legal tech/innovation

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The Janus Issue

The Supreme Court is set to consider in late February in Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees whether workers can be forced to pay union dues even when they don’t agree with the Union’s political activities or simply don’t want to. If the Court holds that these mandatory fees violate workers’ First Amendment rights, a large and perhaps unrepairable crack in the power dam held by state bar associations may be about to occur.
Continue Reading Is SCOTUS About to Disrupt the Legal Profession?

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Last week, the legal tech community was rocked to learn that the lawyer rating service, Avvo, had been acquired by something called Internet Brands. Internet Brands is in turn owned by the private investment powerhouse KKR.

Avvo has always been a lightning rod
Continue Reading Wither Avvo?

“They can’t take it from me, if they try, I lived though those early days.”

Early Days by Paul McCartney

I constantly marvel at the technology we have today. I am a tech and innovation evangelist. I believe the delivery of legal services can and will be improved and disrupted. I can’t wait.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t sometimes reflect back to the way things were when I first began as a lawyer. Some things were worse. Some things were better. Some were just, well, different. And I wonder how much the technological tools we have and the innovation that’s out there have truly created the positive changes of which they are capable
Continue Reading #legaltech #innovation: Changes for the Better?

Much has been written about the ethical duties of a lawyer regarding technology, a duty found in Rule 1.1 (competence), Rule 1.6 (confidentiality), Rule 1.5 (ethical billing) and Rules 5.1 and 5.3 (supervisory responsibilities). These rules and their nuances should in and of themselves be enough for lawyers to be as inquisitive and knowledgeable about tech as they are the substantive law.

But forgetting these for a moment and that technology can generally make us more efficient, there are also some 6 very sound practical reasons lawyers should be familiar with and welcome technology and, as expressed in Comment 8, know of its benefits and risks.
Continue Reading Technological Competence for Lawyers: Six Practical Reasons

This week, the International Legal Technology Association or ILTA as its commonly known, released the results of its annual technology survey. ILTA refers to itself as a peer to peer networking organization for those in the legal tech field. Unlike the ABA Tech Survey which also recently came out, ILTA survey respondents tend to be from larger firms and are people who work in the legal tech field as opposed to practicing lawyers.

So, what are the takeaways? On a quick review, 5 things stood out:
Continue Reading ILTA 2017 Technology Survey: 5 Quick Takeaways

Last week, Google announced the results of its new AlphaZero (aka AlphaZ) AI program that may revolutionize the use of AI in all fields including law.

Here’s the deal: we all remember Google’s AlphaGo, an AI program Goggle developed that beat the world’s human champion of Go, which is called the most complicated game yet developed. Unlike, say chess, Go is a very difficult open ended game.
Continue Reading AlphaZ: The Ultimate Legal Disrupter?

This year’s Clio Conference in New Orleans just concluded. Clio calls itself a cloud based law practice management software company. Every year, it holds a conference with lots of razzle dazzle, speakers and parties. And it always skates where the puck is going.
This year was no exception. While it offered a slew of new products (here’s a good article from Bob Ambrogi on these new ones), here are my top 10 takeaways on the conference itself.

1. If Jack Newton, the CEO and one of the founders of Clio is not the Steve Jobs/Elon Musk of legal tech, I don’t know who is. 10 years ago he created a product, grew it immensely and continues to innovate. Last year he gave us the first comprehensive Survey of the legal profession (see below). This year, a new interface and software program. And to top it all off, he gives us a honest to goodness technology conference with dazzling keynotes, great content, high energy, music, parties and fun. No one else in the industry seems to understand that people are drawn to good presentations, good speakers, welcoming atmosphere and, of yes, music. Clio knows how to succeed in this space better than anyone.
Continue Reading ClioCloud9: 10 Takeaways

Recently I was the subject of a well written post by one of my favorite people, Kevin O’Keefe, in Above the Law. Kevin talked about an idea I had about a better way to handle the kind of work I have historically done: mass tort defense.

By way of background, I have spent most of my career defending mass tort actions, either litigation stemming from a single disaster or from non pharmaceutical serial litigation.
Continue Reading Collaborative Disintegration: A Better Mousetrap?