Welcome back to another Top 10 in Law Blogs! Artificial Intelligence was a major topic on LexBloggers’ minds this week. According to Jadzia Pierce and B.J. Altvater, U.S. President Donald Trump’s new Executive Order on Artificial Intelligence is the latest, and most significant step that the Administration has taken to make AI a priority in the realms of economics and national security. Jean O’Grady reported on a new Research Bot and updates coming out of LexisNexis. Albert Oaten also discussed the concrete ways AI can help solve issues in legal departments right now. Others explored questions like, ‘what does it mean to be a legal blogger?’ Some, including CEO of LexBlog Kevin O’Keefe, would say that bloggers are citizen journalists and legal commentators, actively shaping their communities and the future of law. Happy Reading!

Delegating Routine Tasks to AI–By Albert Oaten: For ContractWorks co-founder Albert Oaten, AI is not an abstract future; it is the concrete means to help law departments save money, save time and mitigate risk – right now. CCBJ: Artificial intelligence (AI) is a widely used term. What does it really mean, and how is it being deployed in the legal industry? Albert…View Full Post

International Contracts and Why What You Think “Can’t Hurt” Usually Does Hurt By Dan Harris: The Western world — particularly the Anglo-Saxon/common law world — is used to ultra-long contracts for everything. A contract to buy $6,000 worth of rubber duckies will include all sorts of boilerplate provisions, making clear that by one party buying the rubber duckies from the other the two parties are not forming a partnership or…View Full Post

Law bloggers as citizen journalists and legal commentators shape the law–By Kevin O’Keefe: Legal blogging is often referred to as content marketing. But watching the depth and breath of the law blog posts on our network, I continue to see legal blogging as something so much more important. Not only has legal blogging democratized legal publishing, but legal blogging represents a body of secondary law. I was speaking…View Full Post

Episode 27: Heather Ritchie on Marketing, BD, KM, and Library Collaboration–By Marlene Gebauer and Greg Lambert: “All Problems Are Communications Problems.” This is Greg’s go to phrase when it comes to working with and leading others. Marlene actually beats Greg to the punch this week when they talk with this week’s guest, Heather Ritchie. Heather is the Chief Knowledge and Business Development Officer at Hicks Morley Hamilton Stewart Storie LLP in Toronto, and…View Full Post

Time to talk? Time to listen too–By Hannah Field: Last week it would have been difficult to miss the statistics: mental health affects 1 in 4 of us. In reality, it affects far more indirectly. Many people will have been affected by the mental health of a colleague, a friend or a family member. In addition, anyone with experience of mental health problems will…View Full Post

Privacy Policy in a Time of Change–By Chris Savage: What a difference a year makes. In early 2018, the biggest concern for the consumer-facing online ecosystem was probably the then-impending launch of the GDPR. Today, GDPR compliance seems like the least of our worries. California’s “Consumer Privacy Act” takes effect in 10 months, and other states are considering similar laws. Illinois’ Supreme Court just…View Full Post

Top Issues to Watch After Kids’ Climate Suit Lands in Ninth Circuit–By Jane E. Montgomery and Caitlin M. Ajax: A case filed in 2015 by 21 minors, Juliana v. United States, seeks to hold the U.S. government liable for climate change. After an Oregon federal judge granted an interlocutory appeal to the defendants following a denial of their motion to dismiss, the case is now pending before the Ninth Circuit. The case presents novel arguments, including…View Full Post

WHO expert calls for commitments from leaders at food safety conference–By Joe Whitworth: A WHO food safety expert is hoping for “clear commitments” at the first International Conference on Food Safety, which begins today. Angelika Tritscher, a World Health Organization (WHO) food safety expert in the department of food safety and zoonoses, spoke with Food Safety News ahead of the event, which is organized by WHO, the Food…View Full Post

Lexis Prepares to Launch a Research Bot –  And a CourtLink Makeover–By Jean O’Grady: Two years ago Lexis launched Lexis Answers which leverages AI to deliver responses to natural language research queries with a declarative statement of law with supporting citations. Since that time there have been intriguing references in the legal tech press to the development of Lexis chatbots. Lexis pulled back the curtain on their new chatbox “Lexis…View Full Post

President Trump Signs Executive Order on Artificial Intelligence–By Jadzia Pierce and B.J. Altvater: Today, President Trump signed an Executive Order (“EO”), “Maintaining American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence,” that launches a coordinated federal government strategy for Artificial Intelligence (the “AI Initiative”).  Among other things, the AI Initiative aims to solidify American leadership in AI by empowering federal agencies to drive breakthroughs in AI research and development (“R&D”) (including by…View Full Post