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Justin, with respect, there are many organizations working within the structure that you've put together. All of them get by on the basis that they argue the sc

by ABCLAW 9y ago

Justin, with respect, there are many organizations working within the structure that you've put together. All of them get by on the basis that they argue the scope of what software does is not the practice of law. My concern is that in order to secure regulator approval for this position most of these legal support contractors substantially misrepresent the scope and depth of the work they provide. Do you have any plans in place to mitigate the risk of crossing the line, and how will that inform your product development plans?

SOLAR_FIELDS 9y ago
Isn't this the same sort of quasi-entity that the patent troll firm that is suing Cloudflare is using? Not saying that what this gent is doing is even remotely as bad (or even really bad at all), but seems they are employing the same mechanism to skirt the regulations a bit.
Mathnerd314 9y ago
> most of these legal support contractors substantially misrepresent the scope and depth of the work they provide. source?
- ABCLAW 9y ago
  I work in the field, have money invested in the field and have spoken with both the organizations in question (as well as their compliance counsels) as well as their regulators. In law, new business models often are in violation, compliance wise, until they make the case that they shouldn't be. If the model is successful & profitable, they fight to change the rules and sometimes end up with a complete or partial victory in that campaign - this is largely a political fight at the bar. If not, they vanish and the lack of regulatory oversight is irrelevant. Can't give you more than that without going out of bounds. Reviewing Atrium's legal careers section, they clearly understand the need to monitor the regulatory environment with respect to compliance - see their lead counsel post. That said, I'd counsel justin not to reply to my question if I was advising him.
Digory 9y ago
AtriumLTS appears to be working on tools for lawyers, however; wouldn't you agree that's a much easier sell for regulators? As opposed to a LegalZoom or even Clerky model? Now, if they're trying to gin up some "big data" tools, and using Atrium-client data as inputs for those tools, that raises really sticky questions. There would need to be a whole lot of education and disclosure about to clients about AtriumLTS's access to, and use of, the client's information, and the profits generated from that. You just can't monetize lawyer-client relationships like you do in the finance field.
- ABCLAW 9y ago
  In my experience, the regulators aren't really being sold in the first place. They don't have the resources or willingness to stir up a hornet's nest if they can get away with it. Normally the key battle is in determining if the work in question falls within the definition of the practice of law. The more rote and mindless the work is (say, bates numbering a discovery compilation), the safer it is, but most of the low hanging stuff in this area is already done and most of the new entrants aren't trying to provide new tools in that area. The big new wave is based on using ML and other tools to search, sort and classify documents for contract management, due diligence, discovery, etc. This is an area where support services already operate. As third parties, these support organizations allow firms to launder responsibility. They can claim that the primary firm is responsible for performing the legal work, which allows them to use non-lawyers to perform the work lawyers would, while simultaneously allowing the primary firm to claim that the searches they perform are defensible and therefore even if mistakes have been made that their efforts were sufficient to discharge their responsibilities.
  - lifeisstillgood 9y ago
    Can you expand on the document classification etc - one would have thought that a large company would have all its contracts in one place / data room. For things like discovery etc I can see searching a gazillion emails is classification territory, but as you said that is mostly a done market? I am just wondering where this next wave really is going going
vadym909 9y ago
Just do it Justin. Make it cheaper for the public to fight their cases and be massively successful. If Uber and Airbnb can get away with it, so can you. If people paid attention to the naysayers nothing would ever change in the world.

by ABCLAW 9y ago

SOLAR_FIELDS 9y ago

Isn't this the same sort of quasi-entity that the patent troll firm that is suing Cloudflare is using? Not saying that what this gent is doing is even remotely as bad (or even really bad at all), but seems they are employing the same mechanism to skirt the regulations a bit.

Mathnerd314 9y ago

> most of these legal support contractors substantially misrepresent the scope and depth of the work they provide. source?

ABCLAW 9y ago
I work in the field, have money invested in the field and have spoken with both the organizations in question (as well as their compliance counsels) as well as their regulators. In law, new business models often are in violation, compliance wise, until they make the case that they shouldn't be. If the model is successful & profitable, they fight to change the rules and sometimes end up with a complete or partial victory in that campaign - this is largely a political fight at the bar. If not, they vanish and the lack of regulatory oversight is irrelevant. Can't give you more than that without going out of bounds. Reviewing Atrium's legal careers section, they clearly understand the need to monitor the regulatory environment with respect to compliance - see their lead counsel post. That said, I'd counsel justin not to reply to my question if I was advising him.

Digory 9y ago

AtriumLTS appears to be working on tools for lawyers, however; wouldn't you agree that's a much easier sell for regulators? As opposed to a LegalZoom or even Clerky model? Now, if they're trying to gin up some "big data" tools, and using Atrium-client data as inputs for those tools, that raises really sticky questions. There would need to be a whole lot of education and disclosure about to clients about AtriumLTS's access to, and use of, the client's information, and the profits generated from that. You just can't monetize lawyer-client relationships like you do in the finance field.

ABCLAW 9y ago
In my experience, the regulators aren't really being sold in the first place. They don't have the resources or willingness to stir up a hornet's nest if they can get away with it. Normally the key battle is in determining if the work in question falls within the definition of the practice of law. The more rote and mindless the work is (say, bates numbering a discovery compilation), the safer it is, but most of the low hanging stuff in this area is already done and most of the new entrants aren't trying to provide new tools in that area. The big new wave is based on using ML and other tools to search, sort and classify documents for contract management, due diligence, discovery, etc. This is an area where support services already operate. As third parties, these support organizations allow firms to launder responsibility. They can claim that the primary firm is responsible for performing the legal work, which allows them to use non-lawyers to perform the work lawyers would, while simultaneously allowing the primary firm to claim that the searches they perform are defensible and therefore even if mistakes have been made that their efforts were sufficient to discharge their responsibilities.
- lifeisstillgood 9y ago
  Can you expand on the document classification etc - one would have thought that a large company would have all its contracts in one place / data room. For things like discovery etc I can see searching a gazillion emails is classification territory, but as you said that is mostly a done market? I am just wondering where this next wave really is going going

vadym909 9y ago

Just do it Justin. Make it cheaper for the public to fight their cases and be massively successful. If Uber and Airbnb can get away with it, so can you. If people paid attention to the naysayers nothing would ever change in the world.