We offer some initial conversation of the application of Blockchain to legal services in our deck called Fin(Legal)Tech. Obvious starting points for the blockchain in law include – real estate transactions, smart contracting, asset verification and the enforcement of judgements, financial services regulatory work (such as we have discussed in our paper on resolution planning), etc. These ideas (together with other related and important technological developments) extend to large segments of transactional / regulatory legal space. The goal is to reduce needless friction – which is endemic to most processes ( and legal centered processes are particularly bad).
Month: October 2015
Law Firm COO & CFO Forum Pre-Conference Workshop on Big Data / Legal Analytics / Legal Informatics
Yesterday I had the pleasure of participating in the Thomson Reuters Law Firm COO & CFO Forum Pre-Conference Workshop on Big Data. The half day workshop explored various way that law firms and outside counsel can use data to be better lawyers and run better businesses.
Here is the information for my panel (below) and the full program is located here.
Few business trends are as simultaneously revered, derided, appreciated or ignored as that of big data. Used (somewhat flippantly) to describe large, complex data sets that resist traditional data processing applications, big data represents both a beginning and end for many professional industries ill- prepared to harness big data’s myriad benefits and value. This opening conversation lays the framework for our program by addressing four key questions and concerns:
- What is big data?
- Why should we use it?
- Where does it lie within a business organization?
- How do we identify ROI and value in big data investment?
Moderator:
John Fernandez – US Chief Innovation Officer and Partner Dentons; Global Chair, NextLaw Labs
Panelists:
Justin Ergler – Director, Alternative Fee Intelligence and Analytics, GlaxoSmithKline
Daniel Martin Katz – Associate Professor of Law, Illinois Institute of Technology Chicago-Kent College of Law; Chief Strategy Officer, LexPredict
Michael S. Klastava – Vice President, Global Head of Legal Data & Analytics, American International Group, Inc.
Christopher Zorn – Liberal Arts Research Professor of Political Science and Sociology, The Pennsylvania State University; Principal, Quantitative Analysis, Lawyer Metrics
The End of Expertise ? (via HBR)
Please file this one under the RT =! endorsement department (particularly in the conclusions that are drawn toward the end). That said, it is worth asking what happens as certain forms of expertise become a commodity.
2015 Legal Management Forum – Madrid
“Organized by Wolters Kluwer and Inkietos, and under the honorary presidency of His Majesty Felipe VI, the Legal Management Forum aims to serve as a space for reflection and knowledge of the main challenges and opportunities related to management in the legal profession.”
The global legal innovation conversation is growing and it was my pleasure to deliver the keynote address to the more than 400 in attendance here in Madrid.
PLI Corporate Counsel Institute 2015
It was my pleasure to join a world class group of corporate lawyers at the 2015 PLI Corporate Counsel Institute in NYC. Thanks to Mark Roellig (Mass Mutual), Randy Milch (Verizon) and the folks at PLI for inviting me to participate!
