Passwords have been around since the early days of mainframe computing. Believe it or not, passwords were not originally designed to prove identity. The betting money is that computer passwords first showed up at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the mid-1960s in order to track time when using a mainframe computer: The Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS).

Today, passwords are used to help authenticate the identity of the computer user. From a security perspective, the problem is that people use crummy passwords, forget them and even reuse them across multiple systems. At the end of the day, if someone has . . . [more]

Jim Calloway, Director of the Oklahoma Bar Association’s Management Program, frequently speaks with us about the future of law. Recently, Jim recorded a Legal Talk Network podcast with Sharon which bears the same name as this article. You can find the podcast at https://legaltalknetwork.com/podcasts/digital-edge/2020/12/whats-on-the-horizon-for-law-firms-in-2021/.

The authors continue the discussion below.

We were glad to see the backside of 2020. But 2021 carries many uncertainties with it and that makes predictions risky. Fortunately, we are not averse to risk‑taking and it is a worthwhile effort to make predictions, especially about things we’re fairly certain will come to pass.

One thing . . . [more]

Artificial intelligence (AI) is sometimes thought of as a cure for the complexities of the world, but perhaps even more often as a threat to humans. Stephen Hawking said that “[w]hereas the short-term impact of AI depends on who controls it, the long-term impact depends on whether it can be controlled at all.”

At a somewhat less general level, a good deal of concern has been expressed about the impact of artificial intelligence on the law, and notably on the criminal justice system. My own musings are here. That article considered the evolution of AI from painstaking mimicry of . . . [more]

Over the past year of researching legal technology and learning more systemic ways of thinking about the future, I have become quite interested in the discipline of futurism especially the work of Amy Webb. What most interests me about it is looking at the present and trying to extrapolate what current trends mean for the future in the short, medium, and long terms. I am less interested in looking out many years and saying what I think will happen without showing the work of how I got there, so here is my view of the legal technology, practice, and information . . . [more]

The fear of being replaced by “robots” is not unique to our profession. Automation is predicted to impact even highly skilled workers. But the legal profession is well placed to ride the waves of artificially intelligent systems with confidence rather than panic.[1] We should not be concerned about being replaced—it should be our A.I. assistants that should concern us, particularly those marketed as case or litigation prediction tools.

The legal profession should embrace AI tools that improve efficiencies, access to justice and results for our clients. However, we must set thoughtful norms about how new and old lawyers alike . . . [more]

Since the onset of COVID-19 and the requirements for physical distancing, the Canadian court system has been criticized for being archaic, outdated, out of touch with the modern era and too deeply traditional. Most commentators have vigorously pushed for our criminal courts to utilize videoconferencing technologies to deliver justice – arguing that using videoconferencing technology platforms to conduct court business will be more beneficial to Canadians, ease the growing backlog of cases, reduce cost and improve access to justice.

As a result, courts across Canada have increasingly accepted videoconferencing technology as a fair and efficient way to move judicial proceedings . . . [more]

2020 saw unprecedented adoption of legal technology and legal innovation, however, one of the more surprising developments are legal regulatory sandboxes, introduced first in the state of Utah in the United States and now in Canada, by the Law Society of British Columbia. The regulatory sandbox model allows for the experimentation of new alternative business models, including non-lawyer ownership and fee sharing, in a controlled environment under the regulator’s supervision.

The Utah Supreme Court two-year pilot of a regulatory sandbox (a regulatory body under the oversight of the Supreme Court to be called the Office of Legal Services Innovation, . . . [more]

Over the past decade, many commentators, myself included, have argued that lawyers should have a duty of technological competence. This duty now exists: in October 2019, the Federation of Law Societies of Canada amended its Model Code rule on competence to include explicit reference to technological competence. Several provincial and territorial law societies have incorporated this amendment into their respective codes, and more will hopefully soon follow suit.

The fact that there now exists a formal duty of technological competence raises the question of what, exactly, does this duty entail? What does this duty require from lawyers? In a strict . . . [more]

Virtual private networks (VPN) are very standard these days. But they are riddled with vulnerabilities – and subject to a “man in the middle attack.” They have wreaked havoc in 2020 in a work-from-home environment.

Enter zero trust network access (ZTNA).

An October 2020 Forrester study (commissioned by Cloudflare) offered some key findings.

Working from home compelled firms to transform how they operated in the cloud. However, 80% of the IT decision-makers interviewed said their companies were unprepared to make the transformation. Existing IT practices made it difficult to support employee productivity without security compromises.

As a result, 76% of . . . [more]

I’m no palaeontologist, but being the father of a 7-year-old boy, I talk about dinosaurs more than the average human. My son doesn’t necessarily have that of a great interest in our prehistoric friends themselves, but his thirst for knowledge about the circumstances of their disappearance is seemingly insatiable.

Those father-son discussions about the extinction of dinosaurs led me down a Wikipedia rabbit hole only to discover the existence of such a thing as the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary. This boundary is a line of dark dust with high concentrations of iridium, which, according to the leading hypothesis, came from the . . . [more]

In March 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic changed our legal world the way no one could have imagined. Our courthouse went from a beehive of litigation activities to a silent graveyard. Practice directives containing emergency measures were issued and activated to deal with the change. Our civil litigation system that historically relied on an in-person process to undertake almost every task – from the filling and service of litigation documents to routine chambers applications and trials – suddenly moved to the online world built on technologies.

The legal profession was forced to adopt technologies to address administration and litigation needs at . . . [more]

Recidivism risk assessment is the process of determining the likelihood that an accused, convicted, or incarcerated persons will reoffend. The process is aimed at assisting in the determination of the appropriate limitation on the freedom of the subject. With innovation in technology especially in the area of artificial intelligence (AI), recidivism risk assessment tools built on AI technology are now well-developed and used in the criminal justice system. Algorithmic tools are increasingly being used in the Canadian criminal justice system in pre-trial, sentencing, and post-sentencing phases in predicting the future criminal behaviour of accused, convicted, or incarcerated persons. The increasing . . . [more]