I was looking forward to today at CES. The Acting Commish of the FTC, Maureen Ohlhausen, was to be interviewed by the CEO of CTA, Gary Shapiro. Three of the FCC Commissioners of the FCC, Brendan Carr, Mignon Clyburn and Michael O’Rielly were scheduled to participate in a roundtable moderated by Julie Kearney, VP of regulatory affairs for CTA.  Ajit Pai was supposed to be here but was a no show.

CTA is the largest consumer tech association. CES is one of the most well attended tech conference in the world. What’s the hottest topic in tech these days: the overturning of net neutrality. I thought at least we will get some insight on the pros and cons of this issue by those most directly involved in the decision. Wrong. Instead we got abbreviated wave to and acknowledgment of the issue and a recitation of slogans with little real explanation. Continue Reading Net Neutrality: CES Discussion Disappoints

“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?

I recently almost didn’t attend a Conference in my hometown. I almost didn’t go because a) it was not necessarily in my field (lawyer) and b) it was in my hometown (no one is a prophet in their own land, right?). (The Conferance was actually put on by the Louisville Digital Association, a local organization that’s more or less about all things digital and the Conference was really more about digital marketing and media than anything else).

But I did go and something remarkable happened…I learned things. New things. And my head immediately started applying the things I was learning to my field. It was magical. Even one of the speakers who I introduced myself too afterwards said “I saw you sitting there. Your head was going a hundred miles an hour. What energy you brought!” Continue Reading Life Long Learning: Profess It. Live It

This blog is devoted to the tension created as traditional legal concepts are applied to new questions created by technolgy. AKA the problem of  trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, to use an old cliche.

I recently ran across an article by a friend of mine, John Amabile and his partners at Parker Poe, Michael Birns and Todd Sprinkle entitled “Textualism Is The Law of the Land in Georgia: What To Do About it?” Here is a link to the article which appeared on December 7, 2017 in jdsupra. The article poses this exact question within the confines of a series of decisions by the Georgia Supreme Court.

 

“textualism requires the court to apply the plain meaning of the statutory text at the time the statute was originally“

John and his team report that the Georgia Supreme Court has firmly embraced the concept of textualism and rightfully lament the deleterious impact the application of this concept could have on businesses.   Continue Reading Textualism: The Enemy of Innovation?

Earlier this month, the 9th Circuit dealt online anonymous reviewing services a chilling blow when it decided United States v. Glassdoor. Faced with an online service which allowed people to post employer reviews for the benefit of others, the Court determined that those who posted on the service were like newspaper reporters and reverted to an analysis used for print media some 40 years ago.

Specifically, the Court ruled that the government could compel Glassdoor to reveal the identity of anonymous reviewers of employers by employees who posted on the site even if those who had posted didn’t consent. What this means for other online services that rely on similar anonymous posts could be significant. At the very least, use of outmoded legal concepts for new technological driven will be chilling and is unfortunate.

This means the government could compel Glassdoor to reveal the identity of anonymous reviewers of employers by employees who posted on the site even if those who had posted didn’t consent.

Background

The case started when the government served a subpoena on Glassdoor, an online forum where current and former employees can anonymously post reviews about the salaries and work environments of their places of employment. The subpoena asked for identifying information for more than one hundred accounts that had posted reviews of an employer whose contracting practices were apparently under criminal investigation by a federal grand jury. The investigation centered on alleged wire fraud by one of the companies that was under investigation by a Grand Jury.
Glassdoor refused to reveal its users’ identity to the Grand Jury citing among other things the First Amendment right of its users to speak anonymously. Continue Reading When Anonymous Isn’t Really: Government Threats to Online Reviews

Fear of new technology sometimes creates strange legislative results and perhaps unintended consequences.

In 2008, Illinois passed the Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), designed to protect employees and consumers against perceived abuses associated with the collection of bio metric data by businesses and providing a statutory cause of action for its violation.

Fearing how such technology might be used and worried about the privacy implications of how data might be used, (the Preamble actually provides “the full ramifications of biometric technology are not fully known”), the Illinois Legislature enacted a law requiring businesses planning to maintain any sort of databases of these identifiers enact policies to receive written authorization from customers or employees before scanning fingerprints, retinas or other biometric identifiers. It also requires businesses to share with those whose biometrics are being scanned information on how those identifiers would be stored and even disposed of. Continue Reading Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act: Legitimate Privacy Protection or Pandora’s Box?

Under a new law recently proposed in Ohio, businesses that take steps to secure data could be protected from lawsuits if a hack occurs. The bill, Senate Bill 220, was the first bill to emerge from the Ohio attorney general’s office’s and its cyber-security task force of business leaders, information technology experts, and law enforcement created in the wake of high-profile hacks of consumer information. The bill is an effort to help businesses with cyber related claims, encourage them to be proactive and recognize the difficulty in creating standards for constantly evolving technologies. It’s a valid effort to balance law and technology.

According to Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, a member of the task force, “Those business that take reasonable precautions and meet these important standards will be afforded a safe harbor against claims should a data breach occur…To trigger the safe harbor provision, businesses must create their own cyber-security programs that meet certain standards.” Continue Reading New Ohio Bill Proposes Data Breach Protections