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The Lasting 6%: My Impressions Of The 2017 Legaltech Show
February 22, 2017
But, what I’ve been asking myself in the two weeks following Legaltech is why certain things were sticking out in my memory and others had already faded. In other words, what made it into my 6%? So with no further ado, here are my impressions from three days at Legaltech. 2. The cloud is here. I know this because this year NO ONE was talking about the cloud. That said, it’s crazy finding out how many Fortune 500 cloud companies keep their own data behind the firewall. That feels...
February 22, 2017
But, what I’ve been asking myself in the two weeks following Legaltech is why certain things were sticking out in my memory and others had already faded. In other words, what made it into my 6%? So with no further ado, here are my impressions from three days at Legaltech. 2. The cloud is here. I know this because this year NO ONE was talking about the cloud. That said, it’s crazy finding out how many Fortune 500 cloud companies keep their own data behind the firewall. That feels...
EEOC’s 2016 Stats in Texas
February 21, 2017
As a lawyer who frequently deals with EEOC charges/responses the EEOC’s yearly statistics always provide some interesting...
February 21, 2017
As a lawyer who frequently deals with EEOC charges/responses the EEOC’s yearly statistics always provide some interesting...
ICSID Orders Ecuador to Pay $380 Million to U.S. Oil Exploration Company Over Investment Treaty Violations
February 21, 2017
An International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (“ICSID”) arbitration tribunal has ordered the Republic of Ecuador to pay a ConocoPhillips’ wholly-owned subsidiary nearly $380 million related to Ecuador’s breach of a bilateral investment treaty (“BIT”) with the United States. In Burlington Resources Inc., et al. v. Republic of Ecuador, No. ARB/08/5 (ICSID, February 7, 2017), Burlington sought arbitration before the ICSID over two production-sharing contracts related to oil exploration...
February 21, 2017
An International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (“ICSID”) arbitration tribunal has ordered the Republic of Ecuador to pay a ConocoPhillips’ wholly-owned subsidiary nearly $380 million related to Ecuador’s breach of a bilateral investment treaty (“BIT”) with the United States. In Burlington Resources Inc., et al. v. Republic of Ecuador, No. ARB/08/5 (ICSID, February 7, 2017), Burlington sought arbitration before the ICSID over two production-sharing contracts related to oil exploration...
Seyfarth Shaw Puts ‘Software Robots’ to Use in Automation Push
February 21, 2017
Seyfarth Shaw is already well-known in the legal industry as a pioneer of using business process improvement to make their work more efficient. Now the firm is breaking ground with the use of “software robots.” Seyfarth will announce Tuesday a licensing deal with Blue Prism, which makes software that it says can automate almost any task a human performs on a computer at one-third the cost of a person. Seyfarth and Blue Prism Group plc, which has about 200 customers including large banks and accounting...
February 21, 2017
Seyfarth Shaw is already well-known in the legal industry as a pioneer of using business process improvement to make their work more efficient. Now the firm is breaking ground with the use of “software robots.” Seyfarth will announce Tuesday a licensing deal with Blue Prism, which makes software that it says can automate almost any task a human performs on a computer at one-third the cost of a person. Seyfarth and Blue Prism Group plc, which has about 200 customers including large banks and accounting...
Lex Machina’s New Analytics Apps Explore Damages and Parties
February 20, 2017
Damages Explorer The Damages Explorer is unlike any of Lex Machina’s other apps. It enables users to search, analyze and compare damage awards. It includes the capability to analyze damages awarded by a particular judge, in a certain court and of a certain type, such as attorneys’ fees or infringement damages. Parties Comparator The Parties Comparator would be familiar to anyone who has used either the Courts & Judges Comparator or the Law Firms Comparator. It allows users...
February 20, 2017
Damages Explorer The Damages Explorer is unlike any of Lex Machina’s other apps. It enables users to search, analyze and compare damage awards. It includes the capability to analyze damages awarded by a particular judge, in a certain court and of a certain type, such as attorneys’ fees or infringement damages. Parties Comparator The Parties Comparator would be familiar to anyone who has used either the Courts & Judges Comparator or the Law Firms Comparator. It allows users...
Efficient Breach Experiments
February 20, 2017
As Maria Bigoni (economics--Univ. Bologna) et al. note, courts, judges, and citizens seem ambivalent with respect to the notion of the efficient breach that is taught in most first-year contracts classes. According to the authors, "laymen seem to track consequentialist (economic) reasoning in cases of loss-avoiding breach, while being deontological (moralist) in cases of gain-seeking breach." Such instincts typically reflect a "simplistic" grouping of efficient breach cases. In Unbundling Efficient...
February 20, 2017
As Maria Bigoni (economics--Univ. Bologna) et al. note, courts, judges, and citizens seem ambivalent with respect to the notion of the efficient breach that is taught in most first-year contracts classes. According to the authors, "laymen seem to track consequentialist (economic) reasoning in cases of loss-avoiding breach, while being deontological (moralist) in cases of gain-seeking breach." Such instincts typically reflect a "simplistic" grouping of efficient breach cases. In Unbundling Efficient...
Alternative Dispute Resolution
February 20, 2017
In this Survey year, there are relatively few developments in the law of ADR. Were this to be a survey of the developments in the practice of ADR, this article could be hundreds of pages long. This year, however, there are no reported appellate cases to summarize pertaining to mediation, only an update on a recent controversial legislative development. And in the field of arbitration, although controversy abounds, the most significant development involved a U.S. Supreme Court decision on the waiver...
February 20, 2017
In this Survey year, there are relatively few developments in the law of ADR. Were this to be a survey of the developments in the practice of ADR, this article could be hundreds of pages long. This year, however, there are no reported appellate cases to summarize pertaining to mediation, only an update on a recent controversial legislative development. And in the field of arbitration, although controversy abounds, the most significant development involved a U.S. Supreme Court decision on the waiver...
Loop, the Legal AI Assistant You Talk To
February 19, 2017
Most, if not all, legal AI applications at the moment are text-based rather than voice-based. But, now here comes Loop, which offers the general public the ability to use spoken natural language processing (NLP) to find legal information. The Philadelphia-based start-up got going about one year ago and is this year in the process of coming fully to market. Artificial Lawyer spoke to one of the co-founders, Peter McCann about this ‘Legal Siri’. McCann begins by noting that at 37 years old he is in fact...
February 19, 2017
Most, if not all, legal AI applications at the moment are text-based rather than voice-based. But, now here comes Loop, which offers the general public the ability to use spoken natural language processing (NLP) to find legal information. The Philadelphia-based start-up got going about one year ago and is this year in the process of coming fully to market. Artificial Lawyer spoke to one of the co-founders, Peter McCann about this ‘Legal Siri’. McCann begins by noting that at 37 years old he is in fact...
New Site ‘Legably’ Matches Lawyers With Lawyers For Short-Term Projects
February 19, 2017
A new website called Legably aims to enable solo and small-firm lawyers to handle higher workloads by hiring other attorneys on an on-demand basis. The site matches attorneys who are looking for extra work with attorneys who have projects with which they need help. Notably, Legably has entered into a partnership with Clio to be integrated into its practice management platform, Legably’s founder Daniel P. Reilly told me earlier this week. This will allow attorneys who obtain work through Legably...
February 19, 2017
A new website called Legably aims to enable solo and small-firm lawyers to handle higher workloads by hiring other attorneys on an on-demand basis. The site matches attorneys who are looking for extra work with attorneys who have projects with which they need help. Notably, Legably has entered into a partnership with Clio to be integrated into its practice management platform, Legably’s founder Daniel P. Reilly told me earlier this week. This will allow attorneys who obtain work through Legably...
Private Judges in Divorce
February 19, 2017
From Vanity Fair: For the past four months, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s divorce has been plagued by the kind of accusations that make a celebrity split resemble more of a soap-opera circus than a marital dissolution. But on Monday, the movie-star couple reached a major turning point by deciding to put any behind-the-scenes pot-stirring behind them—good-bye rumors of substance and child abuse, P.R. manipulation (Jolie’s camp has denied any such manipulation), etc.—by issuing a joint statement...
February 19, 2017
From Vanity Fair: For the past four months, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s divorce has been plagued by the kind of accusations that make a celebrity split resemble more of a soap-opera circus than a marital dissolution. But on Monday, the movie-star couple reached a major turning point by deciding to put any behind-the-scenes pot-stirring behind them—good-bye rumors of substance and child abuse, P.R. manipulation (Jolie’s camp has denied any such manipulation), etc.—by issuing a joint statement...
