In our third installment with Mark Oblad, we take a step away from contracts to discuss open source and industry source. If you missed either Part 1 or Part 2 of this five-part series, we suggest reviewing both before diving into this background on the substantive creation of the forms.
Continue reading “Legal Technology and Smart Contracts: Open Source and Industry Source (Part III)”
Much has been written on blockchain recently, even in legal. We continue our series with Mark Oblad, VP, Legal and Finance at JW Player, who has coded a number of tools for automating transactions. Last time we talked about open source and industry source of information for contracts here. This time, we look first at smart contracts. The concept of the “smart contract†has taken hold and is becoming increasingly the focus of legal technology groups, such as the Computable Contracts Initiative at Stanford Law School’s CodeX, Cardozo Law School’s Tech Startup Clinic, New York Law School’s Center for Business and Financial Law, law.MIT.edu, and Computational Legal Studies.
Continue reading “Legal Technology and Smart Contracts: Blockchain & Smart Contracts (Part IV)”
In our final installment of a five-part series, we close by interviewing Mark Oblad, around contract on automaton plus a look to the future. Blockchain and cryptocurrency law are opportunities for attorneys, not threats. Lawyers must embrace technology, although not all need to become as expert as Mark or other programmers in order to leverage technology.
Continue reading “Legal Technology and Smart Contracts: Contract as Automaton (Part V)”
Evolve Law was back in Silicon Valley for another great legal tech event, this one focused on the “Tech Savvy In-House Counsel.” The evening kicked off with a Darwin Talk from Tina Fan of SimpleLegal. Tina’s presentation was on “Best Practices for Implementing Legal Operations Software”. When it comes to implementation, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer for every company; there are many tools available for firms and companies to use. When looking at implementing legal ops software, in-house legal departments need to examine what their goals are as a department and ask whether they align with what the company goals are, as well as asking why they’re looking to implement software and what they are hoping to accomplish with it. They also need to plan for how they want to implement the software and the resources necessary to get it implemented correctly and to get everyone in the department or company on board. Perhaps most importantly, when you’re looking to automate a process, you want to make sure that it’s a good process that you’re committing to.
Continue reading “Talking Tech Savvy In-House Counsel in Silicon Valley”
Our most recent New York event covered the new topic of “Data & Analytics in the Law” as we look to focus more on adoption and implementation of legal tech in panels and discussions. The evening kicked off with a Darwin Talk on Artificial Intelligence: An Historical Perspective from Dean Sonderegger of Wolters Kluwer.
Businesses are able to learn and grow through a shared knowledge. None of us walk into a job and know how everything operates, either at that company or in the industry. We’re relying on the knowledge of others who have gone before us to educate ourselves, as well as the know-how of our current co-workers. And new people can add to this knowledge in their own way, often bringing new ideas or fresh perspectives to old problems or methods. There’s a saying that goes, “If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together,” and something similar could be said for gaining knowledge.
For the second time, we were fortunate enough to organize a Darwin Talks event at the Minnesota State Bar Tech Conference, with a group of speakers who were able to offer a variety of perspectives on different areas of the law and how to improve them.
Continue reading “Social Hour Darwin Talks at 2017 MNSB Tech Conference”
If there is one fact that is most frequently repeated at Evolve Law events when discussing the current state of law, it is that most lawyers are resistant to change. This resistance helps to explain much of the current predicament that the legal industry is in. Businesses are adapting to new economic realities and reshaped marketplaces, but too many law firms continue to operate under the model they’ve had for decades — a model that fails to meet the needs of the modern client or customer. Where law firms have fallen short, legal tech has stepped in to try and fill the void in access to justice and legal help, as well as push the legal industry into the twenty-first century.
We held our second Denver event on the evening of October 26th, hosted by Lawgical. The evening’s focus was a discussion on increasing access to justice through the use of technology in law. The evening kicked off with a Darwin Talk entitled “Time is the New Green” given by Adam Camras of Lawgical and Legal Talk Network. Every small inefficiency in your life can add up to time wasted, both professionally and personally. That goes for law, where you can still find people running their firms using what are by modern standards crude tools. The firms that are succeeding are the ones who are using the latest in technological innovations and software to be efficient and save those precious minutes and hours that add up over the course of time.