Page 12 - NC Triangle Vol 6 No 4
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LEGAL INNOVATORS
Sponsored by Lawyers Mutual
The Future of Legal Tech
BY KEVIN P. LEE
The North Carolina Bar Asso- ciation has formed a Future of Law Committee to follow-up on the  ndings and recom- mendations of an NCBA report issued earlier this year.  e report focused on how technology is impacting the legal practice in North Carolina and identi-  ed emerging technology products and trends that will be signi cant to the fu- ture of the legal profession. INFORMATION AND COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY (ICT)
ICT has the potential to transform the socio-cultural foundations of the law and legal practice.  e Committee took a broad look at the new technologies and concepts that ICT have created as a means for assessing the socio-cultural forces driving change in the profession. We need to understand how technology is driving cultural change and what the legal profession can do to better antici- pate future developments.
Computational power has been im- proving steadily on an exponential pace of growth for over   y years, and improvements have been coming at an ever-increasing rate for a long time.  at means that unprecedented and remark- able developments have become routine and that trend will only accelerate.  e changes are coming faster now as year- by-year becomes month-by-month, then weekly, daily and hourly. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Our report found that arti cial intel- ligence is already having a substantial impact on the legal practice. Duke’s Je  Ward, who chaired the subcommittee on AI and Law said, “Almost all current use cases serve to supplement and en- hance the capacities of human lawyers.”
 e amounts of data involved in the modern day legal practice can be over-
whelming, while–at the same time– court calendars, deal closings, regulato- ry obligations and client demands create service expectations incongruent with these vast amounts of data.
Smart machines can assist with these data-intensive demands, helping where humans might tire, make mistakes, or even have too limited a vision. While obstacles to adoption of AI exist, and ethical concerned must be observed, there is tremendous growth potential. Five priority areas that ought to receive attention are professional responsibil- ity, broader ethical issues, access to legal services, legal training and legal market/ employment issues.
BLOCKCHAIN
Blockchain technology is another area where there is the potential for disruptive innovation.  e report de nes block- chain as, “a decentralized database with two key features. First, it is continuously updated to re ect the current status of data or assets. Second, it has no central authority such as a bank or a govern- ment. It relies instead on distributed led- gers: duplicate record sets that are regu- larly synchronized with each other over the Internet. Network members then validate the entire group of transactions.”
Blockchain’s potential lies in the re- duction of transactional costs and its ability to provide secure transactions across the world. According to the re- port, “To the extent that lawyers view themselves as simply another transac- tional cost, this is a negative develop- ment. But if they reposition themselves, as they have before, to roles that add val- ue in this new world, they have nothing to fear.” Many promises have been made regarding blockchain and related tech- nologies, Now, some of the potential is being realized.
LEGAL OPERATIONS
Legal operations are where many tech- nologies are coming together and being deployed. Representative services pro- vided by the leading legal operations  rms include quantitative analysis for strategic planning, project management, compen- sation benchmarking, and risk manage- ment. Legal operations is a signi cant de- velopment that will continue to grow and develop allowing for substantial improve- ment by cutting costs and develop more professional approaches to the manage- ment of legal operations.
LAW SCHOOLS
Law schools are adding classes in Computational Law, Legal Issues in vari- ous aspects of AI and Blockchain, Pro- gramming for Lawyers, Design  ink- ing in Law, Data Analytics for Lawyers, and Law, Ethics, and the New Technolo- gies. Additionally,DukeLawSchoolhas added the Duke Center on Law & Tech and the Duke Law Tech Lab, which is an accelerator program that helps legal tech entrepreneurs develop their proj- ects. Wake Forest Law School’s Professor Mark Rabil is looking at the mindfulness in law movement. Mindfulness in the profession may be a way of helping law- yers stay focused and balanced.
Many changes are coming to the profes- sion caused directly by new technologies and in response to changes that the tech- nologies are bringing about in society.  e rate of change is manageable at the present, and there are many ways that a forward- looking law  rm can bene t from them. As with any signi cant operational move, a wise lawyer will be discerning and selective. It is vital to know what you are getting into and why you’re doing it.
KEVIN P. LEE IS A MEMBER OF THE NCBA FUTURE OF LAW COMMITTEE AND AN ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR AT CAMPBELL LAW SCHOOL.
ATTORNEY AT LAW MAGAZINE · NORTH CAROLINA TRIANGLE. 6 NO. 4 12


































































































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