Technology Archives - Page 15 of 18 - The National Law Forum

Treasury Releases Report on Nonbank Institutions, Fintech, and Innovation

On July 31, 2018, the U.S. Department of the Treasury released a reportidentifying numerous recommendations intended to promote constructive activities by nonbank financial institutions, embrace financial technology (“fintech”), and encourage innovation.

This is the fourth and final report issued by Treasury pursuant to Executive Order 13772, which established certain Core Principles designed to inform the manner in which the Trump Administration regulates the U.S. financial system. Among other things, the Core Principles include: (i) empower Americans to make independent financial decisions and informed choices; (ii) prevent taxpayer-funded bailouts; (iii) foster economic growth and vibrant financial markets through more rigorous regulatory impact analysis; (iv) make regulation efficient, effective, and appropriately tailored; and (v) restore public accountability within federal financial regulatory agencies and rationalize the federal financial regulatory framework.

Treasury’s lengthy report contains over 80 recommendations, which are summarized in an appendix to the report. The recommendations generally fall into four categories: (i) adapting regulatory approaches to promote the efficient and responsible aggregation, sharing, and use of consumer financial data and the development of key competitive technologies; (ii) aligning the regulatory environment to combat unnecessary regulatory fragmentation and account for new fintech business models; (iii) updating a range of activity-specific regulations to accommodate technological advances and products and services offered by nonbank firms; and (iv) facilitating experimentation in the financial sector.

Some notable recommendations include:

Embracing Digitization, Data, and Technology

TCPA Revisions: Recommending that Congress and the Federal Communications Commission amend or provide guidance on the Telephone Consumer Protection Act to address unwanted calls and revocation of consent.
Consumer Access to Financial Data: Recommending that the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (“BCFP”) develop best practices or principles-based rules to promote consumer access to financial data through data aggregators and other third parties.
Data Aggregation: Recommending that various agencies eliminate legal and regulatory uncertainties so that data aggregators can move away from screen scraping to more secure and efficient methods of access.
Data Security and Breach Notification: Recommending that Congress enact a federal data security and breach notification law to protect consumer financial data and notify consumers of a breach in a timely manner, with uniform national standards that preempt state laws.
Digital Legal Identity: Recommending efforts by financial regulators and the Office of Management and Budget to enhance public-private partnerships that facilitate the adoption of trustworthy digital legal identity products and services and support full implementation of a U.S. government federated digital identity system.
Cloud Technologies, Artificial Intelligence, and Financial Services: Recommending that regulators modernize regulations and guidance to avoid imposing obstacles on the use of cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and machine learning technologies in financial services, and to provide greater regulatory clarity that would enable further testing and responsible deployment of these technologies by financial services firms as these technologies evolve.

Aligning the Regulatory Framework to Promote Innovation

Harmonization of State Licensing Laws: Encouraging efforts by state regulators to develop a more unified licensing regime, particularly for money transmission and lending, and to coordinate supervisory processes across the states, and recommending Congressional action if meaningful harmonization is not achieved within three years.
OCC Fintech Charter: Recommending that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency move forward with a special purpose national bank charter for fintech companies.
Bank-Nonbank Partnerships: Recommending banking regulators tailor and clarify regulatory guidance regarding bank partnerships with nonbank firms.

Updating Activity-Specific Regulations

Codification of “Valid When Made” and True Lender Doctrines: Recommending that Congress codify the “valid when made” doctrine and the legal status of a bank as the “true lender” of loans it originates but then places with a nonbank partner, and that federal banking regulators use their authorities to affirm these doctrines.
Encouraging Small-Dollar Lending: Recommending that the BCFP rescind its Small-Dollar Lending Rule and that federal and state financial regulators encourage sustainable and responsible short-term, small-dollar installment lending by banks.
Adoption of Debt Collection Rules: Recommending that the BCFP promulgate regulations under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act to establish federal standards governing third-party debt collection, including standards that address the reasonable use of digital communications in debt collection activities.
Promote Experimentation with New Credit Models and Data: Recommending that regulators support and provide clarity to enable the testing and experimentation of newer credit models and data sources by banks and nonbank financial firms.
Regulation of Credit Bureaus: Recommending that the Federal Trade Commission and other relevant regulators take necessary actions to protect consumer data held by credit reporting agencies and that Congress assess whether further authority is needed in this area.
Regulation of Payments: Recommending that the Federal Reserve act to facilitate a faster payments system, as well as changes to the BCFP’s remittance transfer rule.

Enabling the Policy Environment

Regulatory Sandboxes: Recommending that federal and state regulators design a unified system to provide expedited regulatory relief and permit meaningful experimentation for innovative financial products, services, and processes, essentially creating a “regulatory sandbox.”
Technology Research Projects: Recommending that Congress authorize financial regulators to undertake research and development and proof-of-concept technology partnerships with the private sector.
Cybersecurity and Operational Risks: Recommending that financial regulators consider cybersecurity and other operational risks as new technologies are implemented, firms become increasingly interconnected, and consumer data are shared among a growing number of third parties.

Weiss Nusraty

David A. Stein

Covington & Burling LLP

Using Technology to improve legal services? Submit to the Chicago Legal Tech Innovator Showcase! Deadline 9-29!

Is your firm combining technology and innovation to serve clients? We want to know about it! The Chicago Legal Tech Innovation Showcase, brought to you by the Chicago Bar Association’s Future of the Profession Committee and Chicago Kent School of Law is October 24^th. Submissions are due by September 29^th, 2017.

Submit a Law Firm/Organization/Legal Aid

A panel of distinguished judges will choose five “Best in Show” awards in each of the 2 awards categories: Law Firm/Legal Services and Company/Product/Service. Each award winner will present a 5 minute pitch at the Chicago Kent Auditorium on October 24 and have an opportunity to exhibit during the event. All submissions that meet the criteria will be listed in a Chicago Legal Tech Showcase Guide 2017

The Chicago Legal Tech Innovator Showcase will promote the law firms, legal aid orgs, and companies that are using technology to improve legal services in the Chicago area and highlight those whose innovations are exceptional. Whether the end result is better legal knowledge management, more affordable legal services, or improved metrics for decision making and analysis—and regardless of how the services are delivered—we want to hear what you are doing and so does Chicago’s legal community!

To learn more and submit go to: http://lpmt.chicagobar.org/chicago-legal-tech-innovator-showcase/

Parties Discuss Privacy Issues in Advance of FTC, NHTSA Workshop on Connected Cars

Automated vehicle technology is accelerating, and regulators are racing to keep up. On June 28, 2017, the Federal Trade Commission and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (“NHTSA”) will hold a workshop to examine the consumer privacy and security issues posed by automated and connected vehicles. The workshop comes several months after the Department of Transportation and NHTSA promulgated a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”) that would require all new passenger vehicles to be capable of vehicle-to-vehicle (“V2V”) communications by the early 2020s.

The FTC and NHTSA have raised several questions to be addressed at the workshop, including:

What data do vehicles with wireless interfaces collect, store, and transmit, and how is that data used and shared?
What are vehicle manufacturers’ privacy and security policies and how are those policies communicated to consumers?
What choices are consumers given about how their data is collected, stored, and used?
What are the roles of the FTC, NHTSA, and other federal agencies with regard to the privacy and security issues raised by connected vehicles?
What self-regulatory standards apply to privacy and security issues relating to connected vehicles?

Car manufacturers, tech organizations, privacy organizations, and other parties filed comments in advance of the workshop, responding to these questions and more:

The Association of Global Automakers, a group that includes Aston Martin, Ferrari, Honda, Toyota, and others, said that V2V and vehicle-to-infrastructure (“V2I”) communications do not present a significant privacy risk to individuals because they do not collect or store PII or information that can be linked to a particular vehicle. The organization stated that the method of communicating between cars—dedicated short range communications (“DSRC”)—“already has layers of security established into its design.” The group did acknowledge that privacy and security issues “may be exacerbated” by wireless-enabled aftermarket products connected to on-board diagnostics ports, and said that developers and third parties should therefore take appropriate steps to design and manufacture secure products.
CTIA praised the safety benefits that connected vehicle technologies could provide, highlighting how 5G network speed, capacity, and location can improve autonomous vehicle safety and efficiency. The wireless group spoke to both its sector’s experience in addressing data privacy and security across the Internet of Things, and urged the agencies to refrain from imposing vehicle-specific privacy or security regulations which “could be redundant to or conflict with existing privacy and data security protections enforced by the FTC and the Department of Homeland Security.” CTIA instead said the agencies should promote and expand industry-led initiatives like the NIST Cybersecurity Framework and self-regulatory principles like the auto industry privacy principles.
In contrast, EPIC said that “meaningful oversight and enforcement mechanisms” would be necessary to protect consumer privacy. In its discussion of federal policies, the organization stated that enforcement would “require[] a private right of action against companies who misuse and fail to secure personal information.” The organization also opposed the NPRM’s proposal to create a new Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (“FMVSS”) which would preempt state regulations, arguing that historically, while the federal government has enacted privacy laws, more robust privacy legislation has been implemented at the state level.
The Future of Privacy Forum, which runs a Connected Cars Working Group whose members include Fiat Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, Hyundai, Lyft, Toyota, and Uber, urged the agencies to focus on transparency around consumer data use, including the provision of resources that are publicly available, accessible before purchase, and reviewable throughout the life of a vehicle as well as the incorporation of consumer privacy controls when appropriate. The group urged the agencies to encourage industry self-regulatory efforts, saying that they can be enforceable when companies publicly commit.

To IT or Not to IT: Why Your Firm Needs to Hire a Legal IT Consultant

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer through all the bad things luck throws at you, or to take arms against all those things that trouble you by putting an end to them? Yes, I am being a bit pretentious. But, Shakespeare’s words are relevant here. How do you deal with the day-to-day challenges of running your firm? Should you put up with it or do something about it? Simply put, if you want your firm to grow you have to take action. A legal IT consultant can help solo and small firms put an end to the challenges that are keeping them from being competitive with larger firms.

Why You Are Hesitating, Hamlet?

I have already argued in an earlier article that solo and small firms must embrace new technology in order to stay competitive. Nevertheless, I understand even a tech-savvy lawyer’s time is better spent being a lawyer than updating a website. Moreover, it does not matter if you have the latest software if no one can use it properly. So, who is going to train your employees to use the shiny and new technology? Set up, implantation, and training is a major time-killer. Add to this every other challenge that comes with running a firm.

The goal is to get lawyers back to practicing the law. This cannot be done without directly tackling the things draining your time. The fact is, technology can and will make your life easier and save you time. A legal IT consultant will use their ability to take some of the weight off your shoulders. Let them handle all your technology needs, therefore you can get back to your clients.

Bring an Objective Eye

I get it, Hamlet. Your firm is your baby. You have invested a lot of time and money in it. You want your firm to succeed, so it is hard to trust someone else with it. But, this is exactly what makes an IT consultant so beneficial. Sometimes, you are too close to something to see it objectively. An IT consultant is a neutral party. Vital changes will be made by someone who is objective. IT consultants are not yes men or untrustworthy. You can trust them to give you their fair thoughts on how to improve your firm.

You may already be using technology like case management software. However, one of the most common ways you waste billable hours is with bad software. You may choose your current software because a sales rep gives you a good pitch. It is difficult to realize why your current software is not saving you time without testing each one yourself. This trial-and-error process is just too time-consuming.

An IT consultant is not a salesperson. You can trust that they will recommend the best case management software for your needs. An IT consultant will learn what you and your staff need out of the software. They can assess which software meets those needs and ask the right questions to a salesperson. This process could take you weeks to complete on your own. Your consultant will handle the grunt work. You do not need to divide your time between cases and trial software.

Save Time and Money

Training is also not an issue. Lawyers tend to stick with bad software because it is inconvenient to train themselves and their staff in the software. The consultant will choose software that is the easiest to use and direct training themselves. Again, this is another task you do not have to deal with. You also save time spent on training, getting schedules in order, and implementing the new software. Overall, this is a much less stressful process for you and your staff.

IT challenges do not end after you install all the fancy hardware/software. We can look forward to AI solving this problem for us one day, but not yet. IT consultants stick with you until the needed changes are complete. IT consultants do not just make suggestions and leave the rest to you. An IT consultant will develop a long-term strategy and work with you on how/when to best to make changes. There is no need to ask a ghost for advice. You can rely on regular updates from the consultant to make sure they are meeting goals.

Therefore, the most important part of an IT consultant’s job becomes to reclaim your billable hours and personal time. You have a dedicated professional handling all IT issues and implantation of new technology for you. Your firm can only grow if you are doing your job and helping your clients. The IT consultant eliminates the extra work that is important for growing your firm, but distracts from your billable hours.

Moreover, as you begin to add more technology you will also have to keep up with updates and changes. This is a difficult task even for fresh-faced lawyers. Technology is simply advancing too quickly to consistently stay up-to-date. Very few lawyers can dedicate the necessary time to keep up with all the changes, work with their clients, run their firm, and complete other tasks.

The IT consultant’s job is to keep up with the pace of change and trends. They will update your firm and guide you and your employees through those changes. Likewise, the shiniest, newest technology is seductive. IT consultants know what will work best for your firm. They will recommend only the technology your firm needs. You can rest assured that money is not being wasted on useless tech. The consultant will give you a detailed explanation on how/why the recommended changes will meet your firm’s needs.

Meet Goals with Less Stress

One of the biggest challenges to meeting goals are employees. You can trust your employees to do the jobs you hired them to do. Employees, however, hate to have new tasks added to their workflow if they need to learn new skills. Employees are resentful of having to do a task they have little experience with or knowledge of. This creates extra stress on them and slows down the progress of their work. You cannot blame them for this. IT consultants realize it is a lot to ask of employees to add more duties to their plate.

An IT consultant will use their knowledge and resources to help your employees as well. The consultant does not simply train employees to use new technology. They serve as a guide and teach skills. The IT consultant will come up with a plan for helping employees adapt to their new tasks. This is especially helpful considering how multigenerational firms are becoming. Some employees will adapt quicker to their new tasks. The consultant will create specific schedules and strategies for these employees. Once the employees understand the changes, they will feel less resentful of the new work. This relieves stress and work gets started sooner. Thus, the IT consultant saves time and money in the short and long run.

There is no excuse not to take action. You should hire a legal IT consultant because they will help you grow your firm. Take your rightful place as king of all firms. The rest is silence.

ARTICLE BY Eddy Bermudez of PracticePanther

Browsewrap Agreement Held Unenforceable – Website Designers Take Note!

In Nghiem v Dick’s Sporting Goods, Inc., No. 16-00097 (C.D. Cal. July 5, 2016), the Central District of California held browsewrap terms to be unenforceable because the hyperlink to the terms was “sandwiched” between two links near the bottom of the third column of links in a website footer. Website developers – and their lawyers – should take note of this case, part of an emerging trend of judicial scrutiny over how browsewrap terms are presented. Courts have, in many instances, refused to enforce browsewraps due to a finding of a lack of user notice and assent. In this case, the most recent example of a court’s specific analysis of website design, a court suggests that what has become a fairly standard approach to browsewrap presentment fails to achieve the intended purpose.

In Nghiem, the plaintiff brought claims under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) seeking statutory damages and an order certifying a class action. The defendant Dick’s Sporting Goods (DSG) moved to compel arbitration based upon the DSG’s website terms of use. The court denied the defendant’s motion, ruling that the plaintiff had no knowledge of the website terms and was not bound by the arbitration clause contained in DSG’s browewrap agreement.

The terms of use on DSG’s website were not presented in the typical clickthrough arrangement, where users are expressly presented with and required to assent to the terms before completing a purchase or registration. Rather, DSG’s terms were presented as a browsewrap agreement, where a website’s terms and conditions are posted on the website via a hyperlink at the bottom of the screen and users are presumed to manifest assent to the terms by use of the website.

The district court noted that browsewrap agreements are enforced with “reluctance,” and only when a consumer has “actual or constructive knowledge of a website’s terms and conditions.” Interestingly, DSG argued that because the plaintiff was an attorney whose former firm handled TCPA cases (including litigation against DSG), he should be charged with knowledge of the terms and arbitration clause. The court rejected the argument that the plaintiff should be deemed to have actual knowledge of its terms based upon his vocation:

“[A]ctual knowledge is not something to be ‘safely assumed,’ as Defendants would have it, based on a plaintiff’s occupation. Instead, Defendants were required to put forth ‘evidence’ that Plaintiff had ‘actual knowledge of the agreement’ at issue. Defendants’ speculation regarding whether Nghiem reviewed, at some point in the past, DSG’s website Terms of Use is insufficient to meet this standard.” [citations omitted].

The court performed a detailed review of the website design to determine whether the plaintiff gained constructive knowledge of the website terms based upon, among other considerations, the placement of the link to the terms. The court noted that DSG’s terms appeared at the bottom in the website footer of the home page (and on the page about its mobile alerts), and within a grouping of 27 other hyperlinks arranged in four columns that covered a variety of diverse topics (e.g., careers, gift cards, find a store, etc.). The court noted that the hyperlink to the terms was “sandwiched between ‘Only at DICK’s’ and ‘California Disclosures’, near the bottom of the third column of links.” As such, the court ruled that the placement was not conspicuous enough alone to put consumers on inquiry notice of the terms.

The ruling was not necessarily surprising in light of other recent decisions examining browsewrap agreements. For example, a recent California appellate court decision affirmed a ruling denying a motion to compel arbitration based upon website terms that were only viewable at the bottom of each page via a capitalized and underlined hyperlink (“TERMS OF USE”). The hyperlink was displayed in a light green typeface on the site’s lime green background, and was among 14 other hyperlinks of the same color, font and size. (See Long v. Provide Commerce, Inc., 200 Cal. Rptr. 3d 117 (Cal. App. 2016)). The appellate court followed well-known precedent in reaching its holding. See e.g., Nguyen v. Barnes & Noble, Inc., 763 F.3d 1171, 1178-79 (9th Cir. 2014) (“[W]here a website makes its terms of use available via a conspicuous hyperlink on every page of the website but otherwise provides no notice to users nor prompts them to take any affirmative action to demonstrate assent, even close proximity of the hyperlink to relevant buttons users must click on—without more—is insufficient to give rise to constructive notice”); Specht v. Netscape Communications Corp., 306 F.3d 17 (2d Cir. 2002) (declining to enforce an arbitration provision contained in a software licensing browsewrap agreement where the hyperlink to the agreement appeared on “a submerged screen” below the “Download” button that the plaintiffs clicked to initiate the download).

These recent cases should prompt companies to reexamine electronic contracting practices to ensure that consumers are offered notice sufficient to understand that use of a website will constitute agreement to the terms. One solution is the use of clickthrough agreements, which are generally upheld based upon now fairly-standard procedures for gaining notice and assent during user registration or purchase confirmation. Ultimately, however, in designing a site, companies must balance concerns for user flow with the protections that come with an enforceable terms of use (though, it should be noted that in May 2016 the CFPB proposed a rule that would prohibit mandatory arbitration clauses that prevent class actions).

ARTICLE BY Jeffrey D Neuburger of Proskauer Rose LLP

Recent IT Outsourcing Study Finds Continued Growth Led by Large Organizations

A recently released study assessing current trends in the use of IT outsourcing found that spending on IT outsourcing is rising at a rate in step with IT operational budgets as a whole, led by large organizations (those with IT operating budgets of $20 million or greater) that spend 7.8% of their IT budgets on outsourcing at the median. The study’s findings also highlight a number of trends within organizations’ IT outsourcing priorities:

Shifting Trends in Some IT Outsourcing Functions. The study found that the outsourcing of some IT functions is growing, while outsourcing of other functions is shrinking. For example, more organizations are outsourcing IT security, e-commerce systems, and application hosting, while fewer organizations are outsourcing help desk, desktop support, and application maintenance functions.
Continued Growth of Software as a Service. Application hosting was the most frequently outsourced IT function identified in the study. It found that 65% of organizations that currently outsource application hosting intend to increase the amount of work outsourced for that function.
Outsourcing Versus In-House. Among organizations that outsource IT functions, the study showed help desk and web/e-commerce operations were the IT functions with the largest percentage of work moved to outside service providers. Application hosting and IT security were the IT functions for which organizations tend to perform the most work in-house.
Potential for Cost Savings and Value. Among the functions examined by the study, outsourcing of disaster recovery and desktop support were found to have the greatest potential for reducing costs. The outsourcing of web/e-commerce, desktop support, disaster recovery, and IT security were found to deliver the best overall value for organizations by saving money and improving service levels

Article By Emily R. Lowe & Glen W. Rectenwald of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP

China Proposes “RoHS 2” Framework for Comment

On May 15, 2015, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (“MIIT”) released a latest Draft for Comments (“May 2015 Draft”) of the “Management Methods for the Restriction of the Use of Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Products” (“Methods”) (Draft for Comments in Chinese). The new Methods is designed to replace the existing regime, promulgated in 2006 and commonly referred to as “China RoHS.” The May 2015 Draft is now open for public comments until June 17, 2015. It makes several important proposed changes to the existing China RoHS regulation.

Since 2010, the Chinese government has attempted to push forward an updated RoHS regulation, and MIIT has released several draft revisions, but none have been enacted. The May 2015 Draft generally retains the requirements on both materials restrictions and information disclosure, but makes several important changes:

It aligns its scope with the EU RoHS 2. The new open scope of covered “Electrical and Electronic Products” (“EEP”) is not limited to “electronic information products” but would now extend to all electrical and electronic equipment (“EEE”) that meets voltage specifications. The definition is almost identical to that of EEE in the EU RoHS 2 Directive, except that it excludes “devices involved in electrical power production, transmission and distribution.”;
The May 2015 Draft will remove the current “manufactured for export” scope exclusion;
The renamed “Compliance Management Catalogue” will likely, once issued in the future, include the hazardous-substance content limits (to date not yet imposed under China RoHS 1).
With respect to certification, the May 2015 Draft proposes a new, multi-agency, two-step system to replace the current program. Products on the “Compliance Management Catalogue” will first go through a “conformity assessment” process. After the conformity assessment, that assessment will be subject to a subsequent verification mechanism, which will be developed later by MIIT along with Finance and other ministries.

It remains unclear how the new conformity assessment and the following verification mechanism will operate in practice. The language implies that the MIIT may need to take further actions to specify the details of these programs;

The May 2015 Draft will remove the disclosure requirement for product packaging materials from the existing regulation.

It remains to be seen whether this May 2015 Draft will be finalized as the new China RoHS 2 regulation and whether the above changes will remain in the enacted rules. Parties that are interested in submitting comments on this Draft may do so via either of the two approaches listed here (in Chinese).

Mr. LaMotte graciously acknowledges the assistance of Shengzhi Wang, a summer associate with the Firm, in the preparation of this Alert.

ARTICLE BY K. Russell LaMotte of Beveridge & Diamond PC

Is Your Firm Prepared for Google’s Newest Algorithm?

‘Mobilegeddon’ has been taking over the internet this week. On Tuesday, Google announced a big change to its search algorithm. What does that mean for your law firm website?

Google’s newest update will essentially give a boost in organic (non-paid) search results to websites that are mobile friendly. The idea is to encourage website developers to create websites that are more user friendly on smart phones. The more mobile friendly and content rich the website is, the higher it will rank in Google’s organic search results.

Google spokeswoman Krisztina Radosavljevic-Szilagyi explained, “As people increasingly search on their mobile devices, we want to make sure they can find content that’s not only relevant and timely, but also easy to read and interact with on smaller mobile screens.”

According to NPR, Google stated that as soon as a website is made mobile friendly, its position within the search results will begin to improve. This is excellent news for law firms that have not yet made the move to a responsive, mobile friendly, website. Google’s latest news is saturating the internet.

ARTICLE BY

Brian Lynch

RW Lynch Company, Inc.

The New Competition – Emerging Legal Technologies Out of Silicon Valley

In January, the National Law Review had pleasure of attending theAnnual Marketing Partner Forum in beautiful Rancho Palos Altos, California. Programing was provided by the Legal Executives Institute at Thomson Reuters and featured over 15 hours of dynamic workshops. Hundreds of marketing partners, managing partners, in-house counsel and senior-level marketing and business development professionals were in attendance.

The “New Competition” program featured emerging legal technologies within Silicon Valley. Catherine Hammack of Jurispect, Monica Zent of Foxwordy, and Daniel Lewis of Ravel Law each showcased their innovative technologies and shared their thoughts as to where innovation is taking the legal industry in 2015.

“Jurispect will help fundamentally transform how companies operate by providing organizations with a real-time analytical view of both exposure and opportunities to take proactive steps to manage legal and regulatory risk.” – Catherine Hammack

Catherine was present on two momentous occasions in U.S. financial history: as an intern at Arthur Anderson when Enron was indicted, and as a first-day associate at Bingham McCutchen the day Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, and the start of the financial crisis in 2008. Following her time at Bingham as a financial litigator, she transitioned to join Google’s Policy team, where her perspective on legal services dramatically changed.

As Catherine elaborated in a post-conference interview: “There was a huge gap between the way law firms traditionally provide counsel and the way companies need information to make business decisions.” She was surrounded by engineers and data scientists who were analyzing vasts amounts of data with cutting edge technology. Catherine became interested in adapting these technologies for managing risk in the legal and regulatory industries. Inspired by Google’s data-driven decision making policies, she founded Jurispect.

Jurispect is a tool that companies can use to track legal and regulatory changes relevant to their industry, and possibly to identify risks earlier on to help avoid future Enrons and Lehman Brothers. Currently, Jurispect is geared toward companies in the financial services and technology space, and will be expanding into other regulated industries in the very near future. Key decision makers in the corporate legal, compliance and risk departments of companies are benefitting from Jurispect’s actionable intelligence. The user’s experience is customized: Jurispect’s technology adjusts based on user profile settings and company attributes. As the user continues to utilize Jurispect, its algorithms continuously calibrate to improve the relevancy of information presented to each user.

Jurispect’s team of seasoned experts in engineering, data science, product management, marketing, legal and compliance collaborated to develop the latest machine learning and semantic analysis technologies. These technologies are used to aggregate information across regulatory agencies, including sources such as policy statements and enforcement actions. Jurispect also analyzes information in relevant press releases, and coverage by both industry bodies and mainstream news. The most time-saving aspect of Jurispect are the results that coalesce into user-friendly reports to highlight the importance and relevance of the regulatory information to their company. Users can view this intelligence in the form of notifications, trends, and predictive analytics reports. Jurispect makes data analytics work for legal professionals so they spend less time searching, and more time on higher level competencies. As Catherine elaborated, “We believe that analytics are quickly becoming central to any technology solution, and the regulatory space is no exception.”

“Foxwordy is ushering in the era of the social age for lawyers and for the legal industry.” – Monica Zent

Monica is an experienced entrepreneur and had already been running a successful alternative law firm practice when she founded Foxwordy. Foxwordy is a private social network that is exclusively for lawyers. Monica reminded the audience that we are, remarkably, ten years into the social media experience and all attorneys should consider a well rounded social media toolkit that includes Foxwordy, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

However, as Monica elaborated in a post-conference interview, LinkedIn, for example, “falls short of the needs of professionals like lawyers who are in a space that is regulated; where there’s privacy, [and] professional ethics standards.” As an experienced attorney and social seller, Monica understands that lawyers’ needs are different from other professionals that use the more mainstream and very public social networks, which is why she set out to create Foxwordy.

Foxwordy is currently available to licensed attorneys, those who are licensed but not currently practicing but regularly involved in the business of law, certified paralegals, and will eventually open up to law students. Anyone who fits the above criteria can request membership by going to the homepage, and all potential members go through a vetting process to ensure that they are a member of the legal community. At its inception, the Foxwordy team expected to see more millennials and solo practitioners taking advantage of the opportunity to network on Foxwordy. Those populations have joined as expected, but what was surprising is how the product resonated across all demographics, positions and segments of the legal industry. Foxwordy has seen general counsels, in-house counsels, solo practitioners, major law firm partners, law school deans, judges, politicians and more become members.

Foxwordy is currently available to join and will be emerging out of public beta around summertime this year. As Monica said during her presentation “Time is the new currency”, and what the Foxwordy team has found via two clinical trials is that engaging Foxwordy saves lawyers an average of two hours per day. Membership includes all the core social features such as a profile page, connecting with others, the ability to ask questions and engage anonymously, exchange referrals, and exchange other information and resources. Free members experience all the core functions fully and there is a premium membership that is available with enhanced features and unlimited use of Foxwordy. In the closing thoughts of her post-conference interview, Monica shared that “the ability to engage anonymously and discreetly, yet at the same time collaborate with our legal colleagues and engage with them on a social level has been very powerful.”

“There is an amazing opportunity to use data analytics and technology to create a competitive edge for lawyers amidst all of this information…” – Daniel Lewis

Data analytics and technology has been used in many different fields to predict successful results. In his presentation, Daniel pointed out that fields traditionally considered more art than science have benefitted from the use of data analytics to predict accurate results.

Having conducted metrics-based research and advocacy while at the Bipartisan Policy Center, and observing how data-driven decision making was being used in areas like baseball and politics, Daniel was curious why the legal industry had fallen so far behind. Even though the legal field is often considered to be slow moving, there are currently over 11 million opinions in the U.S. judicial system with more than 350,000 new opinions issued per year. There is also a glut of secondary material that has appeared on the scene in the form of legal news sources, white papers, law blogs and more. Inspired by technology’s ability to harness and utilize vast amounts of information, Daniel founded Ravel Law to accommodate the dramatically growing world of legal information.

Ravel Law is optimized for all lawyers across the country. Currently, thousands of associates, partners, and in-house counsel are using Ravel. Ravel has as also begun working with 30 of the top law schools around the country, with thousands of law students learning how to use it right alongside legal research staples such as Westlaw and LexisNexis. Professors and students around the country have also independently discovered Ravel and are using and teaching it. When asked why he works with law schools, Daniel said “We work with schools because students are always the latest generation and have the highest expectations about how technology should work for them.” Students have given the Ravel team excellent feedback and have grown into a loyal user base over the past few years. Once these students graduate, they introduce Ravel to their firms. Ravel’s user base has been growing very quickly and they have only released a small portion of what their technology is ultimately capable of.

Ravel’s team of PhDs and technical advisors from Google, LinkedIn, and Facebook, has coded advanced search algorithms to determine what is relevant, thereby enhancing legal research’s effectiveness and efficiency. Ravel provides insights, rather than simply lists of related materials, by using big data technologies such as machine learning, data visualization, advanced statistics and natural language processing. In a post-conference follow up Daniel elaborates: “Our visualizations then show how the results connect in context, helping people understand the legal landscape very rapidly as well as find needles in the haystack.” Ravel guides users toward analysis of relevant passages in a particular case, without navigating away from the original case or conducting a new search. Daniel and his colleagues will be launching more new features this year and are looking forward to continuing to “transform how attorneys search and understand all legal information.”

Cyber and Technology Risk Insurance for the Construction Sector

The recent, well-publicized retail store data breach controversies have spawned a number of lawsuits and insurance claims. Not surprisingly, insurers have responded with attempts to fight claims for coverage for such losses. Insurance underwriters are carefully monitoring decisions being handed down by courts in these lawsuits. All of this activity has led to a new emphasis on cyber and technology risk and assessments, as well as on insurance-program strategies.

These developments have ramifications for the construction industry that include, and go well beyond, the data-breach context. Contractors, design professionals and owners may find that in addition to losses caused by data breaches, other types of losses occasioned by technology-related incidents may not be covered by their existing insurance programs.

Specifically, insureds may find themselves with substantial coverage gaps because:

data and technology exclusions have been added to general liability policies.

such losses typically involve economic losses (as opposed to property damages or personal-injury losses) that insurers argue are not covered by general liability policies.

data and technology losses may be the result of manufacturing glitches rather than professional negligence covered by professional liability policies.

Coverage for claims involving glitches, manufacturing errors and data breaches in technology-driven applications — such as Building Information Modeling (BIM), estimating and scheduling programs, and 3D printing — may be uncertain. A number of endorsements are currently available for data breach coverage, but insurers don’t necessarily have the construction industry in mind as they provide these initial products.

In addition, there is no such thing as a “standard” cyber liability policy, endorsement or exclusion. Insurers have their own forms with their own wording, and as seemingly minor differences in language may have a significant impact in coverage, such matters should be run past counsel.

Construction insurance brokers are telling us that insurers are in the process of determining how to respond to cyber and technology risk claims, what products to offer going forward, and how to underwrite and price these products. Keith W. Jurss, a senior vice president in Willis’s National Construction Practice warns:

“As the construction industry continues to identify the unique “cyber” risks that it faces we are identifying gaps in the current suite of “cyber” insurance coverages that are available. In addition, new exclusionary language related to cyber risk under CGL and other policies adds to the gap. The insurance industry is slowly beginning to respond with endorsements that give back coverage or new policies designed to address the specific risks of the construction industry.

“As we identify cyber insurance underwriters willing to evaluate the risks specific to the construction industry, we are seeing the development of unique solutions in the market. There is, however, more work required and as construction clients continue to demand solutions the industry will be forced to respond.”

Consequently, this is a time to stay in close touch with qualified construction insurance brokers who understand the sector and have their hands on the pulse of the latest available cyber and technology risk products. As these products become available, clients may also want to consider what cyber and technology risk coverage to require on projects and whether to include these requirements in downstream contracts.

ARTICLE BY

Josh M. Leavitt

Much Shelist, P.C.

Category: Technology

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