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Artificial Intelligence Update: Harvard now offering free access to 6.5 million US law cases!
November 17, 2018
Harvard announced that “The Library Innovation Lab at the Harvard Law School Library has completed its Caselaw Access Project, an endeavour to digitize every reported state and federal US legal case from the 1600s to last summer.” The announcement entitled “Harvard just put more than 6 million court cases online to give legal AI a boost” included these details “Between 2013 and 2018, the Library digitized over 40 million pages of U.S. court decisions” to help AI, and explained the following: Why...
November 17, 2018
Harvard announced that “The Library Innovation Lab at the Harvard Law School Library has completed its Caselaw Access Project, an endeavour to digitize every reported state and federal US legal case from the 1600s to last summer.” The announcement entitled “Harvard just put more than 6 million court cases online to give legal AI a boost” included these details “Between 2013 and 2018, the Library digitized over 40 million pages of U.S. court decisions” to help AI, and explained the following: Why...
Google has enlisted NASA to help it prove quantum supremacy within months
November 17, 2018
Google wants NASA to help it prove quantum supremacy within a matter of months, according to a Space Act Agreement obtained by MIT Technology Review. Quantum supremacy is the idea, so far undemonstrated, that a sufficiently powerful quantum computer will be able to complete certain mathematical calculations that classical supercomputers cannot. Proving it would be a big deal because it could kick-start a market for devices that might one day crack previously unbreakable codes, boost AI, improve...
November 17, 2018
Google wants NASA to help it prove quantum supremacy within a matter of months, according to a Space Act Agreement obtained by MIT Technology Review. Quantum supremacy is the idea, so far undemonstrated, that a sufficiently powerful quantum computer will be able to complete certain mathematical calculations that classical supercomputers cannot. Proving it would be a big deal because it could kick-start a market for devices that might one day crack previously unbreakable codes, boost AI, improve...
Diffusion of Legal Innovations: The Case of Israeli Class Actions
November 16, 2018
Under the standard model in law and economics, agents maximize expected profit subject to constraints set by legal rules. In such a model, the expected reaction to legal innovations is immediate. However, this is not what we observe after class actions have been introduced into Israeli law. For a long time, the new procedure was rarely utilized. Then, the adoption process gained momentum. We discuss alternative explanations for this phenomenon. We find that class action filings are explained not only...
November 16, 2018
Under the standard model in law and economics, agents maximize expected profit subject to constraints set by legal rules. In such a model, the expected reaction to legal innovations is immediate. However, this is not what we observe after class actions have been introduced into Israeli law. For a long time, the new procedure was rarely utilized. Then, the adoption process gained momentum. We discuss alternative explanations for this phenomenon. We find that class action filings are explained not only...
The Rationale for Motions in the Design of Adjudication
November 15, 2018
The conduct of adjudication is often influenced by motions––requests made by litigants to modify the course of adjudication. The question studied in this article is why adjudication should be designed so as to permit the use of motions. The answer developed is that litigants will naturally know a great deal about their specific matter, whereas a court will ordinarily know little except to the degree that the court has already invested effort to appreciate it. By giving litigants the right to bring...
November 15, 2018
The conduct of adjudication is often influenced by motions––requests made by litigants to modify the course of adjudication. The question studied in this article is why adjudication should be designed so as to permit the use of motions. The answer developed is that litigants will naturally know a great deal about their specific matter, whereas a court will ordinarily know little except to the degree that the court has already invested effort to appreciate it. By giving litigants the right to bring...
Making Firms Liable for Consumers’ Mistaken Beliefs: Applications to the U.S. Mortgage and Credit Card Markets
November 14, 2018
In theory, an introduction of a liability on firms, related to the difference between consumers’ beliefs and the effective terms of purchase/contract, can improve both social welfare and consumer surplus, depending on the relative magnitudes of: (1) decrease in the gap between the beliefs and the effective terms of the contract due to the introduction of the liability, (2) output decrease or price increase, and (3) efficiency of administering the liability (and the amount transferred). I do not find...
November 14, 2018
In theory, an introduction of a liability on firms, related to the difference between consumers’ beliefs and the effective terms of purchase/contract, can improve both social welfare and consumer surplus, depending on the relative magnitudes of: (1) decrease in the gap between the beliefs and the effective terms of the contract due to the introduction of the liability, (2) output decrease or price increase, and (3) efficiency of administering the liability (and the amount transferred). I do not find...
Bankruptcy Claims Trading
November 13, 2018
A robust secondary market has emerged over the past 20 years in the debt of Chapter 11 firms. Critics worry that the trading associated with this market has undermined bankruptcy governance by forcing managers to negotiate with shifting groups of activist investors in the Chapter 11 bargaining process. This article investigates whether this is a common problem and concludes that it is not. Although trading of bond debt is pervasive, the activist groups that tend to participate in negotiations usually...
November 13, 2018
A robust secondary market has emerged over the past 20 years in the debt of Chapter 11 firms. Critics worry that the trading associated with this market has undermined bankruptcy governance by forcing managers to negotiate with shifting groups of activist investors in the Chapter 11 bargaining process. This article investigates whether this is a common problem and concludes that it is not. Although trading of bond debt is pervasive, the activist groups that tend to participate in negotiations usually...
New Supercomputer Mimics Human Brain, Researchers Say
November 10, 2018
A new supercomputer is able to mimic how the human brain functions, and can perform 200 quadrillion actions simultaneously. The Spiking Neural Network Architecture, or SpiNNaker, went online last week for the first time at the University of Manchester in Britain. The computer can model more neurons in real time than any machine on the planet, developers say. "SpiNNaker completely re-thinks the way conventional computers work. We've essentially created a machine that works more like a brain...
November 10, 2018
A new supercomputer is able to mimic how the human brain functions, and can perform 200 quadrillion actions simultaneously. The Spiking Neural Network Architecture, or SpiNNaker, went online last week for the first time at the University of Manchester in Britain. The computer can model more neurons in real time than any machine on the planet, developers say. "SpiNNaker completely re-thinks the way conventional computers work. We've essentially created a machine that works more like a brain...
This AI Startup Generates Legal Papers Without Lawyers, and Suggests a Ruling
November 10, 2018
An artificial intelligence application (app) developed by Ignacio Raffa, a startup founder from Buenos Aires, can now draft a ruling on a non-complex case in seconds, going so far as recommending a ruling to the judge. The app was developed in collaboration with the local district attorney's office. The app, Prometea, is being used for stuff like taxi license disputes, not murder trials, but it’s a significant automation that is beneficial to the city's overworked justice system. The Buenos...
November 10, 2018
An artificial intelligence application (app) developed by Ignacio Raffa, a startup founder from Buenos Aires, can now draft a ruling on a non-complex case in seconds, going so far as recommending a ruling to the judge. The app was developed in collaboration with the local district attorney's office. The app, Prometea, is being used for stuff like taxi license disputes, not murder trials, but it’s a significant automation that is beneficial to the city's overworked justice system. The Buenos...
Project Provides Access to All U.S. Case Law, Covering 360 Years
November 8, 2018
Launching today is the capstone to a massive project executed over the last three years to digitize all U.S. case law, some 6.4 million cases dating all the way back to 1658, a span of 360 years. The Caselaw Access Project site launching today makes all published U.S. court decisions freely available to the public in a consistent digitized format. The site is the product of a partnership started in 2015 between Harvard Law School’s Library Innovation Lab and legal research service Ravel...
November 8, 2018
Launching today is the capstone to a massive project executed over the last three years to digitize all U.S. case law, some 6.4 million cases dating all the way back to 1658, a span of 360 years. The Caselaw Access Project site launching today makes all published U.S. court decisions freely available to the public in a consistent digitized format. The site is the product of a partnership started in 2015 between Harvard Law School’s Library Innovation Lab and legal research service Ravel...
Bloomberg Law Debuts New Attorney Analytics Tool to Better Evaluate Outside Counsel
November 7, 2018
The new Attorney Analytics tool will provide stats on over 100,000 lawyers, from companies and cases they’ve represented...
November 7, 2018
The new Attorney Analytics tool will provide stats on over 100,000 lawyers, from companies and cases they’ve represented...
