The conference Website is at: http://ift.tt/1hAbSzJ
The conference program is at: http://ift.tt/Zn0dBQ
One Twitter hashtag for the conference is #lvi2014
Harry Surden of the University of Colorado is scheduled to give a presentation entitled Machine Learning Within Law , October 9, 2014 at Stanford Law School.
The event is sponsored by CodeX: Stanford Center for Legal Informatics, and is part of the CodeX Speaker Series.
Here is a description of the event, from the announcement:
Professor Surden will discuss some current and future applications of machine-learning within law. Legal practice is thought to require advanced cognitive abilities, but such higher-order cognition remains outside the capability of current machine-learning technology. Is it possible then to automate certain legal tasks despite this technological limitation? In some contexts, the answer may be yes due to a core principle: tasks that are normally thought to require human intelligence can sometimes be automated through the use of non-intelligent computational techniques that employ heuristics, patterns, or proxies capable of producing useful, “intelligent” results. He will then explore automation in the context of legal tasks currently performed by attorneys, including predicting the outcomes of legal cases, finding hidden relationships in legal documents and data, electronic discovery, and the automated organization of documents.
Click here to view Harry Surden’s article “Machine Learning and Law” [...]
Nicola Lettieri of ISFOL has posted a prezi of a presentation entitled Law under the data deluge: From legal implications to legal applications of Big Data (and backward) , given last week at DySES 2014: International Conference on Dynamics of Socio-Economic Systems, held 16-18 September 2014, in Seville.
Here is the abstract:
The data deluge, the overwhelming and growing amount of digital information today available, is deeply transforming our society unlocking new sources of economic value, providing fresh insights into science and holding governments to account.
The ongoing process is rising many challenges in the legal field. Law has to define and refine regulations allowing, on the one hand, to exploit the opportunities inherent to data analytics and, on the other hand, to contrast threats like privacy breaches, identity theft and fraud, new forms of redlining and ‘Big Brotherishness of various kinds’.
The presentation is split in two parts. The first part is a state of the art examining the keystones of the legal framework so far defined at international and European level to cope with Big Data legal implications.
The second part is a brief analysis of application and research issues. The data deluge is driving the emergence of innovative tools that are not only going to affect many sectors of legal practice but are also producing a paradigm shift in the way legally relevant
phenomena are studied, understood and predicted.Far from being simply juxtaposed, the two parts of the talk are strictly intertwined as the creation of new tools and applications is in turn a cause of (or a solution for) regulation issues.
The event is organized by DC Legal Hackers.
The speakers are scheduled to be Peter Van Valkenburgh of Coin Center, and Casey Kuhlman of the U.S. Open Data Institute.
Both speakers are lawyers and software developers who develop blockchain technologies; both are on the leading edge of this sector, so this event should be extremely interesting.
Click here for other posts about legal applications of blockchain technology.
The conference theme was “eJustice – Mission (im-) possible?”
The conference Website is at: http://ift.tt/104XnkW
The conference program is at: http://ift.tt/YschAv
Reports on some conference presentations and programs are purportedly available at lawgical.de , but that site is currently inaccessible.
Twitter hashtags for the event included #edvgt2014 and #edvgt
Click here for a storify of images and Twitter tweets from the event.
The hacker camp event on the first day of the conference appears to have been a training session on electronic security, rather than a hackathon.
HT @edvgt
Calls for papers have been posted for two legal-informatics-related mini-tracks — on E-Justice and E-Democracy/E-Participation — at ECEG 2015: European Conference on eGovernment, to be held 18-19 June 2015 in Portsmouth, England, UK.
Both calls have submission deadlines of 27 November 2014.
Here are brief excerpts from the calls:
E-Justice mini-track at ECEG 2015
Description:
[...] This mini-track seeks to examine e-justice in the context of e-democracy and e-government. Topics may include, but are not limited to:
- E-justice and social networking
- E-Justice and the legal profession
- E-Litigation
- E-Judiciary organization
- E-Discovery
- Informed decisions
[...]
e-Democracy and e-Participation mini-track at ECEG 2015
Description:
This track focuses upon the practice and potential for digital technology to revitalise and extend the democratic process. [...]
Topics may include, but are not limited to:
- The extent to which e-Democratic practice might reverse disenfranchisement and disengagement from traditional/current democratic systems.
- Innovative focuses upon the potential of e-Participation and e-Democracy to transform representative government. Egs. improving upon current e-Petitions which simply reproduce their off-line equivalent; improving consultative and deliberative processes between elections.
- Identity verification and privacy protection in e-Democratic processes such as e-Voting and agenda setting.
- The application of e-Participation within organisations and the potential responsibilities of TNCs (Transnational Corporations) in empowering the consumer-citizen.
- e-Democracy as a facilitator of the evolution and redesign of democracy into a more responsive system which actually improves on our current system rather than just reproducing it in electronic form. The need to formalise the e-Democratic tools and practices to give them legal status.
[...]
For more details, please see the calls.
The submission deadline for NAiL 2014 is 1 November 2014.
Here is an excerpt from the NAiL 2014 call:
[...] This [...] workshop again aims to bring together researchers from computational social science, computational legal theory, network science and related disciplines in order to discuss the use and usefulness of network analysis in the legal domain.
We invite papers and demonstrations of original works on the following aspects of network analysis in the legal field:
1. Analysis and visualization of networks of people and institutions: law is made by people, about and for people and institutions. These people or institutions form networks, be it academic scholars, criminals or public bodies and these networks can be detected, mapped, analysed and visualised. Can we better study institutions and their activities by analysing their internal structure or the network of their relations? Does it help in finding the ‘capo di tutti i capi’ in organized crime?
2. Analysis and visualization of the network of law: law itself forms networks. Sources of law refer to other sources of law and together constitute (part of) the core of the legal system. In the same way as above, we can represent, analyse and visualise this network. Can it help in determining the authority of case law or the likelihood a decision will be overruled? Does it shed light on complex or problematic parts of legislation? Is it possible to exploit networks visualization to support legal analysis and information retrieval?
3. Combination of the first and second aspects: people or institutions create sources of law or appear in them: Research on the network of one may shed light on the other. Two examples:
- a. Legal scholars write commentaries on proposed legislation or court decisions. Sometimes they write these together. These commentaries may provide information on the network of scholars; the position of an author in the network of scholars may provide information on the authority of the comment.
- b. The application of network analysis techniques to court decisions and proceedings is proving to be helpful in detecting criminal organizations and in analysing their structure and evolution over time.
[...]
For more details, please see the call.
Simon Fodden has published Cooperative Blogging and Access to Law , Journal of Open Access to Law , 2(1) (2014).
Here is the abstract:
Slaw (http://www.slaw.ca) has blogged for eight years to Canadian lawyers and others who work in law, regularly and explicitly supporting the work of CanLII and Lexum by offering suggestions, a platform for discussion and an opportunity to officers from both organizations to publicize developments and obtain feedback from the community. Free access to law via LIIs can be aided by the support of an effective information and discussion platform such as Slaw, the creation of which may be assisted by advice offered in this paper.
Click here for a detailed summary of the African Mining Legislation Atlas Project.
According to the summary, the project is run by the African Development Bank/Africa Legal Support Facility, and a group of universities.
Here is the abstract of the launch event:
A good legal framework is crucial to laying an adequate foundation for proper governance of the mining sector in Africa. In the face of the commodities boom and the growing trend towards transparency, several African countries have adopted new mining laws since 2001, with more revisions and new enactments expected. Many of these countries have sought comparative information and guidance on benchmark practices. There is an absence of comparative data on mining laws and no suitable templates or guidelines exist in the industry for Africa. These laws are already public documents yet their accessibility is hindered largely by lack of institutional capacity as well as a dearth of platforms for dissemination. In this light, it becomes necessary to provide a one-stop resource for African countries who are drafting new mining laws or revising existing ones. This one-stop resource aims to (i) promote transparency, accessibility and comparison of Africa’s mining laws; (ii) facilitate the preparation, revision and implementation of mining laws; and (iii) provide a living database that will catalyze research and policy debates on legal and regulatory issues.
This session presents to the general public the pilot version of the AMLA Project’s free online database of all of Africa’s mining laws and regulations with interactive features to provide comparative data, with solicitation for general user experience feedback from the audience and more specific comments from mining sector stakeholders.
Organized by Energy and Extractive Global Practice, Governance Global Practice, and Legal Vice Presidency, World Bank [...]
Michael Rubacki has published Free access to online legislation in a federation: Achievements of Australian Governments and issues remaining , Journal of Open Access to Law , 2(1) (2014).
Here is the abstract:
The paper explores the development of government provision of online access to legislation in Australia, including technologies used in the drafting/publishing process. It focuses on the more recent developments such as the use of websites as part of the actual legislative process and the near complete demise of paper products. It looks at the conflicts that arise in balancing continuing demands for traditional print-like products and developing more effective online services, and the elusiveness of more collaborative nationwide approaches.
Here is a description of the event, from the announcement:
Evolve Law: A Stanford CodeX Demo Event
Sponsored by CodeX: The Stanford Center for Legal Informatics
Thursday, October 9, 2014
5:00pm-6:00pm Reception
6:00PM-8:00PM Panel
Stanford Law School, Room 190Please join us for a discussion with founders of some of the hottest legal tech companies who will be presenting the nuts and bolts of starting a legal tech business, funding experiences, marketing and sales strategis, and brief demos of their products. LexMachina’s Owen Byrd will speak on their journey as a pioneer in this space and the panel will be moderated by Roland Vogl.
Moderator:
- Roland Vogl, Executive Director, CodeX – The Stanford Center for Legal Informatics
Confirmed Speakers:
- Owen Byrd, Chief Evangelist & General Counsel, Lex Machina
- Ned Gannon, Co-Founder & CEO, eBrevia
- Jake Heller, Co-Founder & CEO, Casetext
- Mary Juetten, Founder & CEO, Traklight
- Tony Lai, Founder & CEO, LawGives
- Daniel Lewis, CEO, Ravel Law
- Ben Longoria, Founder & CEO, Wizdocs
- Julia Shapiro, Co-founder & CEO, Hire an Esquire
- Nicole Shanahan, CEO, ClearAccess IP
[...]
For more details or to register, please see the announcement.
HT Roland Vogl
A new issue of Journal of Open Access to Law has been published (volume 2, number 1, 2014).
Here are the contents:
Stefano Leucci of the University of Trento has published Preliminary Notes on Open Data Licensing , Journal of Open Access to Law , 2(1) (2014).
The article includes a very interesting discussion of rights expression languages.
Here is the abstract:
Open data is fuel for the future economy. Opening and sharing data owned by public bodies, communities and companies has an incredible economic value. This will potentially lead our society to a new data-driven thinking paradigm. They also enable a smarter urban space where companies can provide better and innovative services. In particular, accessing to government data held by public bodies generates accountability, transparency and fosters economic growth. Two main aspects define data as open: data formats and licenses. This paper aims at listing some preliminary notes on the copyright framework in which open data are released and presenting the idea of considering licenses as metadata. Many tools, according to the semantic web paradigm, aim at enforcing this aspect, managing data exchange in a more compliance way and reducing costs for reuse of data. Finally, a research path for a new approach to digital ownership will be presented.
The event was organized by the Legislative Openness Working Group of the Open Government Partnership, as part of Global Legislative Openness Week 2014, and was moderated by Kamil Gregor of KohoVolit.eu.
The Twitter hashtag for the chat was #OpenParl2014
Click here for the event’s Website.
Click here for a storify of the chat.
Here is a description of the event, from the event Website:
To engage ordinary citizens in lawmaking, complex legislative information needs to be packaged and presented in ways that are understandable, relevant and beautiful. Activists and civic hackers are tackling this challenge, transforming the raw data available on many government portals (or in some cases, in paper documents and PDFs) into compelling narratives and useful advocacy tools. We’ll solicit information about innovative projects as well as strategies for overcoming the technical, political and social challenges of bringing data to the people.
HT @NDIgov
The event was organized by the Advisory Committee on Transparency.
Click here for a storify of photos and Twitter tweets from the event.
Here is a description of the panel, from the announcement:
Public access to law is a principle that has thrived for centuries. Without it, citizens would be powerless to navigate everyday interactions with their governments. Unfortunately, the scope of “law” has expanded rapidly and public access is struggling to keep up.
Laws passed by Congress and State legislatures are not the only documents that have the power of law. Technical standards, secret court opinions, municipal regulations, international trade documents, and more impact every American. Yet, they are often nearly impossible, if not illegal, for the public to access.
The Advisory Committee on Transparency is excited to host a conversation exploring these “secret laws” and discussing ways to boost the public’s ability to access and understand them.
Panelists:
- V. David Zvenyach, General Counsel, Council of the District of Columbia
- Gabe Rottman, Legislative Counsel and Policy Adviser, American Civil Liberties Union
- Patrice McDermott, Executive Director, OpenTheGovernment.org
- Daniel Schuman, Policy Director, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington
- Moderator: Matt Rumsey, the Sunlight Foundation
[...]
HT @stereogab
The event is organized by Seattle Legal Innovation and Technology Meetup.
Here is a description of the event, from the announcement:
For September, we’ve lined up academics doing some of the most interesting things in legal education sharing what they’re doing and their experiences pushing the envelope in an environment that’s generally resistant to change. Here are our panelists, their affiliations and what they’ll be sharing with us:
Ryan Calo – UW Law School – Talking about his class Robotics, Law, and Policy (http://ift.tt/XSs8aY) that has an emphasis on law schools. It’s a deeply interdisciplinary seminar running for the third year this spring.
Tanina Rostain – Talking about the Iron Tech Law Program at Georgetown Law in which student teams show off apps built in our Technology Innovation and Law Practice practicum.
Dazza Greenwood – Legal Scientist at the MIT Media Lab. Yes, MIT. Yes, he’s a lawyer working there. No, MIT doesn’t have a law school. Dazza works in Sandy Pentland’s Human Dynamics laboratory and is pursuing some very innovative projects in the privacy and open data spaces.
This will be a fascinating look at the some cutting edge projects and pedagogical techniques in the law. [...]
For more details, please see the announcement.
Ursula Gorham of the University of Maryland has published Facilitating Access to Legal Information by Self-Represented Litigants: An Exploratory Case Study of the People’s Law Library of Maryland , Journal of Open Access to Law , 2(1) (2014).
Here is the abstract:
In recent years, through the development and implementation of programs specifically designed to assist self-represented litigants (SRLs), courts across the United States have demonstrated a renewed commitment to the principle of equal access to justice. The steady growth in the number of litigants representing themselves presents a challenge; courts, however, are increasingly relying upon technology to meet the needs of this growing population. This article offers an in-depth examination of the People’s Law Library (PLL), a statewide legal information and self-help website maintained by the Maryland State Law Library that seeks to connect SRLs with a wide range of resources to help them better understand the legal issues relevant to their situation as well as the court processes and procedures that must be followed. Based upon data collected through interviews with PLL stakeholders and a review of documents related to the development and implementation of PLL, this case study is guided by two key research questions:1) How does PLL facilitate self-represented litigants’ access to legal information, and 2) What challenges has PLL faced in facilitating this access? The paper then offers several recommendations, based upon findings from this study, for using statewide legal information websites to facilitate improved access to legal information by SRLs in the United States.
Code the Deal, a legal transactional hackathon, was held 19-21 September 2014, in New York City.
The event was organized by Legal Hackers and Nixon Peabody.
Click here for descriptions of projects worked on at the event.
Twitter hashtags for the event included #codethedeal and #legalhack
Click here for a storify of images and Twitter tweets from the event.
Here are the results of the event:
Here is a description, from the event’s Website:
Code the Deal is a hackathon that will take place on September 19 to 21, 2014, at Dev Bootcamp‘s NYC Lower Manhattan campus.
Participants will compete to create tech-enabled products that will improve transactional legal practice–tools that aid in counseling businesses through the legal and regulatory hurdles of consummating a sale or purchase. We believe that this is a huge, untapped market for entrepreneurship. Join us as we build some amazing products and compete for generous prizes.
What’s at Stake?
Grand Prize: $2500
Second Prize: $1000
Third Prize: $500
All participants will be invited for drinks and food at our opening reception on the evening of September 19th. We will also take care of your lunch while working (September 20-21). [...]
Resources and other details are available at the Hacker League site for the event.
For more details, please see the event Website.
The application deadline appears to be 15 December 2014.
A video describing the fellowship is available at: http://ift.tt/1Ds4qmX
Here is a description of the fellowship, from the announcement:
[...] I am delighted to announce the establishment of the Free Law Innovation Fellow.
The Innovation Fellow is as much an experiment as anything else: can developers, working in the open and side-by-side with practicing lawyers, make government work better and more accessible? Can lawyers learn to improve their practices by observing and integrating collaborative methods and tools that developers have mastered over the years? And can we do this in a sustainable way, engaging fully with the open-source community?
My theory is that developers can help make government data more accessible—through proactive disclosure of datasets and through smarter internal policies. My theory is that developers can build tools to help government lawyers work more effectively and with a greater focus on serving the public interest.
Let me be blunt: if my theory is right, the Innovation Fellow can be a complete game-changer for the public sector. But, for this to work, we need the right person for the job. We need a civic-hacker-in-residence who has the ability to understand a problem, ship code, and to get the job done. Most importantly, we need a person who wants to make a difference—in our nation’s capital and beyond.
If you are that person, please consider applying to be the first ever Free Law Innovation Fellow. I look forward to working with you. [...]
For more details, please see the announcement.
HT @JoshData
Margaret Hagan , Alex Gavis , and Kursat Ozenc have posted Designing legal communications that resonate , at VoxPopuLII .
The post describes “a Legal Communication Design class at Stanford’s Institute of Design, or the d.school” in May 2014.
The class involved training students in design principles, and then having them conduct a “design sprint” in which they developed design approaches and prototypes in response to several different legal use cases, involving the provision of legal notice.
The authors conclude:
[...] Now we are planning a follow-up workshop with a more specific group of participants: lawyers who work on legal communication challenges like those in our use cases, and designers who have an interest in engaging, resonant communications. Our plan is to take the models and prototypes that emerged out of the class, and to work with the lawyers and designers to validate or upend these initial drafts. We hope to hone a more definite set of good legal communication design patterns, which can be useful to those making complex information design.
After this next-stage workshop, we are considering a controlled test of several of the most promising concepts to determine whether they have the desired effect of making contracting more understandable and simpler. [...]
For more details and images, please see the complete post.
HT @LIICornell
Here is an excerpt from the article:
[...] “The Administrative Office is working to restore electronic access to these cases by converting the docket sheets in these cases to PDF format which will allow us to make them available in PACER,” said David Sellers, assistant director for public affairs at the AO, in a statement to the Washington Post. “This process will be completed in the four appellate courts by the end of October. We are also working to provide a similar solution for the dockets on the legacy system in the California Central bankruptcy court.” [...]
For more details, please see the complete article.
Click here for information about the deletion of the records.
HT @sglassmeyer
