Metaverse and the practice of law (Part II) — from abovethelaw.com by Ken Crutchfield
In the Metaverse, many rules that will govern interaction will be defined by terms and conditions in the contract signed to participate on a Metaverse platform.

Excerpt:

We could see more business applications emerge as well. Telemedicine might be an example. Could an MRI be analyzed in real time by a doctor in another state? Would someone trust a specialist in a particular type of cancer to perform laser surgery from thousands of miles away? There is already precedence for remote surgery, so the possibilities may not be that far off.

Overall, what we can expect to see is the Metaverse’s increasing ability to enable virtual transactions and experiences that we had not previously thought possible — and the world of legal technology may be no exception.

 

Right Now, Your Best Employees Are Eyeing the Exits– from chronicle.com by Marci K. Walton
To stay, they need better pay, reasonable hours, and an end to mission-based gaslighting.

Excerpt:

Right now, your best midlevel manager is updating her résumé. Your hardest-working director is controlling his excitement after learning the salary range for a private-sector opening. Your most trustworthy entry-level professional is writing a resignation letter because her new corporate position doubles her pay and doesn’t require nights or weekends.

Two years of pandemic life have left campus staff members beyond burned out. They are done. And they are leaving or thinking about it in droves. I know because I was one of them. After nearly 13 years working in residence life — a field to which I was deeply committed — I left higher education last March for the private sector. The move increased my salary by 50 percent and cut my workload in half.

This tweet was mentioned/linked to in the above article:

 

The US Copyright Office says an AI can’t copyright its art — from theverge.com by Adi Robertson; resource via Sam DeBrule’s Machine Learnings newsletter

Excerpt:

The US Copyright Office has rejected a request to let an AI copyright a work of art. Last week, a three-person board reviewed a 2019 ruling against Steven Thaler, who tried to copyright a picture on behalf of an algorithm he dubbed Creativity Machine. The board found that Thaler’s AI-created image didn’t include an element of “human authorship” — a necessary standard, it said, for protection.

Also, along the lines of emerging technologies and the legal realm, see:

Law Firms Turn to AI to Vet Recruits, Despite Bias Concerns — from news.bloomberglaw.com by Erin Mulvaney and Chris Opfer; resource also via Sam DeBrule

Excerpt:

Law firms struggling to expand candidate pools and diversify workforces are turning to AI for help, even as regulators scrutinize the technology to ensure it doesn’t exacerbate biases rather than lessen them. A law set to take effect in New York City next year will limit the use of the technology in hiring and require that employers test recruiting algorithms for bias, while the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is taking a closer look at the tools.

 

 
 

Meet The Secretive Surveillance Wizards Helping The FBI And ICE Wiretap Facebook And Google Users — from forbes.com by Thomas Brewster
A small Nebraska company is helping law enforcement around the world spy on users of Google, Facebook and other tech giants. A secretly recorded presentation to police reveals how deeply embedded in the U.S. surveillance machine PenLink has become.

Excerpts:

PenLink might be the most pervasive wiretapper you’ve never heard of.

With $20 million revenue every year from U.S. government customers such as the Drug Enforcement Administration, the FBI, Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) and almost every other law enforcement agency in the federal directory, PenLink enjoys a steady stream of income. That doesn’t include its sales to local and state police, where it also does significant business but for which there are no available revenue figures. Forbes viewed contracts across the U.S., including towns and cities in California, Florida, Illinois, Hawaii, North Carolina and Nevada.

 

Why some teams boost motivation while others totally sap it — from psyche.co by Ann-Kathrin Torka, Jens Mazei, Joachim Hüffmeieris, and edited by Matt Huston. With thanks to Mr. Tom Barrett for this resource via his weekly newsletter.

Excerpts:

In contrast, when people perceive their contribution to the team’s outcome as indispensable, they tend to show greater effort than they would when working alone. These ‘effort gains’ can be due to team members aiming to be prosocial: they care about others and want to make a difference to the team. By helping their team succeed, members also feel better about themselves – they can see themselves as helpful and competent human beings.

Managers, instructors, coaches, and other leaders can use this knowledge to design teamwork that boosts team members’ efforts. Remember the student from the introduction: maybe she felt that she could not contribute much to the academic team because the project did not include a specific (sub-)taskfor her to work on and to feel responsible for. If the instructor or a teammate had broken down the project into subtasks for each member, she might have felt that her efforts were indispensable.

 

 

I’m a college president. Teaching a 101-level course reminded me how important compassion is right now. — from highereddive.com by Marvin Krislov
Kindness is key in helping students succeed during the pandemic, Pace University’s president writes. Faculty and staff need compassion, too.

Those of us who choose to work in education know that we need to be kind and empathetic. The experience of teaching last semester drove home to me that kindness isn’t just nice; it’s crucial for enabling our students to succeed.

 

China Is About to Regulate AI—and the World Is Watching — from wired.com by Jennifer Conrad
Sweeping rules will cover algorithms that set prices, control search results, recommend videos, and filter content.

Excerpt:

On March 1, China will outlaw this kind of algorithmic discrimination as part of what may be the world’s most ambitious effort to regulate artificial intelligence. Under the rules, companies will be prohibited from using personal information to offer users different prices for a product or service.

The sweeping rules cover algorithms that set prices, control search results, recommend videos, and filter content. They will impose new curbs on major ride-hailing, ecommerce, streaming, and social media companies.

 

The Top Six Leading Corporate Legal Operations Trends for 2022 — from jdsupra.com

Excerpt:

The pandemic changed everything about our world seemingly in the blink of an eye—corporate legal operations included. However, with change comes opportunity: to unlock novel technology solutions and discover cutting-edge ways of catapulting efficiency and catalyzing transformation for enterprise-wide excellence.

Consider these six corporate legal operations trends, compiled from the latest metrics and data, to tackle your ever-evolving law department challenges.

 

Metaverse vs. employment law: The reality of the virtual workplace — from arstechnica.com by Kate Beoiley
It is unclear how employee protections apply in the universal digital realm.

Excerpt:

When it comes to employment laws, however, it is unclear what rules of engagement apply in a universal digital realm. What counts as harassment in the metaverse? Can an avatar be discriminated against, or worse? Will national legislation protect employees or does working in the metaverse require a new rule book altogether?

Lack of legal framework
But the metaverse takes hybrid working a step further and brings with it a host of thorny employment law issues. These range from practical challenges, such as how employees are paid, to more philosophical ones, like whether avatars have a legal identity. “The legal conundrums are about as diverse as the possibilities of the metaverse itself,” says Jonathan Newman, managing associate at law firm Simmons & Simmons.

 

Six Unaddressed Legal Concerns For The Metaverse — from forbes.com by Nitin Kumar; with thanks to Ori Inbar on Twitter for this resource

The metaverse is an extremely exciting space with many opportunities. It is also a shift that breaks down conventional legal thinking and frameworks built for the old economy, creating new legal, regulatory and technical issues that need resolution.
 

‘Human-in-the-loop’ solutions will comprise 30% of new legal tech automation by 2025: Gartner — from thelawyermag.com/au/ by Lucy Saddleton

Excerpt:

“There’s little question that growth in legal work is outstripping growth in legal headcount, and on the surface, this can make advanced automation solutions appear very attractive to legal leaders,” said Zack Hutto, director, advisory in the Gartner Legal & Compliance practice. “The question is whether the legal department has the capabilities required to customize and configure advanced machine learning systems, which will be needed to enable them to handle the unique scenarios and frequent exceptions that come about in this type of work.”

 


Legal work is outstripping growth in legal headcount


 

Utah’s Certified Advocates Partners Program Made Possible by Regulatory Sandbox — from iaals.du.edu by Maddie Hosack

Excerpt:

In Utah, victims of domestic violence and stalking no longer have to navigate the process of obtaining a protective order alone.

For individuals who cannot afford or otherwise don’t want to hire a lawyer, victim advocates are able to tell victims which protective order to apply for, how to correctly fill out forms, and what they should expect in court. This legal advice was solely the purview of lawyers before Utah’s regulatory sandbox opened, and fortunately, victim advocates are now permitted to provide this critical help.

Text-Message Reminders from Courts Could Become the Norm in Colorado — from legaltechmonitor.com by Maddie Hosack

Remote Work Helps Law Firms Recruit And Retain Talent — from abovethelaw.com by Jordan Rothman
Even attorneys who have worked in the legal profession for years or decades may not wish to apply for a job with strict in-person work expectations.

Why Practice Management Software Is Now Table Stakes For Law Firms — from abovethelaw.com
You, too, can be working less and making more. Here’s how.  In this episode, Jared Correia welcomes five guests to discuss case management software in the legal space: Joshua Lenon from Clio, Dr. Cain Elliott from FileVine, Matt Spiegel from Lawmatics, Tomas Suros from AbacusNext, and Karrtik Rao from Moxtra.

Excerpt:

The group discusses the most compelling feature-based arguments for adopting case management software (8:09). Then, they talk about how law practice management better connects lawyers and staff (19:38). They also cover how law practice management software can implement lead management features (27:31), before finishing up by reviewing how case management software can be used to leverage workflows (30:46).

The DOJ’s new crypto enforcement team has a boss — from protocol.com by Benjamin Pimentel
Veteran prosecutor Eun Young Choi will lead the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team

 

Holograms? Check! Now what? — from blog.webex.com by Elizabeth Bieniek

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Two years ago, I wrote about the Future of Meetings in 2030 and hinted at an effort my team was building to make this a reality. Now, we have publicly unveiled Webex Hologram and brought the reality of a real-time, end-to-end holographic meeting solution to life.

With Webex Hologram, you can feel co-located with a colleague who is thousands of miles away. You can share real objects in incredible multi-dimensional detail and collaborate on 3D content to show perspective, share, and approve design changes in real-time, all from the comfort of your home workspace.

As the hype dies down, the focus on entirely virtual experiences in fanciful environments will abate and a resurgence in focus on augmented experiences—interjecting virtual content into the physical world around you for an enhanced experience that blends the best of physical and virtual—will emerge.

The ability to have curated information at one’s fingertips, still holds an incredible value prop that has yet to be realized. Applying AI to predict, find, and present this type of augmented information in both 2D and 3D formats will become incredibly useful. 

From DSC:
As I think of some of the categories that this posting about establishing a new kind of co-presence relates to, there are many relevant ones:

  • 21st century
  • 24x7x365
  • 3D
  • Audio/Visual (A/V)
  • Artificial Intelligence (AI)
  • Cloud-based
  • Collaboration/web-based collaboration
  • Intelligent tutoring
  • Law schools, legal, government
  • Learning, learning agents, learning ecosystems, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning spaces/hubs/pods
  • Libraries/librarians
  • K-12, higher education, corporate training
  • Metaverse
  • Online learning
  • Telelegal, telemedicine
  • Videoconferencing
  • Virtual courts, virtual tutoring, virtual field trips
  • Web3
 

Wages and Salaries Up 5% for Private Industry Workers in 2021, Less Than Inflation
— from shrm.org by Stephen Miller
Labor costs increased at the highest rate in two decades

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

However, when adjusted for inflation, “constant dollar” private wages and salaries fell 1.9 percent for the 12 months ending December 2021. 

Consumer prices rose 7 percent year-over-year in December 2021, the largest 12-month increase in nearly 40 years, the BLS reported on Jan. 12, adding pressure on employers to raise wages going into 2022.

From DSC:
Real wages not keeping up with the rate of inflation here in the United States…this doesn’t look good for the higher education industry here. This could be yet another component of the perfect storm within higher education.

 
© 2025 | Daniel Christian