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Legal IT

The dark web

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In this article, we explore the dark web. We will be answering questions like, “What is the dark?”, “What can you find on the dark web?”, ” Why is the dark web important?”, “What do you need to access the dark web?”, and “How to safely access the dark web?” In a follow-up article, we’ll look at how it is relevant for lawyers.

What is the dark web?

To properly explain what the dark web is, it is best to put it in context. Usually, when we use the World Wide Web, we consult websites we know, and we use search engines to find other information that is publicly accessible. This part of the Internet that is available to the public and can be found through search engines is often referred to as the surface web. (The terms clear web and Clearnet are also occasionally used). It’s one part of the Internet that most of us access on a daily basis.

Apart from that, there is information that is not freely accessible to all and that is not indexed by search engines. This includes all the information where access is restricted, and you need credentials to be able to access it. This is called the deep web. It comprises all kinds of subscriptions you may have, all the information your service providers keep on their private databases, your bank account and medical records, email & financial information, academic and scientific databases, legal documents, etc. If, as a lawyer, you use a cloud-based solution to run your firm, all that information is stored in the deep web, too. Even most social media are not indexed by search engines, and therefore are part of the deep web. Most of us access the deep web, too, on a daily basis.

This deep web is by large the biggest part of the Internet. Estimates about what percentage of the Internet is publicly accessible range between 0.1 to 10 percent. In other words, anywhere between 90 to 99.9 percent of the Internet belongs to the deep web.

The dark web, sometimes called the darknet, is a part of the deep web for which you need extra tools to gain access to it. The information is encrypted, and you need at least a specialised browser to access it. A Virtual Private Network (VPN) and good antivirus software and a firewall are usually recommended as well if you want to access it safely.

Summarizing, there are three parts of the World Wide Web: a) the publicly accessible and indexed part, called the surface web, b) the part that is not indexed by search engines and is not accessible to everyone, called the deep web, a c) a part that is hidden and for which special tools are needed, referred to as the dark web.

What can you find on the dark web?

When we think of the dark web, we typically think of hackers, illegal markets and pornography, pirated content, and other types of cybercrimes. But there are positive aspects to the dark web too. It provides safe ways, e.g., for activists and whistleblowers to share information. There are chat rooms for developers. And you’ll even find copies of popular websites on the dark web, which allow people who live in locations where Internet access is restricted to still access them.

Here is a list of examples of what you can find:

  • Link directories to find the URLs for websites on the dark web. (As the content is not indexed by search engines, you have to rely on these link directories).
  • Dark web versions of popular websites: most social media and news outlets, e.g., also have dark net versions.
  • Email services.
  • File uploads and transfers. These include both perfectly legal as well as illegal – e.g., pirated – files.
  • Forums and chat boards, including forums for freedom fighters and protestors, developers, journalists, but also hackers.
  • Whistleblowing websites and tip-off pages, which are commonly used by the press.
  • Blogs run by privacy-conscious individuals.
  • Black Markets.
  • Bitcoin / cryptocurrency services.
  • Hacking groups and services.
  • Financing and fraud.
  • Illegal pornography.
  • Hoaxes and unverified content.
  • Pirated Content.

A report, called Into the Web of Profit and discussed in the CSO Online article, identified 12 categories of tools or services that could present a risk in the form of a network or data breach compromise:

  • Infection or attacks, including malware, distributed denial of service (DDoS) and botnets
  • Access, including remote access Trojans (RATs), keyloggers and exploits
  • Espionage, including services, customization and targeting
  • Support services such as tutorials
  • Credentials
  • Phishing
  • Refunds
  • Customer data
  • Operational data
  • Financial data
  • Intellectual property/trade secrets
  • Other emerging threats

“The report also outlined three risk variables for each category:

  • Devaluing the enterprise, which could include undermining brand trust, reputational damage or losing ground to a competitor
  • Disrupting the enterprise, which could include DDoS attacks or other malware that affects business operations
  • Defrauding the enterprise, which could include IP theft or espionage that impairs a company’s ability to compete or causes a direct financial loss”.

Why is it important?

With all the illegal activity going on, on the dark web, the question is often raised whether it would not be better to shut it down altogether. But that would be a clear case of throwing out the baby with the bath water, as the dark web offers some essential services.

Historically, the dark web was created for US intelligence and counterintelligence services to safely exchange information. Then several civil rights groups started using it as well because it allowed them to also exchange information safely and anonymously.  And then the criminals hopped on board too.

By now, it is also being used by journalists, activists, whistleblowers, and freedom fighters. And as mentioned above, copies of popular websites on the dark web provide access to people who could otherwise would not be able to access them.

What do you need to access it?

So, how can you safely access the dark web? To safely access the dark web, three or four items are recommended. First, you need a browser for the dark web. Next, it is recommended that you always use a Virtual Private Network (VPN), and that you have up-to-date antivirus software. A good firewall comes in handy, too.

A browser for the dark web: the dark web uses encrypted information on web addresses that end on a .onion extension. By default, most browsers cannot read these websites. The TOR browser was created specifically for the dark web. It is a customised version of the Firefox browser with specific enhancements to guarantee privacy and anonymity. It can also route information through trusted nodes, so it cannot be intercepted. But note, that by default, if a normal internet connection is available, Tor will use that one, and you must choose to use the Tor network to make use of its own nodes.

The Tor browser is not the only one that can be used to access the dark web. Two popular browsers, Firefox and Opera, can easily be configured, too, to access the dark web. This is, however, not recommended as they do not have other privacy protecting enhancements built in. Several companies have created customised versions on the Tor browser, typically with enhanced functionality like higher encryption, etc. These include Subgraph OS, Waterfox, Tails, and Whoix.

A Virtual Private Network (VPN): in essence, a virtual private network is a tool that allows you to surf anonymously on the Internet. Usually, when you surf the web, your IP address is visible not only to all websites you visit, but also to all the Internet nodes that relay the information between your computer or mobile device and that website. What a VPN does, is route that traffic through a server and the IP address of that server is used instead. VPN service providers typically have servers in many countries, so you can choose which country you pretend to be surfing from. On top of that, all communication is also encrypted for enhanced security.

Up-to-date antivirus and a firewall: the dark web can be a very dangerous place and accessing dark web websites can be risky. Websites with illegal content will almost always try and install malware on your device, but other sites may be infected, too. Up-to-date antivirus software and a firewall help reduce the risk but cannot eliminate it altogether.

How to access the dark web in five easy steps

The safest way to access the dark web is on a desktop, rather than a mobile device. (Some security experts explicitly advise against using a mobile device to access the dark web). Once you’ve installed TOR, or a compatible browser, and you’ve installed your VPN, you can access the dark web in five easy steps.

  1. The first step is to open your VPN software.
  2. In your VPN software, connect to a server in a different country.
  3. Open the Tor browser.
  4. Click the “Connect” button.
  5. You are now ready to begin browsing the dark web.

Remember, the content of the dark web is not indexed. So, you can’t really use a search engine to find information. Your alternative is to use one of the many dark web directories. But keep in mind that these get outdated fast. Only the dark web versions of popular surface web websites tend to keep the same URLs.

Extra recommendations for safe access

The dark web can be a dangerous place. It is therefore good to take some extra safety measures.

  • Create a Tor-specific user account. Never use an email address or even a password that you have used before. Use an anonymous encrypted email account and aliases that you have never used before either and that cannot be traced to you. Never use this user account outside Tor.
  • Don’t use your mobile phone for 2-step verification on Tor.
  • Never use your real name or photos. Don’t post any of your personal information.
  • Never have dark web stores mail packages delivered to your real address — use a PO box.
  • Don’t send unencrypted data over Tor. For that same reason, do not use HTTP websites on Tor, because they are not encrypted.
  • Don’t forget to delete cookies and local website data.
  • Don’t use Tor for Google search.
  • Don’t connect to the same server with and without Tor simultaneously.
  • Don’t install browser plugins, as they can be manipulated into revealing your IP address.
  • You may even consider using the TAILS operating system (which is booted as a live DVD or live USB), as this leaves no digital footprint on the host machine.

In a follow-up article, we will look at what lawyers need to know about the dark web.

 

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Legal IT

Artificial Intelligence Regulation

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In previous articles, we have discussed how artificial intelligence is biased, and on how this problem of biased artificial intelligence persists. As artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming ever more prevalent, this poses many ethical problems. The question was raised whether the industry could be trusted to self-regulate or whether legal frameworks would be necessary. In this article, we explore current initiatives for Artificial Intelligence regulation. We look at initiatives within the industry to regulate artificial intelligence as well as at attempts to create legal frameworks for Artificial Intelligence. But first we investigate why regulation is necessary.

Why is Artificial Intelligence Regulation necessary?

Last year, the Council of Europe published a paper where it concluded that a legal framework was needed because there were substantive and procedural gaps. UNESCO, too, identified key issues in its Recommendation on Ethics in Artificial Intelligence. Similarly, in its White Paper on Trustworthy AI, The Mozilla Foundation identifies a series of key challenges that need to be addressed and that makes regulation desirable. These are:

  • Monopoly and centralization: Large-scale AI requires a lot of resources and at present only a handful of tech giants have those. This has a stifling effect on innovation and competition.
  • Data privacy and governance:  Developing complex AI systems necessitates vast amounts of data. Many AI systems that are currently being developed by large tech companies harvest people’s personal data through invasive techniques, and often without their knowledge or explicit consent.
  • Bias and discrimination: As was discussed in previous articles, AI relies on computational models, data, and frameworks that reflect existing biases. This in turn results in biased or discriminatory outcomes.
  • Accountability and transparency: Many AI systems just present an outcome without being able to explain how that result was reached. This can be the product of the algorithms and machine learning techniques that are being used, or it may be by design to maintain corporate secrecy. Transparency is needed for accountability and to allow third-party validation.
  • Industry norms: Tech companies tend to build and deploy tech rapidly. As a result, many AI systems are embedded with values and assumptions that are not questioned in the development cycle.
  • Exploitation of workers: Research shows that tech workers who perform the invisible maintenance of AI are vulnerable to exploitation and overwork.
  • Exploitation of the environment: The amount of energy needed for AI data mining makes it very environment unfriendly. The development of large AI systems intensifies energy consumption and speeds up the extraction of natural resources.
  • Safety and security: Cybercriminals have embraced AI. They are able to carry out increasingly sophisticated attacks by exploiting AI systems.

For all these reasons, the regulation of AI is necessary. Many large tech companies still promote the idea that the industry should be allowed to regulate itself. Many countries, as well as the EU, on the other hand believe the time is ripe for governments to impose a legal framework to regulate AI.

Initiatives within the industry to regulate Artificial Intelligence

Firefox and the Mozilla Foundation

The Mozilla Foundation is one of the leaders in the field when it comes to promoting trustworthy AI. They already have launched several initiatives, including advocacy campaigns, responsible computer science challenges, research, funds, and fellowships. The Foundation also points out that “developing a trustworthy AI ecosystem will require a major shift in the norms that underpin our current computing environment and society. The changes we want to see are ambitious, but they are possible.” They are convinced that the “best way to make this happen is to work like a movement: collaborating with citizens, companies, technologists, governments, and organizations around the world.”

IBM

IBM, too, promotes an ethical and trustworthy AI, and has created its own ethics board. It believes AI should be built on the following principles:

  • The purpose of AI is to augment human intelligence
  • Data and insights belong to their creator
  • Technology must be transparent and explainable

To that end, it identified five pillars:

  • Explainability: Good design does not sacrifice transparency in creating a seamless experience.
  • Fairness: Properly calibrated, AI can assist humans in making fairer choices.
  • Robustness: As systems are employed to make crucial decisions, AI must be secure and robust.
  • Transparency: Transparency reinforces trust, and the best way to promote transparency is through disclosure.
  • Privacy: AI systems must prioritize and safeguard consumers’ privacy and data rights.

Google

Google says it “aspires to create technologies that solve important problems and help people in their daily lives. We are optimistic about the incredible potential for AI and other advanced technologies to empower people, widely benefit current and future generations, and work for the common good.

  1. Be socially beneficial
  2. Avoid creating or reinforcing unfair bias
  3. Be built and tested for safety
  4. Be accountable to people
  5. Incorporate privacy design principles
  6. Uphold high standards of scientific excellence
  7. Be made available for uses that accord with these principles.”

It also made it clear that it “will not design or deploy AI in the following application areas:

  1. Technologies that cause or are likely to cause overall harm. Where there is a material risk of harm, we will proceed only where we believe that the benefits substantially outweigh the risks and will incorporate appropriate safety constraints.
  2. Weapons or other technologies whose principal purpose or implementation is to cause or directly facilitate injury to people.
  3. Technologies that gather or use information for surveillance violating internationally accepted norms.
  4. Technologies whose purpose contravenes widely accepted principles of international law and human rights.”

It adds that that list may evolve.

Still, Google seems to have a troubled relationship with ethical AI. It notoriously fired its entire ethics board in 2019, to replace it with a team of ethical AI researchers. When subsequently, on separate occasions, two of those were fired too, it again made headlines.

Facebook / Meta

Whereas others talk about trustworthy and ethical Ai, Meta (the parent company of Facebook) on the other hand has different priorities and talks about responsible AI. It, too, identifies five (or ten) pillars:

  1. Privacy & Security
  2. Fairness & Inclusion
  3. Robustness & Safety
  4. Transparency & Control
  5. Accountability & Governance

Legal frameworks for Artificial Intelligence

Apart from those initiatives within the industry, there are proposals for legal frameworks as well. Best known is the EU AI Act. Others are following suit.

The EU AI Act

The EU describes its AI act as “a proposed European law on artificial intelligence (AI) – the first law on AI by a major regulator anywhere. The law assigns applications of AI to three risk categories. First, applications and systems that create an unacceptable risk, such as government-run social scoring of the type used in China, are banned. Second, high-risk applications, such as a CV-scanning tool that ranks job applicants, are subject to specific legal requirements. Lastly, applications not explicitly banned or listed as high-risk are largely left unregulated.”

The text can be misleading as, effectively, the proposal distinguishes not three but four levels of risk for AI applications: 1) unacceptable risk, which are banned, 2) high-risk, which must be regulated with specific legal requirements, 3) low risk, where most of the time no regulation will be necessary, and 4) no risk, which do not have to be regulated at all.

By including an ‘unacceptable risk‘ category, the proposal introduces the idea that certain types of AI applications should be forbidden because they violate basic human rights. All applications that manipulate human behaviour to deprive users of their free will, as well as systems that allow social scoring fall in this category. Exceptions are allowed for military purposes and law enforcement purposes.

High risk systems “include biometric identification, management of critical infrastructure (water, energy etc), AI systems intended for assignment in educational institutions or for human resources management, and AI applications for access to essential services (bank credits, public services, social benefits, justice, etc.), use for police missions as well as migration management and border control.” Again, there are exceptions, many of which have to do with cases where biometric identification is allowed. These include, e.g., missing children, suspects of terrorism, trafficking, and child pornography. The EU wants to create a database that keeps track of all high-risk applications.

Limited risk or low risk applications includes various bots which companies use to interact with their customers. The idea here is that transparency is required. Users must know, e.g., that they are interacting with a chat bot and to what information the chat bot has access.

All AI systems that do not pose any risk to citizen’s rights are considered no risk applications for which no regulation is necessary. These applications include games, spam filters, etc.

Who does the EU AI Act apply to? As is the case with the GDPR, the EU AI Act does not apply exclusively to EU-based organizations and citizens. It also applies to anybody outside of the EU who is offering an AI application (product or service) within the EU, or if an AI system uses information about EU citizens or organizations. Furthermore, it also applies to systems outside of the EU that use results that are generated by AI systems within the EU.

A work in progress: the EU AI Act is still very much a work in progress. The Commission made its proposal and now the legislators can give feedback. At present, more than a thousand amendments have been submitted. Some factions think the framework goes too far, while others claim it does not go far enough. Much of the discussions deal with both defining and categorizing AI systems.

Other noteworthy initiatives

Apart from the European AI Act, there are some other noteworthy initiatives.

Council of Europe: The Council of Europe (responsible for the European Convention on Human Rights) created its own Ad Hoc Committee on Artificial Intelligence. This Ad Hoc Committee published a paper in 2021, called A Legal Framework for AI Systems. The paper was a feasibility study explored the reasons as to why a legal framework on the development, design, and application of AI, based on Council of Europe’s standards on human rights, democracy and the rule of law is needed. It identified several substantive and procedural gaps and concluded that a comprehensive legal framework is needed, combining both binding and non-binding instruments.

UNESCO published a series of Recommendations on Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, which were endorsed by 193 countries in November 2021.

US: On 4 October, the White House released the Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights to set up a framework that can protect people from the negative effects of AI.

No government initiatives exist yet in the UK. But Cambridge University, on 16 September 2022, published a paper on A Legal Framework for Artificial Intelligence Fairness Reporting.

 

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Legal IT

Legal Technology and Access to Justice

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When we think about legal technology, we usually think of technology that provides solutions for the legal professions and the judiciary. But what about the legal consumers? How can they benefit from legal technology? One of the areas where legal technology can play another important part is Access to Justice (often shortened to A2J). In this article, we will have a look at what Access to Justice is, what challenges it faces, and then explore the solutions that legal technology can offer.

So, what is Access to Justice? There is not one singular definition, and the concept itself has changed over time. The Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre (ACLRC) distinguishes four different aspects, which each come with their own range of challenges:

  1. The Right to Appear in Court. The formal right of an individual to litigate or defend is a Human Right. This does not only apply to conflicts between individuals and/or organizations, but also to governments, or any body that can impose a sanction.
  2. Advocacy for Those Who Cannot Afford It. The focus here is on legal aid, especially for people who do not have the means available to get Justice. It is one thing to have the right to appear in Court, but it is another thing altogether to be able to afford it. A study published last year (2019) showed e.g. that in the US a staggering 86% of the civil legal problems that were reported by low-income Americans received inadequate or no legal help at all.
  3. Reforming the Justice Systems. Money is not the only thing that can stand in the way of getting justice. One may be faced with all kinds of formal and procedural requirements that create unnecessary obstacles. So, a third aspect of Access to Justice focuses on creating equal opportunities by calling for reforms of the Justice System to make it more accessible. Part of that has to do with implementing mechanisms for group and third-party claims.
  4. Equality of Outcomes. Several reports keep on confirming e.g. that legal systems tend to be biased. There also can be geographical differences, and different judges may even rule differently. So, it is not enough to focus on equal opportunity, we also need to make sure we get equal outcomes. This can be done by remedies like reforming and streamlining many areas of the legal system, as well as reforming other social institutions with the goal of creating a more holistic model of service.

The challenges and the consequences are clear. Not having adequate access to justice can seriously impact people’s lives in a negative way. The good news is that in many cases, legal technology can be leveraged to improve access to justice, especially for low-income individuals. In 2019, more than 300 legal technologies were available in the US to assist legal consumers seeking access to justice. And while legal problems may be local, the technological solutions to assist with Access to Justice can typically be used internationally. (Think, e.g., of chat bots that collect the necessary data to generate legal documents: the texts for the templates will vary, but the same chat bot technology can be used to get the necessary information to generate them). The most commonly used solutions fall within three different categories. They are a) technology that provides information, b) technology that connects individuals to lawyers, and c) technology that automates and produces documents. Let us have a closer look at each of these.

Legal technology solutions that provide access to legal information. The easiest and most common way legal tech can assist is by providing key legal information, as well as self-help tools online. If, e.g., as a tenant you have a dispute with your landlord, chances are you will be able to find the relevant information online that clearly explains what your rights and obligations are, and how you can proceed. There even are organizations that assist lawyers in taking on pro bono cases by providing them with free legal online guidance.

Legal technology solutions that connects individuals to lawyers. There also are legal tech solutions that help legal consumers find – typically local – lawyers online that can assist them. This assistance can consist of legal advice and/or of legal representation.

Legal technology solutions that automates and produces documents. Another area where major strides have been made in recent years is with legal technology that assists in document automation. Legal consumers can, e.g., fill out a form online, and the required legal document gets created for them. Often, legal chat bots are available to guide the legal consumers through the process, making the procedure as simple and effective as possible.

Legal technology can assist in other ways as well. Digitalising courts and tribunals involves both making jurisprudence available online as well as automating procedures, thus makes it easier to find precedents and to start a procedure. One of the effects of the Corona pandemic is that far more courts have gone online, and sessions via videoconferencing have become far more common. Some law firms have started virtual practices where service delivery is automated and happens faster and cheaper. More and more legal aid clinics, which often are community based, have gone online as well. There also are more online learning tools available than ever before. There has been an increase too in online dispute resolution solutions.

It is worth pointing out that many of these new technologies rely on Artificial Intelligence. In previous articles, we already mentioned legal chat bots on several occasions. Joshua Browder started a revolution with his Do Not Pay robot lawyer that can handle a wide range of legal issues. Many others have followed, like the Hello Divorce bot that can streamline amicable divorces in California to the point that often no lawyers are needed. Chat bots have reached such a state of maturity that several bar associations are considering accrediting them as recognized legal solution providers.

So, legal technology can assist in access to justice in many positive ways. Still, there is much work to be done, as the 2019 report illustrated. One of the challenges for legal technology is to find solutions for Digital Exclusion. Not everybody has access to the Internet or has the required digital skills to use it properly, which means they lack the ability to take advantage of these legal technology solutions. In 2018, e.g., one in six inhabitants of the UK lacked the digital skills, and one in ten did not have access to the Internet. So, lower income households are effectively hit double since they lack the financial and technical resources to address their legal issues.

 

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Legal IT

The New Legal Economy

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In an article, published in Law 21, on 20 September 2019, Jordan Furlong shared his insights on the emergence of “the new legal economy.” In it, he describes how the legal profession first evolved from being the profession of lawyers into a legal market. And now we are seeing the next major transformation, where a new legal economy is starting to take shape. Several evolutions indicate that this indeed seems to be the case. Let’s have a closer look at what’s happening, and what the implications are.

Less than a century ago, the legal profession consisted only of lawyers, and they were the only ones offering legal services to legal consumers. Then, in the last decades we saw how a new legal market came into being. Two evolutions played an important part in that. The first one was that law firms started being managed like companies, which meant that more and more non-lawyers started playing a part in law firms, and that lawyers started changing the way they worked. A second evolution was the rise of Alternative Legal Service Providers, where the market was disrupted by non-lawyers offering legal services.

Evolution 1 – the de-lawyering of law firms: As law firms became commercial legal service providers, they started focusing on service delivery, on productivity and profitability. Running a law firm these days requires skillsets like project management, data analytics, design, business basics, digital basics, risk prediction and management, talent management, strategic planning, financial management, vendor management, technology support, knowledge management, growth and development management, communications, litigation support, workflow automation, and others. Law firms now often have law librarians, legal knowledge engineers, legal data analysts among their staff. Some bar associations are even considering allowing law firms to have equity partners. In this new market, law firms must serve more clients and serve them more efficiently, holistically, empathetically, and cost-effectively. This evolution has led to changes in who works at law firms, and in how lawyers work.

Evolution 2 – Alternative Legal Service Providers (ALSPs): In recent years, we have also seen a sharp increase in non-lawyers providing legal services. The services they offer at this stage typically focus on litigation support, legal research, document review and e-discovery. In less than three years, the number of law firms in the US that use the services of these ALSPs has tripled. By now, more than 1 in 4 law firms already uses their services. And a recently published survey by Thomson Reuters revealed that about 52 percent of corporate Canada either already uses alternative legal service providers for litigation support or will do so within the next five years.

Apart from these two main evolutions, there are other changes affecting the legal market as well. These include “the rise of legal process improvement and outsourcing, the technology-driven commoditization of legal work, the growing sophistication of large law firms and law departments, and the slow but steady liberalization of legal regulation.”

Furlong notes that throughout all these market changes, one thing has remained largely constant, and that is what lawyers do. The market evolutions described above are changing the how lawyers work, and to some degree who is active on the legal market as well. But thus far, it has had relatively little impact on the what lawyers do. And now that too is about to change.

Traditionally, lawyers did mainly two things: offer legal advice (including the drafting of contracts, etc.), and litigation. With the progress being made in Legal AI, we are seeing ALSPs who are offering legal advice, and are offering services like automated and smart contracts. (Though a German court has just ruled that automated contracts still have to be supervised by lawyers).  And more and more, legal consumers are going out of their way to find ways to avoid litigation. Both of these changes directly affect what lawyers do.

Furlong: “The old legal economy consisted of paying lawyers by the hour to do every legal task that needed to be done. In the new legal economy, systems, software, and structures are going to integrate, automate, delegate, and eliminate countless legal tasks by which lawyers once made a living.”

Because of this, it becomes essential to redefine what lawyers as well as law firms are and what they do. In this context, Furlong says three important questions must be answered:

  1. What now constitutes “legal work”?
  2. How will legal work be done?
  3. What will lawyers do?

Something to think about.

But rest assured that we here at INFORMA keep on closely following all these evolutions to be better able to serve you.

 

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Legal IT

An Introduction to LinkedIn for Lawyers

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In previous articles, we mentioned how social media have become an essential part of online marketing strategies. A report, published in January 2019 by the Attorney at Work website, reveals that in 2018, 85 percent of responding lawyers use social media as part of their marketing strategy. More than two-thirds, 71 percent, of lawyers say social media contributed to bringing in new clients.

Generally speaking, LinkedIn is the network of choice for lawyers, with 77 percent saying it is their favoured marketing platform. This has to be nuanced, in that larger law firms whose clients mainly consist of companies tend to focus more on LinkedIn, while lawyers who deal with individual clients tend to slightly favour Facebook. In this article, we will give you a first introduction to LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is a professional social network, which is mainly used for professional networking. It is a business and employment-oriented service that operates via websites and mobile apps. It was founded on 28 December 2002, and launched on 5 May 2003. Since December 2016 it has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft. As of October 2018, LinkedIn had 590 million registered members in 200 countries, of which more than 250 million are active. Signing up to LinkedIn is free, but some premium features are only available with a subscription one has to be pay for.

The main reason people use LinkedIn is to help grow their business or career. It is a tool for networking (which includes a system of introductions), for recruitment (where people can list their skills and experience), for marketing (e.g. to display endorsements and recommendations), advertising, and for research. It also is a publishing platform, and it offers discussion forums, called groups. These can be important to lawyers, as LinkedIn promotes certain authors as influencers (or thought leaders).

LinkedIn offers a package that includes:

  • Profiles
  • Networking Tools / Connections
  • Company Pages
  • Groups
  • Messaging
  • Notifications
  • As well as some other services, some of which can be useful for lawyers.

Let’s go over these in some more detail, knowing that we can only scratch the surface, and that each of them could easily warrant one or more articles by themselves.

Profiles: when one signs up to LinkedIn, the first thing to do is to create your profile. This is a profile for you as an individual. Think of it as a standardized bio or résumé. In it, you can give a summary of who you are, and provide more information about your background: your education, experience, skills, endorsements, accomplishments and interests. For each of these categories of information, LinkedIn offers a separate section in your profile. You can also make posts from your profile, and publish articles. Your profile contains an activity section that lists those. If you want to start a blog on LinkedIn, you can do so from your profile. Profile sections can be added in more than one language.

Networking Tools / Connections: LinkedIn not only allows members to create profiles but also connections to each other in an online social network. These connections may represent real-world professional relationships, but don’t necessarily do so. Members can invite anyone (whether an existing member or not) to become a connection. Members can also ask other members to introduce them to their connections. When looking for someone on LinkedIn, it will show you how many connections you may have in common, and if there are none, how many degrees you are separated from them.

LinkedIn also offers Company Pages, where you can provide information about your law firm. Here the rule is that each company only has one main page, for which a custom URL can be created. It consists of several sections, and each section can be entered in more than one language. Linked to the company pages are showcase pages. If your law firm, e.g., has offices in several locations, each one could get its own showcase page. Showcase pages can also be dedicated to services or products you offer. For showcase pages, too, it is possible to have them in more than one language.

Company pages can post updates, but can’t publish articles. It is therefore not possible to set up a company blog on LinkedIn. It is possible for individuals (profiles) to publish articles, and to provide links to those articles as company updates. Also good to know is that company pages can be linked to a LinkedIn Group.

Groups in essence are discussion forums. Anybody can create a group, and invite people to become members. These groups can either be public (anybody can join) or private (upon invitation or approval). As mentioned above, companies can create a group that will be linked to their company page. Often, these are used, e.g., by the customer care and / or the support department. Interesting for lawyers is that groups can be dedicated to specific topics, and that there are plenty of groups that deal with legal matters (as well as legal technology). Taking part in discussions in such groups can help build your online reputation.

Like other social media, LinkedIn also offers messaging and notification services. For lawyers, LinkedIn also is an important advertising platform (cf. the statistics quoted in the introduction to this article).

Apart from the services mentioned above, LinkedIn also offers a series of other services. These focus on learning and on insights; they allow you to post job offers, etc. In this context (of recruitment) it is worth mentioning a new service that at present is only available in the US and within specific service categories, and is called ProFinder. “LinkedIn ProFinder is LinkedIn’s professional services marketplace that helps you find the best freelance or independent professionals in your area.” It already does include certain legal services, and is expected to include more services, and to become available internationally.

Also worth mentioning is Slideshare. It is a hosting service for professional content including presentations, infographics, documents, and videos. Users can upload files privately or publicly in PowerPoint, Word, PDF, or OpenDocument format. Content can then be viewed on the site itself, on hand held devices or embedded on other sites.

 

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Legal IT

The Internet of Things and the Law

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Our world is becoming more and more interconnected. Through our smart phones, tablets, computers, smart watches, etc., we are living online lives, where we are virtually always connected to the Internet in some way. More and more devices we are using, too, are constantly collecting and sending data. This is often referred to as the Internet of Things (IoT). In this article, we’ll explain what it is, and have a look at some examples. Then we will have a look at some legal aspects with regard to the Internet of Things.

The Wikipedia defines the Internet of things as “the network of physical devices, vehicles, home appliances, and other items embedded with electronics, software, sensors, actuators, and connectivity which enables these things to connect, collect and exchange data, creating opportunities for more direct integration of the physical world into computer-based systems, resulting in efficiency improvements, economic benefits, and reduced human exertions.” All of these devices are provided with unique identifiers (UIDs) and typically have the ability to transfer data over a network without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction. This also implies that they can be remotely monitored and, in many cases, controlled.

The number of IoT devices is increasing rapidly. In 2017, 8.4 billion devices were connected to the Internet, which was an increase of 31% compared to 2016. The estimations of how fast this expansion will occur vary widely: on the conservative side we find, e.g., the analyst firm Gartner who expects that by 2020 there will be over 26 billion connected devices. ZD-Net on the other hand mentions a number of 50 billion devices by 2020. Others, however, estimate this number to be much higher, even over 100 billion.  Even in conservative estimations, the global market value of IoT is projected to reach $7.1 trillion by 2020.

So, what devices are connected? Basically any physical object can be transformed into an IoT device if it can be connected to the internet and controlled that way. Existing examples include coffee makers, washing machines, headphones, lamps, wearable devices, and even children’s toys. It also includes many vehicles, and even components of machines, the drill of an oil rig, or jet engines of an airplane which are filled with thousands of sensors collecting and transmitting data back to make sure it is operating efficiently. There are medical IoT devices like insulin injection pumps, pacemakers, etc. We already find IoT devices in our homes, in healthcare, transportation, information technology and energy infrastructure.

It should not come as a surprise that this proliferation of connected devices raises several legal issues.

A first set of issues has to do with privacy and data protection. In the EU, e.g., the GDPR applies and suppliers of IoT devices must make sure they are GDPR compliant, which isn’t always obvious. The GDPR does not only apply to the collecting and storing of data, but also to what is done with the data. Users have to consent, e.g., to those data being used for data mining.

As second set of issues has to do with security and cybercrimes. Each new device becomes a new potential target for hackers and criminals. The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) published a report in which it expressed security concerns that connected devices could, e.g., be used for enabling unauthorized access, for misuse of personal identification, and for expediting attacks on others systems. The simple truth is that the Internet of Things opens the door to a whole new range of cybercrimes, where criminals use IoT devices for extortion, for sabotage (e.g. interfering with energy), for assault, etc. In a recent hacking contest, e.g., hackers demonstrated – with permission – how they were able to take control of a driverless car within minutes.

A third set of issues has to do with eDiscovery, including eDiscovery in criminal investigations. IoT devices collect data which could be relevant as evidence in legal cases. There already are cases where the whereabouts of a person were confirmed or contradicted by the GPS systems in their car, phone or smart watch. There are cases where personal Assistants like Siri, Alexa, or Cortana, e.g., who constantly record what is being said, provided relevant evidence. A case that made headlines some months ago involved a possible homicide investigation, where an Amazon Echo (Alexa) device exonerated a suspect by confirming his alibi. (Noteworthy, too, in that case was that Amazon initially refused to hand over any data when it was requested by law enforcement, but agreed to do so when its customer asked them to hand over the data as it could – and eventually would – confirm his alibi).

In short, the Internet of Things opens the doors to plenty of new opportunities which in turn raise plenty of legal issues. For lawyers, that probably is a good thing.

 

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Legal IT

Alternative Fee Arrangements – What and Why

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The market of legal services is experiencing unprecedented and profound changes. In recent years, we’ve seen the rise of alternative legal service providers (ALSPs), and a rapid increase in the use of Artificial Intelligence. We now even have legal chatbots and robot lawyers, and some of them are offering free legal services. The legal consumers are embracing these changes: in a recent survey in the UK, seven out of ten respondents would prefer to use a robot lawyer to a human one! This should not come as a surprise, and the culprit can easily be found: Billable hours are one of the main reasons legal consumers are reluctant to consult a lawyer.

In the past, we have written about the death of the billable hour. With the current evolutions in the legal market, that demise is more imminent than before. And there are plenty of good reasons to kill it off, and to start focusing on Alternative Fee Arrangements (AFAs).

So, what are Alternative Fee Arrangements? There is not standard definition, but basically any arrangement where the client is not charged by the hour is an Alternative Fee Arrangement. (There is debate about whether volume discounts are an Alternative Fee Arrangement or not, but that discussion is largely academic).

There are different types of Alternative Fee Arrangements. In the article on the death of the billable hour, we payed attention to:

  • capped fees,
  • fixed and flat fees,
  • contingency agreements (where payment depends on the result),
  • holdback (payment in phases and dependent on whether certain conditions are met),
  • blended fees (lowering the cost of billable hours by delegating),
  • cost-plus model (cost plus reasonable profit), and
  • subscription billing (where the client pays a recurring fee to take care of its legal business).

Why opt for Alternative Fee Arrangements? All the arguments in favour of AFAs are the arguments against the billable hour.

From the point of view of the legal consumer, billable hours undoubtedly offer a lousy consumer experience. First, there is a fundamental double uncertainty: the client does not know in advance how much it will cost to address his or her legal issue, and if litigation is involved does not know what the end result will be. So the legal consumer is expected to commit to paying an undefined amount of money for an unknown result.

There also is the factor that being charged by the hour is always perceived as expensive. And the fact that the client is being charged for everything, including communications does not really make sense. Imagine you have a computer or car problem, have it fixed, and when you receive the bill, you are also charged for phone calls and consultations, on top of the actual repairs.

For lawyers, too, billable hours have negative side-effects that affect the overall productivity of a law practice. As you constantly have to keep track of everything you do, it necessitates a lot of extra administration. A survey published a year ago revealed that only 29 % of the time a lawyer spends working is billable, and that the rest was mainly administration, as well as some time spent on acquiring new cases. Add to that, as mentioned above, that the fact that clients are being charged for communications can easily become an obstacle for clear and essential communications.

Recent progress in the fields of Artificial Intelligence and process automation further illustrates that charging by the hour becomes less and less meaningful. How much time are you going to charge, e.g., for a contract that is compiled or reviewed by an AI system in seconds? Or what about eDiscovery, where computers can scan thousands of documents in minutes for relevant information, where it would take days to do the same manually?

In short, as the legal market is changing, the demand for Alternative Fee Arrangements is only expected to grow. In future articles, we will have a closer look at some of these Alternative Fee Arrangements.

 

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Legal IT

Online Translation Services

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As a lawyer, and especially as a lawyer within the EU, you often need to work with documents in more than one language. Fortunately, there are online translation services available that can give you an almost instant translation, and several of those are free. But are they any good when it comes to legal texts? In this article, we’ll have a closer look at the most popular free and instant online translation services.

How does it work? Most of the available services use a form, where you can enter some text that has to be translated. Some offer the option to upload a document, or to use a web address of a web page that you would like to be translated. For all of them, you have to choose the language the text has to be translated to. Some of the services can automatically detect the language of the original text, and all of them allow you to choose the language of the original text.

So, who offers what?

Google Translate: translate.google.com/
Google Translate is completely free. It can translate texts between 103 different languages, which is far more than any of the other services. It also offers alternative translations. It allows you to translate entire documents, as well as web pages.

Bing: www.bing.com/translator/
The Bing Translator is free, but limited to texts of maximum 5000 characters at a time. (If your texts are larger, you’ll have to split them up). At present, it can translate between 65 different languages, including Klingon. (Though I doubt that, as a lawyer, you’ll ever need that one). The Bing Translator does not allow to submit entire documents, but it is possible to use a URL.
Also worth noting is that you probably have direct access to the Bing Translator from within Microsoft Word. If you are using Office 365, then the option to select a text, right-click on it, and have it translated is directly available in Word.

DeepL: www.deepl.com/translator
DeepL stands for Deep Learning. It is a German translation service, made by the people who created Linguee. DeepL offers a free service as well as a subscription service, where you pay a monthly fee, and are allowed up to 1 million characters per month. There is a limit to the free service, but, at present, it is not clear what that limit is. DeepL can translate only between seven languages. It does offer the option to upload and translate documents.

Paralink: translation2.paralink.com/
The Paralink translator is free, and in theory there is no limit to the amount of text you can translate. Paralink offers translations between 55 different languages, but does not do all of them itself: it works with translation pairs it developed itself. If your needs do not match one of the available pairs, your text is submitted automatically to Google Translate and/or Bing. Texts between, e.g., Dutch and English are not done by Paralink itself.

SDL: www.freetranslation.com/
The SDL translator usually is offered in a free version, as well as a paid version. At present, however, the free version is not available.

WorldLingo: www.worldlingo.com/products_services/worldlingo_translator.html
WordLingo offers translations between 15 languages, and is limited to texts of 500 words per submission.

Reverso: www.reverso.net/text_translation.aspx?lang=EN
Reverso can translate texts between 13 different languages.

The Online Translator: m.online-translator.com/
The Online Translator offers translations between 19 languages. It uses the Paralink translation engine.

So, are they any good, and how do they compare to each other? We ran some practical tests. These were not meant as a scientific experiment, but just as a field test where we took some legal texts, and had them translated from English to Dutch and vice versa. We also did some back and forth test, where you submit a text in one language to be translated in another, and then have that result translated back to the original language.

(There are some humorous but unconfirmed stories of the early days of machine translations. In a first example “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak” came back as “the wine was alright, but the meat had gone off”. In another example “out of sight, out of mind” came back as “invisible insanity.”)

The first observation is that none of these services offer the same quality as a human translator does. The translations by the best services offer texts that are understandable / readable but that still contain multiple grammar and style errors, and therefore still need human revision.

In the tests we ran, DeepL ended as the best service. Their texts needed the least interventions, and score best on grammar and style. They are followed by Google Translate and Bing in a shared second position. All three did well in the one way translations, as well as in the back and forth. (Google Translate offers alternative translations, and typically, one of those will have a correct translation if the suggested translation is not accurate). The services that rely on the Paralink engine came in fourth position, but needed more corrections. The translations of legal texts by Wordlingo and Reverso were useless.

Some other considerations: with translations, context is important. Typically, translations of paragraphs are more accurate than translations of sentences. And often specific terminology (if it is recognized) is translated more correctly. Take, e.g., the terminology used in Dutch for the GDPR: it is quite specific, and therefore more easily identified. As a result, corrections were minimal and the translations from Dutch to English in DeepL were very good. Also, if texts are officially available in several languages, as is the case for many EU texts, then the translations tend to be more reliable.

In conclusion: the top four free online translation services can create texts that are understandable but that still need human corrections. But we do have reached a stage where using these services can already save a considerable amount of time. It is faster to use the big 3 and revise the translations than to start from scratch. In our experience, revising texts that were translated with Bing or Google, is 30 % faster than doing it manually. With DeepL, translations took on average only half of the time one would need to do everything manually.

 

Sources: Online translation engines:

Legal IT

Client Portals for Law Firms

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For a while now, the American Bar Association has been recommending that lawyers use client portals to exchange information with their clients. One of the main arguments is that client portals provide a more secure way to communicate than email is. So, what are client portals, and what benefits do they offer?

In a previous article, we described client portals as a place on the Internet where your clients can view, and possibly edit, their own data, usually with a browser. It allows you to interact with your clients, to share files, to have discussions, chat, plan, organize and manage tasks and events in a private, online, and secure environment. The data are often stored in the cloud (or are accessible via cloud technologies) and are encrypted. The communications between the portal and the client is encrypted as well.

Client portals have several key features. Sharing of information is one of the most important ones. Once a client has access to the client portal, he or she can consult the status of his or her cases. The client can view documents, get overviews of billing and accounting data, of what tasks have already been completed and what tasks are in the agenda, waiting to be executed. As such, clients portals offer greater transparency, as well as an effective way to collaborate.

A second key feature of client portal, and mentioned above, are the secure communications. Because the data on the portal, as well as the exchange of data between the client and the portal are encrypted, the communications are more secure than email exchanges. Google publishes a real time transparency report that keeps track of the amount of email that is not encrypted and can therefore be intercepted and read. It shows that at present, on average one in four emails are not encrypted. For a lawyer, this is important, because sending email over non-secure channels could lead to liability for violation of confidentiality if the mail is intercepted.

A third key feature of clients portals is the tight integration with practice management software. Client portals typically are available as add-ons to existing practice management packages. The practice management software typically will provide an administration backend, which, among other things, incorporates permission management. In it, you can specify who has access to what information, and what they can do with that information, i.e., e.g., whether they can only read information, or whether they can comment, or modify information, etc.

There are different types of client portals. Most common is the regular client portal that is used for messaging and document sharing. Some law firms use client portals that have more advanced document management functionalities, where clients can, e.g., generate legal documents by filling out forms. These forms supply the data that are then merged into templates. There are law firms, too,  who are using project management client portals. An increasing amount of client portals also allows clients to make online payments.

So, when do you need a client portal? You can use one if you want to

  1. share confidential information,
  2. enhance your communications with your clients
  3. accept online payments (though not all portals provide this functionality yet)
  4. improve collaboration, between lawyers, clients and possible other third parties
  5. audit access to the information (i.e., you can keep track of who access what and when)
  6. leverage “anytime anywhere access” to your law firm’s information

So, it’s clear that client portals offer multiple benefits. Apart from the ones already mentioned the increased transparency that client portals offer, also leads to greater client satisfaction and reduces the need for ‘keeping up to date’ communications. The collaboration aspects of client portals increase productivity. Having a client portal can offer also a competitive advantage in that it will appeal to more Internet-savvy clients.

So, what are you waiting for?

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Legal IT

Robot Law

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A few months ago, in January 2018, the European Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee approved a report that outlines a possible legal framework to regulate the interactions between a) humans, and b) robots and Artificial Intelligence systems. The report is quite revolutionary. It proposes, e.g., giving certain types of robots and AI systems personhood, as “electronic persons”: These electronic persons would have rights and obligations, and the report suggests that they should obey Isaac Asimov’s Laws of Robotics. The report also advises that the manufacturers of robots and AI systems should build in a ‘kill switch’ to be able to deactivate them. Another recommendation is that a European Agency for Robotics and AI be established that would be capable of responding to new opportunities and challenges arising from technological advancements in robotics.

The EU is not alone in its desire to regulate AI: similar (though less far reaching) reports were published in Japan and in the UK. These different initiatives are in effect the first attempts at creating Robot Law.

So, what is Robot Law? On the blog of the Michalsons Law Firm, Emma Smith describes Robot Law as covering “a whole variety of issues regarding robots including robotics, AI, driverless cars and drones. It also impacts on many human rights including dignity and privacy.” It deals with the rights and obligations of AI systems, manufacturers, consumers, and the public at large in its relationship to AI and how it is being developed and used. As such, it is different from, and far broader than Asimov’s Laws of Robotics which only apply to laws robots have to obey.

Why would we need Robot Law? For a number of reasons. AI has become an important contributing factor to the transformation of society, and that transformation is happening extremely fast. The AI Revolution is often compared to the Industrial Revolution, but that comparison is partly flawed, because of the speed, scale and pervasiveness of the AI Revolution. Some reports claim that the AI Revolution is happening up to 300 times faster than the Industrial Revolution. This partly has to do with the fact AI is already being used everywhere, and that pervasiveness is only expected to increase rapidly. Think, e.g., of the Internet of Things, where everything is connected to the Internet, and massive amounts of data are being mined.

The usage of AI already raises legal issues of control, privacy, and liability. Further down the line we will be confronted with issues of personhood and Laws of Robotics. But AI also has wide-reaching societal effects. Think, e.g., of the job market and the skill sets that are in demand. These will change dramatically. In the US alone, driverless cars and trucks, e.g., will see a minimum of 3 million drivers lose their jobs. So, yes, there is a need for Robot Law.

Separate from the question of whether we need Robot Law, is the question whether we already need legislation now, and/or how much should be regulated at this stage. When trying to answer that question, we are met with almost diametrically opposing views.

The Nay-sayers claim that it is still too soon to start thinking about Robot Law. The argument is that AI and Robotics are still in their infancy, and at this stage there is a need first to explore and develop it further. Not only are there still too many unanswered questions, but their view is that regulation at this stage could stifle the progress of AI. All we would have to do, is adapt existing laws. In that context, Roger Bickerstaff, e.g., speaks of:

  • Facilitative changes – these are changes to law that are needed to enable the use of AI.
  • Controlling changes – these are changes to law and new laws that may be needed to manage the introduction and scope of operation of robotics and artificial intelligence.
  • Speculative changes – these are the changes to the legal environment that may be needed as robotics and AI start to approach the same level of capacity and capability as human intelligence – what is often referred to as the singularity point.

Others, like the authors of the aforementioned reports, disagree. They argue that there already are issues of privacy, control, and liability. There also is the problem of transparency: how do Neural Networks come to their conclusions, e.g., when they recommend whether somebody is eligible for parole, or a loan, or when they assess risks, e.g., for insurances. How does one effectively appeal against such decisions if it’s not known how the AI system reaches its conclusions? Furthermore, the speed, scale and pervasiveness of the AI Revolution and its societal effects, demand a proactive approach. If we don’t act now, we will soon be faced with problems that we know will arise.

Finally, in his paper, Ryan Calo points out, maybe surprisingly, that there already is over half a century of case law with regard to robots. These cases deal with both robots as objects and robots as subjects. He rightfully points out that “robots tend to blur the lines between person and instrument”. A second, and more alarming insight of his study was “that judges may have a problematically narrow conception of what a robot is”. For that reason alone, it would already be worthwhile to start thinking about Robot Law.

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