In 2016 article in the Newsletter about driverless cars I noted that Google founder Sergey Brin had predicted that driverless cars would be available for consumers by 2017. When this failed to transpire, Ford claimed that it would be selling a self-driving vehicle with “no gas pedal” and “no steering wheel” by 2021. Half way through 2021 and every car sold is still designed to be controlled primarily by a human driver. And whilst many…

Addressing the latest monthly members’ meeting of the International Council for Online Dispute Resolution on 6 May 2021, Lord Michael Briggs expressed his disappointment that, almost five years since his Final Report on The Civil Courts Structure Review, in which he recommended that a form of early triage be introduced to an online civil court, and four years since the Online Civil Money Claim project opened for business, such a system has yet to…

In recent years there has been a cultural and emotional shift with the Cloud becoming an everyday part of our lives and yet few of us can truly describe what the Cloud is. There remains something of the black arts about it that can cause uncertainty, especially for potential business users who are used to the idea of something solid like a server on premises. The Digital Solicitor Podcast promotes and explores the benefits of…

Managers are increasingly reliant on computer software and algorithms when assessing the performance of their staff. This is the case both in traditional forms of employment where there is a clear employer-employee relationship, and with gig economy arrangements which muddy the water by attempting (sometimes unsuccessfully) to classify staff as self-employed contractors. One of the glaring problems of reliance on computer software to make important decisions is the possibility that it has been…

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are part of the Ethereum blockchain. Ethereum is a cryptocurrency (like Bitcoin), but in addition to supporting the market value of the currency, NFTs have been designed also to store their own totally unique digital information. Although this information could take almost any form – designs, music, serious collectables – by far the greatest application of NFTs so far has been within the art world. NFTs have enjoyed enormous publicity over the last few months.…

Cybersecurity for Lawyers is a wiki from Neil Brown of internet, tech and telecoms law firm decoded.legal. It’s a primer for lawyers on practical cybersecurity for law firms. Straightforward, no fuss, detailed but easy to follow advice – for example this on passwords. Lawtomated is a collaborative learning resource aimed at lawyer and non-lawyer alike interested in, using or wanting to understand legaltech. It is staffed by legaltech professionals, including lawyers, legaltech entrepreneurs,…

Sunburst: a moment of reckoning Towards the end of 2020, the National Security Agency (NSA) issued a warning, claiming that “Russian state-sponsored malicious cyber actors” had essentially hacked into a piece of network management software belonging to SolarWinds, which was installed on networks belonging to US government agencies and almost all Fortune 500 companies. Following discovery of this hack, dubbed Sunburst, the US department of Homeland Security promptly ordered all federal agencies to disconnect…