Legal Analytics – Introduction to the Course – Professors Daniel Martin Katz + Michael J Bommarito

Here is an introductory slide deck from “Legal Analytics” which is a course that Mike Bommarito and I are teaching this semester. Relevant legal applications include predictive coding in e-discovery (i.e. classification), early case assessment and overall case prediction, pricing and staff forecasting, prediction of judicial behavior, etc.

As I have written in my recent article in Emory Law Journal – we are moving into an era of data driven law practice. This course is a direct response to demands from relevant industry stakeholders. For a large number of prediction tasks … humans + machines > humans or machines working alone.

We believe this is the first ever Machine Learning Course offered to law students and it our goal to help develop the first wave of human capital trained to thrive as this this new data driven era takes hold.  Richard Susskind likes to highlight this famous quote from Wayne Gretzky … “A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.”

Designing Collective Behavior in a Termite-Inspired Robot Construction Team (via Science)

This is a pretty important breakthrough for biologically inspired computing.  During my doctoral studies at Michigan, I was a NSF-IGERT fellow at the University of Michigan Center for the Study of Complex Systems.  I had the great pleasure of spending time lots of time with John Holland whose work on genetic algorithms is one of many efforts to implement biological principles into computing.

Anyway, for those who are geeky like me – you should read the underlying article in this week’s issue of Science and/or the popular press version here.

Legal Tech Startups – $458 Million in Legal Services R&D (via TR Legal Executive Insights)

Take a look at this list of legal startups on Angel List – 414 and counting.  I am happy  to count many of these companies as #ReInventLaw Speakers / Attendees.  While many of these companies may not succeed in the long run – these companies tend to cluster around certain ideas.  It is my belief that many of those ideas will ultimately prevail.  For more thoughts check out Bob Ambrogi’s post “A Time of Unprecedented Innovation in Legal Technology.”  I agree with most of his thoughts on the matter.

Over 800 Folks in Attendance at Cooper Union for ReInventLaw NYC 2014 – Thanks So Much For Coming!

It is a wrap for #ReInventLaw NYC 2014. We finished up with just over 800 folks in attendance for this free, public facing event at the Cooper Union (~725 at the peak of the day according to the security guards who were keeping the count). As the conference co-organizer, I want to thank all of our speakers for speaking, all of our sponsors for sponsoring and all of our attendees for attending!

There are many interesting changes underway within the legal industry. Many of the participants (both speakers and attendees) are part of the innovator / early adopter segment. It was great to connect with everyone. I hope to continue the conversation. More importantly, I look forward to working together to help build the future …