ABA Journal: Legal Rebels

Perhaps in five to seven years, as Colin Rule sees it, half of U.S. citizens who file court cases will have access to online dispute resolution software walking them step by step through their matters, resolving up to 80 percent of cases. Rule, a nonlawyer mediator, is vice president for online dispute resolution at Tyler Technologies. In this episode of the ABA Journal’s Legal Rebels Podcast, Rule speaks with Angela Morris about the possibilities–and pitfalls–for this technology. Special thanks to our sponsor, Answer1.

Ken Adams has brought his contract expertise to LegalSifter, a Pittsburgh artificial intelligence startup. The 2009 Legal Rebel and author of “A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting” sat down to discuss his new venture with the ABA Journal’s Jason Taschea. Adams says LegalSifter is a system built with human expertise to address the fact that many customers are doing the same tasks when dealing with contracts. It’s a system that will excel at flagging issues that keep coming up, and he thinks the technology will be sophisticated enough to flag the issues for any one user. Special thanks to our sponsor, Answer1.

It’s too easy for attorneys to be aware that something isn’t perfect in their practices and accept the situation instead of pushing back. So says longtime legal innovator Nicole Bradick. “What it’s all about is identifying something not working as well as it should be and thinking of possible solutions,” says Bradick, who in January launched a legal technology company, Theory and Principle, that aims to do just that: “Ask why is this happening, and are there any changes we can make to fix the problem?” Special thanks to our sponsor, Answer1.

When Amy Porter founded the online payment platform AffiniPay, she drew on her experience as a college athlete—cheerleading while majoring in merchandising at the University of Texas at Austin—which led to work as a sales representative with Varsity Brands, an athletic clothing company. Her businesses now include LawPay, an online payment platform for attorneys, and CPACharge, which she developed after discovering accountants were using LawPay for online payments. Special thanks to our sponsor, Answer1.

Since the late 1990s, Joyce Raby has spent a career bringing technology to legal aid. While a booster and believer in technology’s potential to improve America’s legal system, her experience is tempering. “We’ve been saying for a very long time that technology was going to be the saving grace for the justice ecosystem,” she says. “I don’t think it is.” Joyce continues her legal technology trajectory as executive director of the Florida Justice Technology Center.

As electronic data became more prevalent in the 1990s, Judge Andrew Peck, an ABA Journal Legal Rebels Trailblazer, wrote a line that would be quoted by judges and lawyers for generations to come. “It is black-letter law that computerized data is discoverable if relevant,” he wrote in Anti-Monopoly Inc. v. Hasbro Inc. It was one of Peck’s earliest decisions from the bench. In this episode of the Legal Rebels Podcast, Peck discusses his career and the technological changes he experienced with the ABA Journal’s Victor Li.

Mike Dillon has seen a lot change over his career as general counsel to some of the nation’s largest technology companies. Working for Silver Spring Networks, Sun Microsystems and, most recently, Adobe Systems, he witnessed firsthand how digitization and globalization affected the operation and practice of a general counsel’s office. In this episode of the Legal Rebels podcast, he speaks with the ABA Journal's Jason Taschea about his work. Special thanks to our sponsor, Answer1.

Richard Granat–the creator of MyLawyer.com, SmartLegalForms and the People’s Law Library of Maryland–has joined Intraspexion, a new artificial-intelligence software company, as a strategic adviser. At 75, Richard Granat does not fit the stereotype of a startup entrepreneur. However, he says, although there may be bias against older entrepreneurs, his experience is a benefit, not a detraction.

What will be a big legal trend for 2018? Mary E. Juetten is putting her hopes on legal technology improving access-to-justice problems.

Robert Litt has confronted cybersecurity and encryption issues for two presidential administrations. With Russian interference in the 2016 election as a backdrop, Litt, an ABA Journal Legal Rebels Trailblazer, says the U.S. has been facing online threats essentially since the internet's creation.