Technology-assisted Review (TAR): Winfield v. City of New York, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 194413 (S.D.N.Y. Nov. 27, 2017). Resolving a discovery dispute that challenged the defendant's predictive coding process, the court refused to question the accuracy and reliability of the use of TAR, despite some noted review errors. Specifically, the plaintiff contended that the defendant too narrowly interpreted relevance and miscoded relevant documents as irrelevant. As such, the court ordered the production of some non-responsive documents to provide better transparency and encourage cooperation.

If Clio Cloud Conference speaker Jason Morris has it his way, all lawyers will be code programmers in the not so distant future.

Morris, who led the “Law As Code” chat at Clio's sixth annual conference Thursday, believes coding will soon arrive in the legal profession. The lawyer and University of Alberta computational law LL.M. candidate said that in the future, “digitized legal rules” will automate legal services to serve people who are traditionally left out of today's legal market.

In the meantime, Morris thinks lawyers should start understanding the world of coding, and listed seven programs that can help them get prepared:

Neota Logic: Neota Logic is a platform that conducts web-based interviews and uses results from those interviews to automate document creation, Morris explained. In Neota, users write the rules of their legal documents in Microsoft Word and inform Neota what question needs to be answered, Morris said.

Oracle Policy Automation: Although Oracle Policy Automation was first owned by an Australian law firm, it isn't used by law firms. Instead, it is used by companies with large call centers and by banks, governments and insurance companies. Oracle and Neota follow similar workflows in helping to draft documents, though Oracle focuses on drafting business policies.

Docassemble: Docassemble is a tool for automating the creation of documents. Morris noted the free program recently added a feature that allows users to edit templates in Word through an add-on that connects to the Docassemble server. Docassemble also provides “multiuser interviews,” which lets lawyers check for conflicts early in the case's lifecycle, Morris said. Docassemble will allow clients to fill out web-based interviews, asking them about their case. When they get to a certain question, the lawyer assigned to the case receives an email containing a link to the information that has been collected from the interview. The lawyer then decides if there is a conflict. The process is intended to quickly weed out if a prospective lawyer has a conflict, Morris said.

Ergo AI: Coherent Knowledge-powered Ergo AI requires a great deal of programming, Morris cautioned, but also “gets to the root of what is possible with programming.” The program allows its users to translate the law into logic-based code to help automate legal processes.

Ergo by the Accord Project: Unlike Ergo AI's challenging “typographical yard sale” coding style, the Accord Project's Ergo is coding created from standard language for smart contracts. Morris predicated it may become the new legalese for smart contracts.

Legalese: Singapore-based Legalese is developing a coding language called L4, as a form of “formal verification.”  By using L4, after writing the contract a lawyer can “mathematically” prove certain portions of that contract were true, Morris explained.

Regulation as a Platform: Regulation as a Platform is solution by Australia-based Data61 that works with the Australian government to help convert the country's regulation into code. The idea is to to help local Australians answer legal questions through an automated program. The likes of TurboTax, LexisNexis and Thomson Reuters should be nervous of programs such as Regulation as a Platform, Morris suggested.

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