Ron Friedmann has pulled together pieces from three WSJ articles to offer a bit of a plan for improving value to clients, and hence to the law firm. His thesis combines considerations of Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), Productivity, and Big Data.
This, from Eran Kahana of Stanford Law School: Artificial Intelligence and Computational Law: Democratizing Cybersecurity. “An effective solution to a new problem has to incorporate different thinking, an epistemic reconfiguration, if you will. It is a thinking that manifests in novel tools, combined with effective deterrence in the form of penalties for non-compliance. But going back to the different-thinking variable, I think that a good part of an effective solution is available in shifting focus from regulatory efforts to end-user empowerment, essentially enabling end-users to become smarter consumers in the Internet + ecosystem.”
Robert Bond and Hannah Crowther of Bristows posted: Ethics and Data Privacy. “The 40th International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners has released a Declaration on Ethics and Protection in Artificial Intelligence. In it, the Conference endorsed several guiding principles as “core values” to protect human rights as the development of artificial intelligence continues apace. The Conference called for the establishment of international common governance principles on AI in line with these concepts. As an initial step toward that goal, the Conference announced a permanent working group on Ethics and Data Protection in Artificial Intelligence.” “Even if Scott McNealy was right in 1999 (when he reportedly said, “You have zero privacy anyway – Get over it.”), individuals deserve respect for their privacy. This respect does not always have to be imposed by law, but should be a matter of integrity and ethics.”
Richard Jeens and Natalie Osafo of Slaughter and May posted this via Artificial Lawyer: Using AI for Regulatory Investigations. “In this post, we consider and share our views on the opportunities, limitations and future uses of AI for investigations.” “…(AI) is not a panacea. At the moment, significant resource can be required to compensate for AI’s limitations, which are amplified by the unpredictable nature of investigations, and the evolving data protection position.”
This, from Mintz’ Rodney L. Whitlock: Strategies to Unlock AI’s Potential in Health Care, Part 4: How and When Will Congress Act? “Currently, there is no sense that Congress will actively engage in legislative oversight of AI in the immediate future – the lack of movement on the existing bills combined with the overall lack of more targeted legislation are evidence of this. However, we are able to identify potential circumstances that could spur the House and the Senate to get involved.”
Also from Artificial Lawyer: “Legal marketplace pioneer, Lexoo, will use some of its recent $4.4m funding to develop its own legal tech applications to support the lawyers who work through the platform and to provide a deeper infrastructure for them to use on client matters. Such tools, e.g. that can support corporate deal work, will also mean that individual lawyers, or lawyers based in smaller firms, will already have some tech tools on hand to leverage their skills and do more for the clients, and work more efficiently.”
And finally from Artificial Lawyer: “Pittsburgh-based tech startup Three10 Solutions has bagged a $250,000 angel investment to continue development of its AI patent concept search system, named Dorothy. It is also looking for design partners to join the project. Its central idea is that unlike some other systems, it uses NLP to do conceptual searches for similar products, rather than depending just on key words, which are rarely sufficient for a detailed analysis.”
I wasn’t aware of Australia’s Law in Order until today. Their website provides several useful pieces of content including: The Importance of Having an eDiscovery Expert on Your Side. Of course, they are promotional, but interesting nonetheless.
From Legaltech news: Artificial Intelligence: Useful—But Risky, Deloitte Survey Says. “Four out of 10 executives are concerned about the legal and regulatory risks of artificial intelligence, according to a recent Deloitte survey. Lawyers shared with Legaltech News the concerns they’ve heard and gave suggestions to address those risks.”
Blockchain
From Dentons: UK: Manufacturing The Future: Applying Blockchain To The Manufacturing Supply Chain.
From Howard Kennedy: Blockchain is not the answer to money laundering… yet. “There is no reason existing regulations should stifle the progress of blockchain in this area. If regulators can create shared platforms, then they could dramatically improve AML measures for financial services while reducing the cost of compliance. It may even result in an internationally recognised digital client-identity forum. But clearly there is work to be done.”
- Korean, Singaporean Firms Form Consortium to Create a Global Healthy Blockchain Ecosystem. “Some of the biggest blockchain-focused companies, as well as one law firm, have formed a consortium to create a “healthy blockchain ecosystem” as well as develop several dApps that are strategically focused on South Korea and Singapore.” Details here.