Top 5 legal technology stories of 2020 — from abajournal.com by Nicole Black
Excerpts:
The woman who created the technology behind internet calls explains what it takes to innovate — from bigthink.com by Gayle Markovitz
She’s the reason you’re able to work and chat from home.
Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
If you’ve ever wondered how a Zoom call works, you might want to ask Marian Croak, Vice-President of Engineering at Google.
This is the woman who invented “Voice over Internet Protocol”: the technology that has enabled entire workforces to continue to communicate and families and friends to remain in touch throughout 2020’s lockdowns – and inevitably beyond.
What can kids teach tech innovators?
Wonder and naivete are powerful tools. Croak argues that children have rich imaginations – which is the fuel of invention. “You need to be childlike. A little naïve and not inhibited by what’s possible.”Matlali’s work with disadvantaged teenagers brings her directly into this world, where she sees that “children are passionate but hopeful for the future. For them, everything is possible. You want kids to have the imagination and passion for them to achieve their dreams.”
Croak said her motivation for 2021 was to keep her own childlike curiosity going, forgetting about her personal circumstances and focusing on the “painpoints”.
Also see:
Marian’s entry out at Wikipedia.org where it says:
She joined AT&T at Bell Labs in 1982.[4] She advocated for switching from wired phone technology to internet protocol.[2][5][6] She holds over two hundred patents, including over one hundred in relation to Voice over IP.[7] She pioneered the use of phone network services to make it easy for the public to donate to crisis appeals.[8][9] When AT&T partnered with American Idol to use a text message voting system, 22% of viewers learned to text to take part in the show.[10][11] She filed the patent for text-based donations to charity in 2005.[10] This capability revolutionised how people can donate money to charitable organisations:[12] for example, after the 2010 Haiti earthquake at least $22 million was pledged in this fashion.[13] She led the Domain 2.0 Architecture and managed over 2,000 engineers.[14][15]
Online learning and law schools during the pandemic — from tonybates.ca by Tony Bates
Excerpt:
Pre-Covid, law schools and especially law accrediting agencies in North America have been pretty conservative in the past with regard to online or more accurately distance learning (see Online education and the professional associations: the case of law, for more details on the situation in 2018).
We can then fairly safely assume that most of these schools would have had no or little prior experience of online learning before March of this year. So it is interesting that 89% of students in law schools in the USA responding to a Thomson Reuters survey reported that during Covid-19 they were taking classes entirely online.
…
However, for me the most interesting results are in the graph below:
Preferences for permanent changes
It seems clear that at least some level of online instruction will continue in the future, and that online learning will become widespread for at least some types of classes.
Given that there was almost no online learning in law schools in the USA pre-Covid 19, this is a significant conclusion.
From DSC:
I appreciate Tony writing about this topic. He’s correct in saying the ABA and the legal education field — along with the entire legal realm — was behind the 8 ball in terms of online learning (and I would add the use of emerging technologies in general). In fact, I’d say that the ABA was essentially twenty years behind in terms of getting on board the online learning train. It still has a ways to go…but the pressure is on the ABA to get with the times. Our society requires that they do so. The pace of change has been changing for a decade or more now. They can no longer walk on the race track and hope to not get in the way of a world that’s traveling at 180 mph.
Make no mistake, if the ABA — and the legal field in general — continues at their previous pace, we all will pay the price. Consider but a few areas that are already having an impact on our society:
Along with other tags that apply here:
Trends 2021: Three Scenes from the Future — from frogdesign.com
Excerpt:
This year, we decided to lean into this unreality. For our tenth annual Trends list, we asked frogs to not only imagine the societal and technological shifts that will impact our future, but to project the future worlds these shifts will create. From perspectives on the accelerated adoption of remote work, to visions of distorted realities and changing consumer behaviors, we’re sharing different possible views of 2021 and beyond—and the products, services and experiences that will shape our future worlds.
From DSC:
In yesterday’s webexone presentations, Cisco mentioned a new device category, calling it the Webex Desk Hub. It gets at the idea of walking into a facility and grabbing any desk, and making that desk you own — at least for that day and time. Cisco is banking on the idea that sometimes people will be working remotely, and sometimes they will be “going into the office.” But the facilities will likely be fewer and smaller — so one might not have their own office.
In that case, you can plug in your smart device, and things are set up the way they would be if you did have that space as a permanent office.
Applying this concept to the smart classrooms of the future, what might that concept look like for classrooms? A faculty member or a teacher could walk into any room that supports such a setup, put in their personal smart device, and the room conditions are instantly implemented:
Logging in to get kicked out: Inside America’s virtual eviction crisis — from technologyreview.com by Eileen Guo
Excerpts:
An unprecedented, imperfect moratorium
Before the pandemic, an average of 3.6 million Americans lost their homes to evictions every year, according to Princeton University’s Eviction Lab. By the end of 2020, this number could increase exponentially, with one report from the Aspen Institute estimating that, without further federal aid, between 30 to 40 million people may be at risk of eviction in the next several months. The financial hardship exacerbated by covid-19 has left many in a precarious situation.
.
Legal aid attorneys chart course for 2021 after spike in demand — from law360.com by Justin Wise
Excerpts: (emphasis DSC)
The coronavirus pandemic and the economic downturn it caused sparked a massive spike in demand for legal aid services from America’s most marginalized communities, leaving a field already under-resourced facing even greater strain in 2020.
At the same time, many organizations had to close their offices in the spring and significantly reduce in-person communication with clients to comply with health guidelines. It all amounted to a “pretty crushing” year in which attorneys transitioned to a primarily remote operation with new channels including a COVID-19 legal intake line, Southeast Louisiana Legal Services Executive Director Laura Tuggle said.
Tuggle said 3 in 4 of the calls on the SLLS hotline are from people seeking assistance on matters relating to housing and evictions. Overall, the group has had a 300% increase in eviction cases this year. It also had a 600% increase in unemployment assistance cases in the first few months of the pandemic.
“The most pressing legal need America faces as we enter 2021 is the tsunami of potential evictions that threaten the millions of people who have lost jobs during the pandemic,” LSC Executive Director Ronald Flagg said, pointing to a study showing that evictions can cause increases in COVID-19 cases and deaths.
A potential nightmare is coming down the pike: Massive # of evictions — which will further exacerbate the Covid19 crisis (at minimum).
DC: How can #highereducation help people reinvent themselves quickly and affordably?#learningfromthelivingclassroom https://t.co/TV5InkWHwn pic.twitter.com/5OgplxXuMO
— Daniel Christian (he/him/his) (@dchristian5) December 7, 2020
Addendum on 12/9/20:
America has a civil justice gap, and the #eviction crisis will only serve to widen the gap. How can we improve #accesstojustice for all Americans? A new @americanacad report has recommendations. https://t.co/q16p3QVnXH pic.twitter.com/xLFExsSv9O
— American Academy of Arts & Sciences (@americanacad) October 22, 2020
A New Report and Recommendations: Civil Justice for All — from amacad.org (the American Academy of Arts & Sciences)
Also see:
2020 in review: Legal software for working remotely — from abajournal.com by Nicole Black
Excerpts:
State Court Budget Forecast: Stormy with Rising Backlogs — from law360.com by Andrew Strickler
Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
As state lawmakers begin preparing for upcoming legislative sessions amid a resurgent pandemic, a scattered but largely grim outlook for state court funding is beginning to take shape.
With some judicial administrators already dealing with staggered budgets and new technology costs, experts and advocates say court leaders have their work cut out for them to convince budget analysts and lawmakers to pay for pandemic recovery efforts.
Perhaps nowhere is the coming financial strain more apparent than in Florida, where legislators began gathering Tuesday in Tallahassee to face a historic $5.4 billion budget deficit over the next two years.
There, court leaders have drawn on their experiences dealing with a crush of foreclosures and other litigation following the 2008 financial crisis to project that nearly 1 million additional cases will be in front of the state’s trial courts by the middle of 2021.
…
In New York, where the next fiscal year promises to include a gaping $14.5 billion budget hole, dozens of appellate judges over age 70 are being forced into retirement, a move court administrators said would save $55 million in the coming years and help prevent staff layoffs.
Addendum on 11/24/20:
The recordings of every Civil Justice Fest webinar are now available! Visit https://t.co/TCyoXN26aj to start watching, and keep an eye out for the #12DaysofCivilJustice beginning this Friday! pic.twitter.com/SEW0Ll6glj
— MasonLEC (@MasonLEC) November 24, 2020
Civil Justice Fest: A Month of Dialogues On the Most Pressing Civil Justice Issues — from vimeo.com
Judicial Education Program & Congressional Civil Justice Academy Law & Economics Center Antonin Scalia Law School George Mason University November 2020 Virtual
The Observatory — from orrick.com with thanks to Gabe Teninbaum for mentioning this resource in his Lawtomatic Newsletter (Issue #112, 11/18/20)
The Observatory is an interactive platform that allows you to do a preliminary analysis of 600+ legal technologies in the market today (including some developed by Orrick):
- Gain insight into features of legal tools
- View leading categories of legal tech, from artificial intelligence to workflow automation
- Understand tech use-cases for litigation, transactional and general solutions
- Identify legal tech companies with diverse leadership
Excerpt from Gabe’s newsletter:
How to Work Remotely as a Lawyer: A Guide — from clio.com by Teresa Matich; with thanks to Nelson Miller for this resource
Excerpt:
Whether you’ve looked at working remotely as a lawyer in the past (or as a paralegal, legal assistant, legal professional) with dreams of traveling the world, or whether you’re looking into it for the first time now, this guide contains clear, practical tips for opening a remote legal practice without interruption. We’ll cover:
Illinois Supreme Court Issues Pandemic-Related Court Orders, Expands Criminal Appeals Pro Bono Program — from legaltechmonitor.com by Laura Bagby
Excerpt:
The Order on Remote Jury Selection in Civil Matters permits circuits to conduct jury selection in civil cases via video conference. This expands upon rules that were amended in May to support the use of remote hearings.
From DSC:
When reading the abstract of the article/research entitled, “Does Telemedicine Reduce Emergency Room Congestion? Evidence from New York State,” I wondered again:
Will the growth of telemedicine/telehealth influence the growth of telelegal?
I think it will.
We show that, on average, telemedicine availability in the ER significantly reduces average patients’ length of stay (LOS), which is partially driven by the flexible resource allocation. Specifically, the adoption of telemedicine leads to a larger reduction in ER LOS when there is a demand surge or supply shortage.
Also see:
On LawNext: Rocket Lawyer Founder Charley Moore — from lawsitesblog.com by Bob Ambrogi; with thanks to Gabe Teninbaum for this resource from his Lawtomatic Newsletter
Excerpt
In September, Rocket Lawyer became the first national company approved to participate in Utah’s regulatory sandbox, a pilot program for licensing new and alternative forms of legal providers and services. For Charley Moore, who founded Rocket Lawyer in 2008, it was yet another step in his quest to deliver high-value legal services at an affordable price.
…
In this episode of LawNext, Moore recounts the founding and development of Rocket Lawyer and its expansion into Europe starting in 2012. He also explains why he wanted the company to participate in the Utah sandbox and what he expects to happen there. Finally, as one of the few Black CEOs in legal tech, Moore discusses his thoughts on expanding diversity in the industry.
Also see:
Also from Gabe, see:
Justice-as-a-Service — from Henrik Zillmer
Excerpts:
There’s a new wave of customer empowerment coming. It’s called Justice-as-a-Service (JaaS), and you need to know about it because it benefits you – you just don’t know it yet.
Justice-as-a-Service is an on-demand service, powered by tech, that challenges private and public companies by representing the consumer in their fight for justice/compensation based on laws, consumers’ rights, and contract of carriage.
Why is there a need for JaaS?
