The Hidden Role of Facial Recognition Tech in Many Arrests — from wired.com by Khari Johnson
The technology is spreading fast among police, and often wrong. But people charged with crimes are rarely told an algorithm came into play.

Excerpt:

Across most of the US, neither police nor prosecutors are required to disclose when facial recognition is used to identify a criminal suspect. Defense attorneys say that puts them at a disadvantage: They can’t challenge potential problems with facial recognition technology if they don’t know it was used. It also raises questions of equity, since studies have shown that facial recognition systems are more likely to misidentify people who are not white men, including people with dark skin, women, and young people.

 

RESULTS ARE IN: HERE ARE THE 15 LEGAL TECH WINNERS OF THE 2022 ABA TECHSHOW STARTUP ALLEY COMPETITION — from techshow.com

Excerpts:

After nearly 32,000 votes, the results are in. Readers have been voting to select the 15 legal technology startups that will get to participate in the sixth-annual Startup Alley at ABA TECHSHOW 2022, taking place March 2-5, 2022.

These 15 will face off in an opening night pitch competition that will be the opening event of this year’s TECHSHOW, with the conference’s attendees voting to pick the top winner. The first-place winner gets a package of marketing and advertising prizes.

Here are the winners in order of their vote tallies. The descriptions were provided by each company.

 

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.

 

The doctor is in—the video call — from mckinsey.com

Excerpt:

More patients than ever were willing to try virtual health services after COVID-19 emerged. Last year, the use of telehealth care was 38 times higher than prepandemic levels, as appointments such as follow-ups could easily be delivered remotely. A recent McKinsey survey shows that up to $265 billion in Medicare spending could shift to patients’ homes by 2025, with greater physician participation in the transition from telehealth to at-home care.

From facility to home: How healthcare could shift by 2025 — from mckinsey.com by Oleg Bestsennyy, Michelle Chmielewski, Anne Koffel, and Amit Shah

Also see the other charts via their daily chart feature:

A daily chart from McKinsey Dot Com that helps explain a changing world—during the pandemic and beyond.

 

Using Telehealth to Expand Student Access to Care — from techlearning.com by Erik Ofgang
Renee Kotsopoulo, director of health services for the Garland ISD in Texas, helped bring telehealth to her students and believes technology can help keep kids healthy and in school.

Can Teletherapy Companies Ease the Campus Mental-Health Crisis? — from chronicle.com by Kate Hidalgo Bellows

From DSC:
Telehealth has been booming during the pandemic. I think telelegal will ride on the coattails of telehealth.

 

‘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

 

A Legal Minority Report — from abovethelaw.com by Olga V. Mack
Each of the following is a viable and exciting career path for anyone passionate about the law.

Excerpt:

This means it takes a firm stance against legalese, trying to make contracts engaging and readable — something that they rarely are. The creativity of legal design allows for infographics and “cheat sheets” of terms and terminology, using language with which the “audience” is familiar. It is a revolutionary approach to the law.

 

IAALS Panel Stresses Need for Funding, ‘Mavericks’ in Legal Education Innovation — from legaltechmonitor.com by Maddie Hosack

“Make sure you stay in touch with what’s going on in the legal community. Join organizations—your state bar organizations, national organizations. You can be involved, and then you need to demand more of your law schools. So when you see something that’s going on in the community, in real life, you take that back to your law school administrators, take it back to your law professors, take it back to your clinicians and demand more.” 

 

A2J Tech in the US: #LSCITC Part I — from law-tech-a2j.org by Roger Smith

Excerpt:

Get to my age and you develop a pretty high intolerance level for conferences – online or off. You get more intolerant; more arrogant about what you think you know already; more easily bored; more demanding of content, presentation and presenters. But I  am a longtime fan of the Legal Services Corporation’s annual technology conference as the best I attend in a year, see an example from 2019.  And this year’s event, currently half completed, is no exception. This is consistently a premiere event. As delegates, we have done two online days with two more to come later this week. It may be far too soon to evaluate themes but early enough to highlight some of the more striking content.

Also see:

Check out this year's ABA Tech Show

 

SKILLS 2022 – Recap — from legaltechmonitor.com by Greg Lambert

Excerpt:

Last Thursday, a group of some 400 legal knowledge management professionals came together for the Strategic Knowledge & Innovation Legal Leaders Summit (SKILLS) conference.  Oz Benamram asked me to pull together a 20 minute recap of all of the presentations that day, and share it with the 3 Geeks’ readers. So, here’s about a 20-minute recap of the 20 presentations for that day. Enjoy!!

So the biggest challenge I see is, is structural, and as much as the business model works pretty well for about right now. But it doesn’t necessarily work great for where we’re going.

Jason Barnwell

Also see:

 

Feds’ spending on facial recognition tech expands, despite privacy concerns — from by Tonya Riley

Excerpt:

The FBI on Dec. 30 signed a deal with Clearview AI for an $18,000 subscription license to the company’s facial recognition technology. While the value of the contract might seem just a drop in the bucket for the agency’s nearly $10 billion budget, the contract was significant in that it cemented the agency’s relationship with the controversial firm. The FBI previously acknowledged using Clearview AI to the Government Accountability Office but did not specify if it had a contract with the company.

From DSC:
What?!? Isn’t this yet another foot in the door for Clearview AI and the like? Is this the kind of world that we want to create for our kids?! Will our kids have any privacy whatsoever? I feel so powerless to effect change here. This technology, like other techs, will have a life of its own. Don’t think it will stop at finding criminals. 

AI being used in the hit series called Person of Interest

This is a snapshot from the series entitled, “Person of Interest.
Will this show prove to be right on the mark?

Addendum on 1/18/22:
As an example, check out this article:

Tencent is set to ramp up facial recognition on Chinese children who log into its gaming platform. The increased surveillance comes as the tech giant caps how long kids spend gaming on its platform. In August 2021, China imposed strict limits on how much time children could spend gaming online.

 

Thomson Reuters’ Report May Signal Sea Change In Legal Profession — from techlawcrossroads.com by Stephen Embry

Excerpt:

In a nutshell, the Report demonstrates that to thrive post-pandemic and even survive, lawyers will need to better adopt technology, use better workflows, and make sure work is done by right mix and training, and experience. Otherwise, the work that is piling up during the great talent shortage just won’t get done.

More tech, better work process, more remote work, becoming nimble. Bottom line, successful law firms, and lawyers can’t afford business as usual post-pandemic.

Also see:

Thomson Reuters’ Report May Signal Sea Change In Legal Profession

 

Isaiah 1:17

Learn to do right; seek justice.
    Defend the oppressed.
Take up the cause of the fatherless;
    plead the case of the widow.

From DSC:
This verse especially caught my eye as we have severe access to justice issues here in the United States.

 

Elevate Becomes 1st Law Company to Receive ‘ABS License’ in US — from artificiallawyer.com

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

And here’s some late breaking news, which also is about law company, Elevate. The Arizona Supreme Court has granted law company Elevate an ‘Alternative Business Structure (ABS) license’, making Elevate and its affiliated law firm, ElevateNext, a single entity.

This makes Elevate the first non-lawyer-owned law company, LPO, or ALSP in the United States with an integrated law firm. The ABS-licensed firm uniquely positions Elevate to address customer needs that require some aspect of legal practice along with technology, consulting, or services for ‘run the company’ business operations.

Also see:

 

Aderant Brings American LegalNet Under Its Umbrella — from abovethelaw.com by Joe Patrice
A busy week for Aderant.

Excerpt:

Aderant, a global provider of business software to law firms, announced yesterday that it acquired American LegalNet, which provides court forms, eFiling, calendaring, and docketing solutions.

 
© 2025 | Daniel Christian