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Artificial Intelligence for Attorneys: No, Not a New Robot Overlord
July 2, 2017
The most important AI-related technology for the legal industry is natural language processing. This refers to the ability of computers to recognize not just the mechanics but the meaning of written and spoken language, especially in the context of documents as a whole. A number of tech startups provide law firms with compelling products that employ natural language processing. Ravel Law is a startup that offers a case analytics tool that analyzes the language contained in case law and allows...
July 2, 2017
The most important AI-related technology for the legal industry is natural language processing. This refers to the ability of computers to recognize not just the mechanics but the meaning of written and spoken language, especially in the context of documents as a whole. A number of tech startups provide law firms with compelling products that employ natural language processing. Ravel Law is a startup that offers a case analytics tool that analyzes the language contained in case law and allows...
The Machine Intelligence Behind Gboard
July 1, 2017
Most people spend a significant amount of time each day using mobile-device keyboards: composing emails, texting, engaging in social media, and more. Yet, mobile keyboards are still cumbersome to handle. The average user is roughly 35% slower typing on a mobile device than on a physical keyboard. To change that, we recently provided many exciting improvements to Gboard for Android, working towards our vision of creating an intelligent mechanism that enables faster input while offering suggestions...
July 1, 2017
Most people spend a significant amount of time each day using mobile-device keyboards: composing emails, texting, engaging in social media, and more. Yet, mobile keyboards are still cumbersome to handle. The average user is roughly 35% slower typing on a mobile device than on a physical keyboard. To change that, we recently provided many exciting improvements to Gboard for Android, working towards our vision of creating an intelligent mechanism that enables faster input while offering suggestions...
Google Scholar “Classic Papers” Released Today
July 1, 2017
Today Google Scholar released a new collection of "Classic Papers: Articles That Have Stood The Test of Time." The new collection appears to gather the most cited papers in each year published approximately 10 years ago (2006). Although it's a bit "chronocentric" to label papers from 2006 as "classic" and having "stood the test of time," it's still nice that Google brings together the most cited papers in each discipline. In the law category, the top paper is Jeremy Waldron's The Core of the Case...
July 1, 2017
Today Google Scholar released a new collection of "Classic Papers: Articles That Have Stood The Test of Time." The new collection appears to gather the most cited papers in each year published approximately 10 years ago (2006). Although it's a bit "chronocentric" to label papers from 2006 as "classic" and having "stood the test of time," it's still nice that Google brings together the most cited papers in each discipline. In the law category, the top paper is Jeremy Waldron's The Core of the Case...
Using Google Scholar to Conduct Free Legal Research
June 30, 2017
Using Google Scholar to Conduct Free Legal Research. Don't pay for legal research until you read this great article by Nicole...
June 30, 2017
Using Google Scholar to Conduct Free Legal Research. Don't pay for legal research until you read this great article by Nicole...
Humor Sometimes Makes Stressful Situations Better
June 30, 2017
Humor can be a great mechanism for dealing with stress. Jokes and witty conversation can make you feel closer to the people around you. In addition, a key element of jokes is that they force you to look at the same situation in different ways. Puns, for example, involve taking a word or phrase and recognizing that it can have two distinct meanings. This process of looking at situations in more than one way can also be applied to stressful situations themselves. Reappraising a difficult situation...
June 30, 2017
Humor can be a great mechanism for dealing with stress. Jokes and witty conversation can make you feel closer to the people around you. In addition, a key element of jokes is that they force you to look at the same situation in different ways. Puns, for example, involve taking a word or phrase and recognizing that it can have two distinct meanings. This process of looking at situations in more than one way can also be applied to stressful situations themselves. Reappraising a difficult situation...
Trump Administration Gives First Peek Into Its Arbitration Strategy
June 30, 2017
In a first indication of the Trump Administration’s stance on consumer arbitration, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) this week issued a new proposed rule that rolls back the Obama Administration’s regulation, which precluded pre-dispute arbitration agreements in nursing homes. (Too many negatives in that sentence… in other words, the Trump Administration wants to ensure that nursing homes can have arbitration agreements in their admission documents.) For context,...
June 30, 2017
In a first indication of the Trump Administration’s stance on consumer arbitration, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) this week issued a new proposed rule that rolls back the Obama Administration’s regulation, which precluded pre-dispute arbitration agreements in nursing homes. (Too many negatives in that sentence… in other words, the Trump Administration wants to ensure that nursing homes can have arbitration agreements in their admission documents.) For context,...
Grammatical Rules Shed Little Light on Contract Provision
June 29, 2017
More fun with ambiguity! I like this recent case out of Pennsylvania, BL Partners Group, L.P. v. Interbroad, LLC, No. 465 EDA 2016, because it really delves into grammatical rules in a way that pleases the 13-year-old me who enjoyed learning how to diagram sentences. (I did. I can't help it. I admit it publicly here.) The appellant leased billboard space on the rooftop of a building owned by the appellee. The appellee decided to demolish the building and sent the appellant a termination notice....
June 29, 2017
More fun with ambiguity! I like this recent case out of Pennsylvania, BL Partners Group, L.P. v. Interbroad, LLC, No. 465 EDA 2016, because it really delves into grammatical rules in a way that pleases the 13-year-old me who enjoyed learning how to diagram sentences. (I did. I can't help it. I admit it publicly here.) The appellant leased billboard space on the rooftop of a building owned by the appellee. The appellee decided to demolish the building and sent the appellant a termination notice....
“Good Cop/Bad Cop“ When Negotiating
June 29, 2017
The reason encountering both a “good” and “bad” person could be more effective at negotiations instead of just a “good” person or a “bad” person is the psychological contrast effect. According to Bob Sutton, Professor of Management Science and Engineering and a Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford, this means that the impact of the carrots offered by the good cop seems that much sweeter and the sticks used by the bad cop harsher. Sutton says research shows that if this...
June 29, 2017
The reason encountering both a “good” and “bad” person could be more effective at negotiations instead of just a “good” person or a “bad” person is the psychological contrast effect. According to Bob Sutton, Professor of Management Science and Engineering and a Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford, this means that the impact of the carrots offered by the good cop seems that much sweeter and the sticks used by the bad cop harsher. Sutton says research shows that if this...
SCOTUS Overturns Kentucky Supreme Court in Nursing Home Arbitration Case
June 29, 2017
The Supreme Court of the United States has reversed the Kentucky Supreme Court’s decision in a nursing home arbitration dispute. Kindred Nursing Centers Limited Partnership v. Clark, No. 16-32, (May 15, 2017), initially consisted of three separate cases where a family member who held the power of attorney for an individual who was being admitted to a Kentucky nursing home signed a pre-dispute binding arbitration agreement as part of the admission documents. In each case, the family member later...
June 29, 2017
The Supreme Court of the United States has reversed the Kentucky Supreme Court’s decision in a nursing home arbitration dispute. Kindred Nursing Centers Limited Partnership v. Clark, No. 16-32, (May 15, 2017), initially consisted of three separate cases where a family member who held the power of attorney for an individual who was being admitted to a Kentucky nursing home signed a pre-dispute binding arbitration agreement as part of the admission documents. In each case, the family member later...
Empirical Study Shows Diagrams Made a Contract Easier to Use and Understand
June 28, 2017
Stefania Passera and her colleagues performed an experimental study to assess the value of diagrams in a complex business-to-business contract. They provided 122 subjects, experts on contracts drawn from an international pool with a wide variety of mother tongues, two versions of the same commercial contract in English. They were identical except that the version the “treatment” group used included diagrams, and the one the “control” group used was text only. Participants performed location...
June 28, 2017
Stefania Passera and her colleagues performed an experimental study to assess the value of diagrams in a complex business-to-business contract. They provided 122 subjects, experts on contracts drawn from an international pool with a wide variety of mother tongues, two versions of the same commercial contract in English. They were identical except that the version the “treatment” group used included diagrams, and the one the “control” group used was text only. Participants performed location...
