Year: 2022
Taking the next steps on your client onboarding journey
By Allan Carton and Frank Manning of Carton & Co. Lawyers need digital onboarding now because clients’ expectations of easier digital transactions and communications ramped up during the lockdowns – and because we see now that working digitally can radically improve efficiency of our operations and productivity. Based on my experience as a user of […]
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The Metaverse: laws of the second coming
Back in 2003, when Facebook was just an experiment for Mark Zuckerberg to improve his luck with dating at Harvard, an online game called Second Life was launched by Linden Lab. It created a virtual world (also known as a metaverse) where its users could spend time in the guise of their avatars, talking to […]
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Charles Christian, legal tech legend
Caroline Hill, Editor of the Legal IT Insider, has let us know of the untimely death of Charles Christian, its founder and Godfather of Legal Technology. From the October 2008 issue 213 of LTI: “In October 1978 … Insider editor Charles Christian wrote his first article on legal technology. It was about a solicitors accounts […]
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Find Case Law – six months on
Find Case Law is a new public service providing access to court judgments and tribunal decisions. It was launched in April 2022 and has been funded and developed by The National Archives, working with the Ministry of Justice, HMCTS and the Judicial Office. We set out with three goals for the Find Case Law service: […]
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The copyright status of AI-generated works
As AI platforms like Midjourney, or Dall-E2 are widely adopted the question, that is increasingly being asked is about the copyright position. It’s possible to create striking artistic images, music, poems and the like using Artificial Intelligence (AI) platforms so people naturally wonder who owns the rights in the output? What are the risks of using the output […]
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Reforming data protection
Following a consultation on reforming the UK’s data protection laws – partly designed to “provide an opportunity for the UK to reshape its approach to regulation” post-Brexit – the government has published the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill (previously dubbed the “Data Reform Bill”). The forthcoming legislation follows several years of upheaval to the […]
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AI legal technology: fact vs fiction
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a term which is routinely bandied about in discussions about legal technology. Companies selling software to the legal sector almost ubiquitously proclaim that their products are “powered with AI” in their marketing literature. But is this apparent meteoric rise of AI within legal tech of any real consequence, or is it […]
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Do interpreting apps really work well?
“I think it’s absolutely terrifying,” said my husband, when he tested out the app, and as a linguist, and as a normal human being, I’m inclined to agree. As lawyers, there must often be situations where such an app would be useful, or even indispensable. The question everyone is asking is when will such machines […]
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LSSA white paper on procuring legal software
The Legal Software Suppliers Association has published a white paper on the procurement of legal software, the steps to take, and pitfalls to avoid. The following is a summary of factors to consider. 1. Deciding to change supplier Unless there has been a compelling reason (e.g., the software is no longer supported) why you must change your […]
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Clamping down on fake online reviews
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) recently announced that it will be receiving additional enforcement powers in preparation for new laws seeking to stamp out fake online reviews. The proposals, contained in a government consultation Reforming competition and consumer policy, would essentially make it illegal to: commission someone to write or submit a fake review; […]
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The Online Safety Bill – the quest for clarity continues
In a June 2021 article in the Newsletter I looked at the then-current draft of the Online Safety Bill, providing a general overview of the government’s aims in putting forward that draft legislation and considering the challenges presented by some central points of uncertainty at the heart of the bill. Since that time, there have […]
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Open case law is here at last
From today judgments of the superior courts of England and Wales have a new, official home at The National Archives (TNA) which has now taken over the HMCTS publishing contract from BAILII. The Case Law website at https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk is dubbed an “Alpha”. Essentially it is a work in progress and it is best not to […]
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