Jim Doppke on the Ethics of Legal Tech and the Duty to Supervise Robots (2019)
Technically Legal - A Legal Technology and Innovation Podcast
Release Date: 12/22/2021
If Data is the New Currency, Where Does Law and Regulation Fit In? (Michael Clark - Head of Digital Transformation & Futurist, Mastercard)
Technically Legal - A Legal Technology and Innovation Podcast
This episode is a conversation with He discusses his upcoming book "Data Revolution, The New Currency of You" and what he believes will be a new paradigm in data ownership–that we will actually own our own data and benefit from its value. He also examines what role the law and regulation should play in it. Michael and many others like him, believe that data is going to become a new currency and that to date, we have overlooked its value. Consumers have given up most of their control and access to this value because we have been too focused on what we were getting in exchange its use –i.e....
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Colin Levy Discusses His New Book The Legal Tech Ecosystem & the Skills Needed to Succeed in Legal Tech
Technically Legal - A Legal Technology and Innovation Podcast
In this episode Colin Levy shares insights from his new book, , his journey into legal tech, and his role at contract lifecycle management company, as Head of Legal and Chief Evangelist. Conversation highlights: Colin’s journey into legal tech: Colin shares how he first got into legal tech during his time as a paralegal at a big law firm in New York, his decision to work for a year before attending law school and his choice to work in an in-house legal department after graduation. Colin's role at Malbek: As the Director of Legal and the Chief Evangelist at Malbek, Colin's day-to-day...
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Professor Tonya Evans (Penn State Dickinson Law) Demystifies Crypto and Debunks Blockchain Myths
Technically Legal - A Legal Technology and Innovation Podcast
visits Technically Legal to talk about her book . Professor Evans has pretty much held every job in legal from judicial clerk, to Big Law lawyer and now legal educator. She is also the host of the which focuses on Web3 and how it will impact the future of work, wealth and creativity. In this episode, Professor Evans talks about her journey from risk averse crypto doubter to blockchain believer. She emphasizes the importance of lawyers staying ahead of the curve in the rapidly evolving world of technology and the need for more education and awareness around crypto and blockchain, not...
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Will This Legal Tech Startup Kill the Billable Hour and Bring Transparency to Legal Billing? (Scott & Digby Leigh - AltFee)
Technically Legal - A Legal Technology and Innovation Podcast
Despite much ballyhoo and countless articles about them, alternative fee arrangements, or AFAs, have yet to gain widespread traction and the billable hour still reigns supreme for legal billing. Enter the Leigh brothers, Scott and Digby, and their new legal tech startup, . The company’s stated goal is encouraging legal professionals to break free of hourly pricing and move to AFAs by using the app to help scope and price legal projects. The brothers point out that the traditional billable hour pricing model doesn't provide certainty for clients and that AFAs will become more...
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How a Start-Up’s Legal Bills Led to Spellbook, an AI Co-Pilot for Transactional Lawyers (Scott Stevenson – Co-Founder)
Technically Legal - A Legal Technology and Innovation Podcast
This episode is a conversation with Spellbook co-founder Scott Stevenson about intersection of technology and creativity. Spellbook is a AI contract co-pilot for transactional lawyers that plugs into Microsoft Word. Despite founding a legal technology company, Scott is not a lawyer but is computer engineer by training. As a kid Scott was into video games and in fourth grade he talked his parents into getting him a computer because he wanted to figure out how to create them. By middle school he was building websites and eventually landed an internship at Electronic Arts. Scott is also...
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Using Agile Project Management Methodology to ID Bottlenecks and Streamline Legal Workflows (John Grant, The Agile Attorney)
Technically Legal - A Legal Technology and Innovation Podcast
John Grant talks about how legal teams can adopt Agile and Kanban project management methodologies to optimize workflows, correct bottlenecks and increase client satisfaction. John is a lawyer and the founder of The Agile Attorney consultancy. As John explains, the traditional project management method is waterfall. A technique often used by technology companies, involving a sequential approach where each stage is dependent on the completion of the previous one. But John is a proponent of the newer, Agile methodology, which emerged from the software development community. It is a flexible...
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How a Visual Impairment Led to the Founding of a Contract Drafting Software Company (Feargus MacDaeid, Co-Founder of Definely)
Technically Legal - A Legal Technology and Innovation Podcast
At an early age, Feargus MacDaeid, the founder of legal tech company , was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, which is a rare eye disease that breaks down cells in the retina slowly over time causing vision loss. Until he got to college to study computer science, Feargus’ vision was decent, but at university, it began to deteriorate and eventually went blind. After college he landed a couple of tech jobs but ultimately decided to go to law school. After law school, Feargus took jobs at two Magic Circle Firms in London, Allen & Overy and Freshfields where he was working...
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How to Include Design Thinking and Project Management Principles in Legal Work (Katherine Porter, The Resourceful Lawyer)
Technically Legal - A Legal Technology and Innovation Podcast
This episode is a conversation with Katherine Porter about her journey from practicing law to founding her own company, Resourceful Lawyer which is a consultancy helping legal teams implement project management techniques into their legal work. Katherine discusses her unique approach to problem-solving in the legal field, which involves design thinking and project management principles. Katherine explains the importance of lawyers understanding client needs, the process of workflow mapping, and the challenges of implementing new processes in law firms. Katherine also emphasizes that empathy...
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Best of 2023: Copyright Law & Artificial Intelligence: Is Training AI With Other’s Data Fair Use – Professor Mark Lemley (Stanford Law)
Technically Legal - A Legal Technology and Innovation Podcast
As we close out 2023, we are replaying some of our most listened to episodes. Not surprisingly, AI was the hot topic this year and as its acceptance grows, so to tough questions, like whether AI developers need permission to use copyrighted works and other IP before using it to train artificial intelligence? In a very popular episode, Professor Mark Lemley of Stanford explained whey he does not think so because he believes that copyrighted works used to train AI fall should under the fair use exception to copyright law. Professor Lemley is the Director of the Stanford Program in Law, Science...
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Best of 2023: On Taking Typing out of Litigation (Automating Legal Drafting with AI) Nathan Walter (CEO Briefpoint)
Technically Legal - A Legal Technology and Innovation Podcast
In one of 2023's most listened to episodes, Nathan Walter, founder of , joins Technically Legal to explain how his company is using technology and artificial intelligence to automate routine legal drafting tasks. A good portion of lawyers’ time and those helping them is copying or re-using prior work. This is especially true in litigation and especially in discovery. Thankfully more and more apps have been developed that help automate the creation of legal documents. Historically, these programs have been form based and users populated documents by selecting choices from a...
info_outlineLegal ethics attorney Jim Doppke returns for an encore appearance to discuss the impact that legal tech and legal innovation have on the Rules of Professional Conduct and other rules that govern how lawyers practice law.
Jim explains how Model Rules of Professional Conduct 1.1 (Lawyer’s Duty of Competence) and 5.3 (Responsibilities Regarding Nonlawyer Assistance) are implicated by advances in legal technology and legal innovation.
A comment to Rule 1.1 (and adopted by most states) says that as part of a lawyer’s duty of competence, lawyers must stay abreast of changes in technology. MRPC 5.3 states that lawyers must actively supervise “non-lawyer” assistance they engage to help out on legal matters. Historically, this meant that lawyers needed to supervise others lending them a hand–like a paralegal.
However, Jim points out that the rule specifically relates to “assistance” and not just “assistants”. This is significant, because certain legal tech, like artificial intelligence (AI), is really non-lawyer “assistance.” So, as Jim points out, if lawyers are going to use AI, they must supervise the training of the algorithms to ensure accuracy, just like they are obligated to supervise the work of their paralegals and other assistants to make sure their work is accurate.
In a similar vein, Jim points out that as the use of ALSPs (alternative legal service providers) increases, there too is another situation in which lawyers must supervise work done by those who may not be attorneys.