. These not only promise to streamline legal operations but will also help increase the in-house legal department’s visibility and value to the organisation.

Here are seven legaltech trends poised to make an impact in the coming year.

1. Artificial intelligence and machine learning
AI and machine learning remain pivotal in legaltech, especially for in-house lawyers who deal with vast quantities of contracts and complex legal matters. In 2024, these technologies will be integral for legal research, contract review, and the drafting of legal documents. Statistics from the Tech & the Law 2023 Report state more than three in five corporate legal departments (61%) have adopted generative AI in some capacity, with 7% actively using generative AI in their day-to-day work. With constant improvements to LLM (Large Language Models) by the big players, i.e. OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft (via OpenAI), 2024 will see more opportunities open and efficiencies gained for legal teams.


Our top 5 legal technology trends predicted for 2024 — from legalfutures.co.uk

5. ID verification software
With identity fraud on the increase there is a growing demand from the Government for people to be identified with accuracy and they are proposing to pass legislation in February 2024 that will tighten the requirements for the professional organisations involved.  They will promote the use of technology to reduce the risk of fraudulent transactions including mortgage fraud where according to Experian’s Report “the greatest jump in fraud cases has been seen …. with fraud increasing from around 41 cases to around 52 cases per 10,000 applications.”


Guest Post: The Year in Justice Tech: 2023 Report and News Roundup — from lawnext.com by Maya Markovich, executive director of the Justice Technology Association

In 2023, the justice tech ecosystem continued to grow rapidly, with a significant increase in solutions addressing access to justice-related challenges for consumers. Justice tech caught the interest of both impact investors, as well as those seeking opportunities to fund the disruption of antiquated systems via technology.


Consulting Giants See AI Shaving Years Off the Path to Partner — from bloomberg.com by Irina Anghel

  • To make it to partner level typically takes at least a decade
  • AI seen freeing up junior staffers to do more meaningful work

Consulting giants and law firms are looking to artificial intelligence to speed up the time it takes junior staffers to make it to the prestigious partner level as the technology eliminates vast swaths of the repetitive, time-consuming tasks that typically filled up their first few years on the job.


Stock Up 10% in December; Unveils Groundbreaking Initiatives — from in.investing.com by Aayush Khanna (India)

Excerpt from DSC — and I’m not out to give legal or investing advice. I just really appreciated the list of legaltech-related innovations:

In the LegalTech realm, QiLegal emerges as a robust cloud-based platform, aiming to digitize the legal framework. Envisaged to propel the justice system with Virtual Courts, Online Dispute Resolution, and AI-enabled Drafting, QiLegal responds to the estimated USD 100 billion global LegalTech market.


The essential role of creator and customer collaboration in legal tech — from legaldive.com by Relativity (sponsored content; emphasis below from DSC)

However, with these high stakes and wide margins for error in hand, the accuracy, defensibility, and reliability of that AI is subject to intense professional and judicial scrutiny. And for good reason: anything less than the thoughtful, intentional development of specifically fit-for-purpose AI applications in this realm can contribute to the loss of millions of dollars, the livelihoods of countless individuals, and deeply damaging miscarriages of justice.


Generative AI and the small law firm: The value of legal domain expertise — from thomsonreuters.com by Mark Haddad
In our new blog series, we continue to discuss how small law firms can leverage their natural advantages with generative artificial intelligence to compete at a higher level

Gen AI presents unprecedented opportunities for small law firms to compete.

The idea that legal Gen AI means turning over legal decision-making to a machine overlooks the importance of the data portion of the Venn diagram above. A properly trained and targeted Gen AI application for legal use will build on the work of lawyers in the form of cases, statutes, briefs and memoranda, how-to guides, contracts, client advisories, templates — all the esoteric and robust data that results from lawyers’ expertise and knowledge.

All law firms, even smaller ones, have an opportunity to leverage their own data assets against competitors at scale once their lawyers identify and curate the appropriate critical data sets from within their firm and embed them within the AI solution. This proprietary data can be combined with larger pools of data from authoritative external sources like trusted legal content sources to further strengthen the responses that the Gen AI tool provides.


AAA® Launches New AAAi Lab Offering Products, Education, Guidance & News Resources — from prnewswire.com by American Arbitration Assocation
Latest Technology Innovation Seeks to Support AAA Users, Arbitrators & Broader Legal Community with Incorporating Generative AI into ADR Processes

NEW YORKDec. 6, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — The American Arbitration Association® (AAA) and its international division, the International Centre for Dispute Resolution® (ICDR®), announces the launch of the AAAi Lab, a web center supporting AAA users, arbitrators, in-house counsel and law firms with policy guidance, educational webinars and tools for embracing generative AI in alternative dispute resolution.


ANALYSIS: Most M&A Attorneys Would Use AI for Due Diligence — from news.bloomberglaw.com by Abena Opong-Fosu

Artificial intelligence (AI) has infiltrated almost every facet of daily life. For M&A lawyers, exposure to AI and machine learning tools likely comes from deals involving the buying and selling of AI companies as well as through the software the lawyers use on a daily basis.

Most deal lawyers who responded to a recent Bloomberg Law survey said that they’re open to using AI at some point in dealmaking.

 
© 2025 | Daniel Christian