Gartner Predicts That by 2023 “Lawbots” Will Handle a Quarter of Internal Legal Requests.
Legal departments are turning to virtual legal assistants (VLAs) because of extreme pressure to improve efficiency and provide a responsive service to their organisations.
Intense pressure on legal departments to increase their responsiveness and efficiency is leading them to look toward automation, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and natural language processing, according to Gartner, Inc. In fact, Gartner predicts that “lawbots” will handle a quarter of internal legal requests by 2023.
VLAs can help legal departments improve efficiency by streamlining matter intake, triaging legal requests, determining the necessity of legal review and automating routine legal workflow. According to a Gartner survey of legal professionals increasing productivity in these ways is the top driver of automation.
VLAs can also ease employee concerns about anonymity in situations where they perceive a risk in simply asking for information, such as whistle blower reporting and harassment claims. Read More
US-style class action fees poised to come to Victoria
Victoria is poised to introduce US-style fee arrangements for law firms running class actions. Contingency fees arrangements would allow plaintiff lawyers to take a percentage of the settlement or judgement amount, instead of charging clients an hourly rate or a fixed fee.
Supported by the Victorian Law Institute and Victorian Law Reform Commission, this change could increase access to justice because it reduces financial risks to clients. Read More
US-style class action fees poised to come to Victoria
Victoria is poised to introduce US-style fee arrangements for law firms running class actions. Contingency fees arrangements would allow plaintiff lawyers to take a percentage of the settlement or judgement amount, instead of charging clients an hourly rate or a fixed fee.
Supported by the Victorian Law Institute and Victorian Law Reform Commission, this change could increase access to justice because it reduces financial risks to clients. Read More
Data retention ‘ambiguity’ allows cops to view your browsing history
Law enforcement agencies are being given the full URLs of web pages visited by people under Australia’s controversial data retention laws, despite government assurances the practice wouldn’t occur.
Commonwealth Ombudsman Michael Manthorpe called out the “ambiguity around the definition of content” at a parliamentary committee reviewing the laws. The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security will continue conducting a review of controversial metadata retention laws.
In the 2018-2019 financial year, 295,691 authorisations to access metadata were issued across all state and federal law enforcement agencies. Read More
An unsent SMS, a message on a tractor, a poem: bizarre ways people have written their wills
An unsent SMS, a message on a tractor, a poem – needless to say, wills of the 21st century are taking increasingly ridiculous forms. The courts have had to consider whether DVDs and digital videos, iPhone notes, Microsoft Word documents, encrypted computer files and other digital artefacts count as valid wills or amendments.
Except in very limited exceptional circumstances, a will is a document. To be a valid formal will, there are certain requirements: it must be in writing, on paper, signed by the testator, witnessed by other people, and formally executed. Specific formal language is encouraged. In law, documents – more than witnesses or physical objects – have become the most important form of evidence. But in the digital age, the distinction between a document, a witness and real evidence is becoming more difficult to perceive, and pointless to sustain. Read More
NSW to introduce ‘nation-leading’ child abuse reforms
A significant barrier preventing child sex offenders from being held to account and leading to “unwarranted acquittals” will be removed under landmark reforms being introduced into NSW Parliament.
The Attorney-General for New South Wales, Mark Speakman, said that the proposed reforms will help deliver justice for survivors of child sexual abuse, which he described as “one of the most despicable and damaging crimes” in the criminal justice system. Read More.
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