Tag: artificial intelligence and law
ASU – Arkfeld Electronic Discovery Conference
Yesterday I had the pleasure of providing the concluding remarks at the ASU – Arkfeld Electronic Discovery Conference in Tempe, Arizona. It was a really good mix of practicing lawyers, judges and technology providers in the room. Kudos to Michael Arkfeld, Josh Abbott and the rest of the planning committee for a great conference!
The Forum on Legal Evolution – NYC 02.26.13
Last week Bill Henderson, Bruce MacEwen and Daniel Martin Katz convened the first Forum on Legal Evolution – a small invitation only forum – for leaders from across the legal supply chain (General Counsels, Law Firms, Legal Technologists, Legal Media, Legal Educators, etc.). It was a good mix of members of the AM 200, GC’s of large companies, strategically important technology providers, etc. The primary focus of this first forum was three-fold: (1) change management and the diffusion of innovation, (2) process engineering and process improvement and (3) big data, legal analytics and machine learning in law practice (katz+bommartio slides are available here).
Aric Press from The American Lawyer offers a short write up of the event here.
Brian Dalton from Above the Law offers his perspective here.
Gartner Legal IT Scenario, 2020 – Smart Machines and LPO Radically Disrupt Legal Profession (via Gartner IT)
The report offers a number of predictions including those quoted above and “by 2018, legal IT courses will be required for the graduates of at least 20 U.S. Tier 1 and Tier 2 law schools.”
While that would be sensible idea given the emerging opportunities in the legal market, I doubt that this will happen by 2018. Indeed, I would predict that somewhere between {0-2} law schools will make such the move of making such content mandatory by 2018. The ability to teach such a course is almost never a recognized hiring priority or hiring qualification that institutions are seeking (see here here here, etc.). Instead, law schools and faculty hiring committees typically focus on hiring for existing or perceived institutional needs. Even when institutions focus on the so called “best athlete” model of hiring … legal technology, etc. typically does not constitute a relevant dimension of the question. In other words, as I said in my MIT School of Law slide deck (and paper) the best athlete model depends upon what sport we are playing.
I am proud to be one of the few tenure track faculty members who actually teaches such courses inside a law school environment (legal technology / legal information engineering, quantitative methods, e-discovery, entrepruenerial lawyering, legal analytics, etc.) Among the existing institutions, there are strong and weaker version of the above courses. However, minus a few notable exceptions, most institutions do not have faculty members with the technical chops that are necessary to effectively teach such course(s).
The intersection of law+technology is one of the growth sectors within legal and as such it is a very exciting time to work in this area. Arbitrage opportunities are temporal in nature and given the highly competitive environment among law schools, it does not bother me if other law schools do not make this a priority. It allows those of us who are so inclined to build relationships with the leading folks in this emerging industry sub-sector before it lands on the radar of others.
Legal Analytics – Introduction to the Course – Professors Daniel Martin Katz + Michael J Bommarito
Legal Analytics – Introduction to the Course – Professor Daniel Martin Katz + Professor Michael J Bommartio II from Daniel Martin Katz
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.”
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.
Quantum Computing: A Primer (via Time)
Click through on the image above to access video. I think this is among the more approachable discussions of the topic. For more check out this bonus video and the full article here.
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 …
#ReInventLaw NYC – February 7, 2014 The Great Hall @ Cooper Union Sign Up For Your Free Ticket Today!
You are invited to join us for ReInventLaw NYC — to be held in New York City on February 7, 2014 at the Cooper Union in Manhattan.
This high energy completely *free* event that is open to anyone interested in the future of the law including but not limited to law students, practicing lawyers, technologists, venture capitalists, data scientists, legal hackers, government officials, law professors, legal operations professionals, legal entrepreneurs, etc.
The full list of the 40+ Speakers is now live!
In the meantime, please sign up for a free ticket today by clicking here. When they are gone, they are gone (and they are almost gone)!
The event follows immediately on the heels of LegalTech NYC (which is a 12,000+ person trade show attended by the leading technologists in the legal industry). This will make it easy for LegalTechNYC goers to attend.
We are very excited to be able to secure this location for this event – the Cooper Union Great Hall in Manhattan. The Great Hall in among the most important venues in American History as it is the site of Abraham Lincoln original abolitionist speech delivered in this very venue – February 27, 1860.
By way of background, we have run previous sold out events in Silicon Valley, London and Dubai. For recent examples please see here:
http://reinventlawsiliconvalley.com/
http://reinventlawlondon.com/
Check out some of the videos from prior events here:
http://reinventlawchannel.com/
You can learn more about the work of the #ReInventLaw lab here:
http://reinventlaw.com/
Sign up for your free ticket today and we will look forward to seeing you Friday February 7, 2014 @9:00am.
A Case Study in Legal Annotation (Wyner, Peters & Katz)
This is an ongoing project with Adam Wyner (Dept. of Computer Science @ University of Aberdeen) and Wim Peters (Dept. of Computer Science + NLP Group @ University of Sheffield) … our very initial pilot project was presented at the 2013 Jurix Conference. Slides are located here and the case study paper for the pilot project is located here. Hoping for more to come on this project in 2014!
Recalculate the Future of Law (via Insight Labs)
Tried to offer some honest and unvarnished statements about the current state of affairs. Click here to see the full interview.