After 2 years of virtual events, Singapore’s annual TechLaw.Fest returned for the fifth time with a hybrid event. The conference was attended by around 3,300 participants from more than 100 countries and 60 speakers from 20 to 22 July. The keystone event was the virtual reality metaverse exhibition, that was held on the first day…
Law Society of Saskatchewan releases new podcast on the future of law and technology
The Law Society of Saskatchewan has released a new podcast on the changing role of technology in the legal profession. The podcast looks at how technology is being treated in legal education, as well as what the society is doing to react to the changes/ The podcast features Tim Brown, Q.C. Executive Director of the…
Solicitors Regulation Authority of England and Wales publishes results of study into innovation in the legal sector
The Solicitors Regulation Authority of England and Wales (SRA) has published the results of its independent study into innovation in the legal sector, commissioned in March. The study was carried out on behalf of the SRA by a research team at the University of Oxford which included Professors Mari Sako and John Armour. The study…
Lawyer Ethics for Innovation
Abstract Law struggles to keep pace with innovation. Twenty-first century advancements like artificial intelligence, block chain, and data analytics are already in use by academic institutions, corporations, government entities, health care providers, and others but many questions remain about individual autonomy, identity, privacy, and security. Even as new laws address known threats, future technology developments…
Legal Services Board of England and Wales releases new report on how regulation can foster innovation
On the 20th of April, the Legal Services Board (LSB) released a report outlining what legal services can do to support the safe development of technology and innovation, whilst also acting in the public interest. The report outlines steps regulators can take to create an environment that ‘de-risks’ innovation and reduces uncertainty for tech providers…
New research project on innovation and the use of technology in the legal sector in England and Wales launched by the Solicitors Regulation Authority
The Solicitors Regulation Authority of England and Wales (SRA) is launching a piece of independent research into the use of technology and innovation in the legal sector, and how this may develop in the future. The research is being carried out by a research team at the University of Oxford including Professors Mari Sako and…
Lawtech: Levelling the Playing Field in Legal Services?
Abstract The legal services market is commonly thought of as divided into two “hemispheres”– PeopleLaw and BigLaw. These segments represent, respectively, individuals and corporate clients. The last few decades have seen an increasing concentration of resources within the legal profession toward serving corporate clients, to the alleged detriment of consumer clients. At the same time, the costs of accessing legal representation exceed…
Legal Technology and the Future of Women in Law
Abstract Much has been written about how automation will change the legal profession as a whole, less so about how automation might affect women in legal practice. This paper briefly maps the likely changes that legal tech (legal technology) will bring to the provision of legal services, and explores how these changes might affect the barriers to advancement that women face in the profession….
Law, Artificial Intelligence, and Natural Language Processing: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to My Search Results
Abstract Renowned legal educator Roscoe Pound stated, “Law must be stable and yet it cannot stand still.” Yet, as Susan Nevelow Mart has demonstrated in a seminal article that the different online research services (Westlaw, Lexis Advance, Fastcase, Google Scholar, Ravel and Casetext) produce significantly different results when researching case law. Furthermore, a recent study of 325…
Legal Tech and EU Consumer Law
Abstract Legal Tech (LT) products and services automate certain tasks that lawyers usually perform. The use of these tools in business-to-consumer (B2C) markets create many opportunities for consumers and the justice system in general, but also raises concerns in terms of access to justice, choice and information, quality, fairness, redress and representation. This paper deals with…