Taking the Lawyers Out of the Loop 116
An Associated Press story carried by the Christian Science Monitor suggests that expert systems can already replace lawyers in a great many disputes (especially low-level ones, where the disputants don't need or don't want to see each other), and the realm of legal expertise that can be embodied in silicon will only grow. The article spends most of its time on Modria, a company whose software is being used in Ohio to "resolve disputes over tax assessments and keep them out of court, and a New York-based arbitration association has deployed it to settle medical claims arising from certain types of car crashes," but mentions a few others as well. Modria's software has also been used to negotiate hundreds of divorces in the Netherlands, including ones with areas of dispute: "If they reach a resolution, they can print up divorce papers that are then reviewed by an attorney to make sure neither side is giving away too much before they are filed in court."
divorce psudocode (Score:5, Funny)
if ( $the_wife) then
give($goldmine)
if ( the_husband) then
give($theshaft)
Re:divorce psudocode (Score:5, Funny)
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It took 2 seconds for me to write that joke, and it took 4 seconds for you to be pedantic.
Re:divorce psudocode (Score:4, Funny)
A whole 4 seconds? /.'s really gone downhill.
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And how many seconds is it going to take before you get amalcolm's joke?
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(Sorry, just had to do that.)
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Your code fails with gay marriages! Hand in your programming badge and gun.
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$lawyer.wallet = take($goldmine)
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Judging by the timestamps, I'd say around 9 minutes. ;-)
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https://youtu.be/SvqnjEQljYs?t... [youtu.be]
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I'm no expert on goldmines, but I think you need the shaft going into the goldmine, to be able to access said goldmine - your code results in logistical problems for the wife.
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The problem with arbitration isn't arbitration, it's the fact that in the private sector, where one party is disproportionately more powerful than the other, then the little guy is always going to lose. Private arbitrations between equally-powerful parties are fine.
Goodenough for me (Score:1, Flamebait)
Oliver Goodenough, director of the Center for Legal Innovation at Vermont Law School
Next!
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Dear Moderator,
Let me first state that you were well within your "rights" to moderate my above comment down. You, of course, are free to do what you feel is best. That said, I somewhat pity you, and at the same time it makes me wonder if you represent modern humanity as a whole. I'm not upset that you moderated me down -- I have karma to burn, and a silly number doesn't concern me in the slightest. What I am slightly dismayed about is that you thought the comment required down-moderation in the first place. To find humour in the most unlikely of places is what makes life fun. Life without humour is a lonely road to travel -- you'll just have to trust me on that one.
Perhaps you are young and have not learned to laugh at yourself yet, I don't know. But quite honestly once you learn to laugh at yourself you will find that you'll enjoy life much more. You (probably) only have one life, so make the best of it. Don't be so serious. Once you can laugh at yourself you will be able to find humour and enjoyment in the most trivial of things in a way that is not offensive to the others who may be affected. If they cannot see the good-natured and lighter side of things then their life might be pretty uninteresting as well. Laugh. Laugh at the mundane. Laugh at people's "seriousness". Laugh at living. Laugh for no reason at all. Have fun, because at the end of the day if you haven't had fun then you have led a life with less joy than I choose to live mine.
You know what else is funny? I've just given you another comment to moderate down! LOL
That's just not funny. Please. Learn to laugh it off.
Garbage in, garbage out (Score:1)
I can see how this will be gamed in the USA already.
Insurance company a uses form 1b to estimate general damages based on the poorest region of the country for estimated damages in nyc, does so legally and with no recourse possible because of a bidding arbitration eula.
Murica!
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It doesn't even have to be as elaborate as that.
Just make the code closed source and hide stuff in it.
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Diebold could build it!
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Because no one has ever tried to write a EULA or tried to hide stuff in code to get around a law?
Re:Garbage in, garbage out (Score:4, Informative)
Insurance companies already flaunt the "algorithm" and try to weasel out of paying claims when they really should. An expert system really isn't going to change this. Nor will it alleviate the problem that you need a specialist in order to deal with these people and put the fear of god into them.
That is why you hire a lawyer. They're like a techno mage. They know what secret words to use.
It's not just for litigation issues either. Simple government paperwork often requires not just any random lawyer but one that's more competent than average AND specializes in the agency you need to deal with.
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There's a lot of truth to this. I practice family law, and I'd say the biggest part of my job is managing the client's expectations. More often than not, the judge and both lawyers already know how the case is going to end from the beginning; the clients have to be carefully brought around to agreement, with lots of time for them to work through their feelings.
I wonder if I could put legal techno-mage on my cv....
Pharma pricing incoming in 3...2...1... (Score:4, Insightful)
So if it would have cost $120,000 to litigate, the software company will lease you the code for an $80,000 per-dispute fee.
Somehow, I think the bloodsucking will simply change parasites.
Re:Pharma pricing incoming in 3...2...1... (Score:5, Interesting)
But then the lawyers could just lower their prices to compete. Could actually make prices come down over a long enough time.
Personally, I think that we waste a lot of time and money paying professionals to do things that could much easier be accomplished by those who specialize in a very small task. I probably don't need an actual MD to tell me that my kid has an ear infection. It's probably a pretty simple diagnosis. Why not let somebody without an MD prescribe a limited number of medications?
I'm sure people hire lawyers for lots of things that are actually quite simple to somebody who focuses on the rules. You probably don't need a law degree to understand the law in a very limited field.
Some places are starting to catch on. I can get me teeth cleaned by a dental hygienist who owns their own office, no dentist is involved. I can get my flu shot at the pharmacy, no doctor involved. Hopefully someday we won't have to see a doctor to get a cast on a broken limb. You'll just go to somebody who specializes in diagnosing broken bones and getting them fixed, instead of waiting in a doctors office with lots of people with infectious diseases.
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for one you need an MD to diagnose a bacterial vs viral infection.
Doctors do not spend 11 years of post-secondary education and training to differentiate bacterial vs. viral infections. I guarantee that you can train a person in far fewer than 11 years to follow the same process that an MD does for this specific task.
In my neck of the woods, we have convenient care clinics staffed with nurse practitioners who are trained in very specific tasks. You can go see them for cheap for simple issues which they can treat for you, but they also recognize when your particular case i
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The obvious first use of this technology is not that we will be judged by an algorithm, but that algorithms will be used as a sort of "superGoogle' assistant by lawyers. The paper law library will be replaced by online statutes with a case database and intelligent search engines. The big step will be a matter of people power vs entrenched professional cronyism: will pro se parties in a case be allowed access to the technology to plead their own cases? It the tech works, a large percentage of the legal profe
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You have free access to a physical and cyber law library at your local state library and maybe at your district court. You may need to schedule a time for computer use. Printing is not free and they are usually segregated machines which do not allow one to email the results of their searches. Bring a notebook or pay the $0.10 per page I suppose.
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I'm not thinking of a broken femur or anything really complicated. Obviously they should send you to somebody more specialized if they don't know how to handle the problem correctly. I just don't think somebody with an MD should really be the first person that takes a lot at it. It's kind of crazy how many people go see a doctor when they have a simple cold, because there really isn't any other choice other than just waiting it out to see if it goes away. Most nurses could probably be trained to at lea
No, lawyers being lawyers... (Score:2)
Lawyers being lawyers will just either buy a law the prohibits this (in direct or indirect ways) or just sue anyways. Remember that much of what's in the congressional chambers are lawyers.
The first thing... (Score:3)
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Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.
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I believe you meant to say "kill".
Hard to believe (Score:5, Insightful)
I find that hard to believe. I have had 4 legal experiences in my time.
1) a divorce - (family law)
2) a labor dispute over a layoff - (labor law)
3) a private investment - (securities law)
4) A copyright filing - (intellectual property law)
In every case, there were some areas that could have been algorithmic, but in many dimensions on each one there were things that came about from advice from the attorney on how to position myself and under what laws I could make a case, which has a lot to do with language parsing and the definitions of the words used and their context. Unless this was paired with something like Watson which can determine meaning from context, I don't see this as being anything more than a paralegal replacement, but not a lawyer replacement.
Re:Hard to believe (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hard to believe (Score:5, Insightful)
Note that the laws are made in the most complicated and absurd ways on purpose . There is no money for lawyers where one person can interpret a law by herself.
The other thing is that people miss one of the main roles of lawyers - emotional therapy. It works because normally both parties to the dispute, (especially when it does not involve experienced business people who can see the bigger picture) are typically trying to find someone to be on their 'side'. A lawyer will happily take this role for you. They will listen to you moan about how mean or nasty the other party is, and colour the legal advice they give you so that you feel justified that your position is 'right'. They will then go 'into bat' for you against your opponent by talking to the other lawyer. I once had a business dispute where the other guy couldn't see this. After getting endless letters telling me how hurt his feelings were while dancing around the real issues that need to be resolved, I ended up having to tell the idiot that his lawyer really doesn't actually care about his plight, but is just pretending to care because he was being paid $200/hr to do so. I also explained to him that when his lawyer goes and has a petty argument with my one over some point that is not significant to the dispute, they don't actually have a shouting match down the phone. They are on the same team - which is team billable hours.
Anyway it ended up making him so paranoid I was able to scare him into a settlement. My point is that lawyers are not going to go away because very little of how they make money is from solving logical legal problems.
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"Note that the laws are made in the most complicated and absurd ways on purpose ."
It will be interesting to see what effect a successful technology of algorithmic pleading and judgment would have on the law itself. Will we see new bills parsed by an algorithm that suggests a rewrite in ways that make it easier for the lawyer and judge algorithms to arrive at rational case conclusions? How would such a process interact with the special-interest cronyism that underlies so much legislation?
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On purpose? I don't see reason to believe that.
Laws are made by legislators at some level or other, and while there are some universal agreements (murder is bad) there's a lot of disagreement on a lot of issues. Moreover, the need for certain laws changes over time. This means that laws are a matter of compromise, and often compromise layered on compromise. A lot of laws are vague because a majority could not be found for any particular more specific version. There is no overall shared vision, and s
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Unless this was paired with something like Watson which can determine meaning from context, I don't see this as being anything more than a paralegal replacement, but not a lawyer replacement.
What makes you think Watson-like intelligence isn't being employed by Modria? And if it isn't now, it soon will be. Watson beat those Jeopardy champions in 2011. It took about 10 years for the chess computer Deep Blue to have its achievements replicated on budget Intel Core 2 Duos. We are likely only 5 years from the capabilities of Watson to be as ubiquitous as Siri is now. By then the best language parsing software will run circles around Watson, and it will probably be for sale through a simple web servi
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I find that hard to believe. I have had 4 legal experiences in my time.
1) a divorce - (family law) 2) a labor dispute over a layoff - (labor law) 3) a private investment - (securities law) 4) A copyright filing - (intellectual property law)
In every case, there were some areas that could have been algorithmic, but in many dimensions on each one there were things that came about from advice from the attorney on how to position myself and under what laws I could make a case, which has a lot to do with language parsing and the definitions of the words used and their context. Unless this was paired with something like Watson which can determine meaning from context, I don't see this as being anything more than a paralegal replacement, but not a lawyer replacement.
Yes, but the vast majority of cases are fairly straightforward. Laws are nothing but a set of rules, and computers are great tools to track rules and figure out which apply. Precedents are set which further define what happens when the law falls short. Law (at least US Law) is chock full of "tests" which are fairly easy to apply. They come in the form of "If this AND this AND this, then $ruling". Unless you are in a precedent-setting case, which is rare, then I absolutely believe that a computer can be
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> If both parties are reasonable and aren't just trying to screw the other person, then there's no reason you need lawyers to get involved.
Almost. Where you may want to get a lawyer involved is to finalize the paperwork to ensure that (1) the often byzantine paperwork actually expresses the agreement you both intend to make. And (2) the agreement is fully legally binding in case of future disputes. Just because your partner agrees to certain conditions today doesn't mean that they won't want to "reinte
Take The Right Wing Out Of The Loop (Score:4, Insightful)
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Florida voted for Ultimate Corporate Rule two times when they voted for that fraudster Rick Scott.
It's hard to feel any sympathy for them. If the majority there doesn't like Scott then they didn't get out and vote against him, instead allowing idiots, knownothing old farts to vote in a known criminal because he would "stick it to the Libs."
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If 99% of people would no longer drive, this would reduce the risk of causing an accident, thus reducing the cost of this full medical liability insurance, in turn bringing back people onto the roads as drivers.
I wonder where the optimum would be.
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Now that it's mature, it can be replicated as many times as we need to, in reasonably short order. Can you be replicated even once?
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misleading headline (Score:3)
"If they reach a resolution, they can print up divorce papers that are then reviewed by an attorney to make sure neither side is giving away too much before they are filed in court."
That's not exactly taking lawyers out of the loop, is it? To my mind, that's insinuating yet another thing that can go wrong.
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...plus divorces are highly contentious and nasty. They are so nasty that a lot of lawyers don't want to have anything to do with them. They are fueled by intense emotion and feelings of betrayal. The parties are often vindictive and go to any means necessary to hurt the other party. They will happily drain their collective resources throwing money at both lawyers trying to achieve the most damage.
Divorce seems like the least likely thing to apply a "justice machine" to.
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Meh, most of the family law clients I have are not terribly vindictive at all. They're hurt, but if you don't egg them on they get to a reasonable place reasonably quickly. The vindictive ones mostly don't last long that way; vindictiveness is very expensive.
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greets, fellow lawyer. I didn't deal with divorces at all. I dealt with public family law (care and adoption cases) mostly, there was a bit of private law in there, eg contact and residency, that sort of thing. I was trying to move towards a less contentious field but things got stressful (bent judges) and I burned out. My clients were for the most part, albeit very stressed themselves, essentially good people and only trying to do good for their families, problem was they were fighting against the State wh
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I hear you. I've avoided doing child protection myself, I'm just not sure I can handle that kind of case. The bar here is pretty good, but it's all legal aid work, and there's never enough money to do the job right.
Computers as lawyers (Score:4, Insightful)
IAAL and a programmer. Let me start by saying: people have been promising expert systems to resolve a "great many disputes" for almost as long as there's been personal computers. And in some cases, those systems exist, but not in the form of legal expert systems, but negotiated transaction expert systems like you see in financial trading and the like. If the goal is always an equitable resolution of shared information, then computers can do it. Divorce between amicable partners would seem to be a prime example.
But that's not the reason people usually use lawyers in transactions. It's for all the other things that can possibly go wrong, including failure to share all the information (e.g., untrusted parties), not wanting "equitable" divisions, interpretation, etc.
If all the world just did the right thing, there'd be no need for lawyers.
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Hmm, do "amicable partners" actually get divorced? I'd always assumed it was the people who weren't happy with their partners who did that....
Re:Computers as lawyers (Score:5, Insightful)
>Hmm, do "amicable partners" actually get divorced?
Sometimes you don't hate the other person, you just realize that they aren't who you want to spend the rest of your life with. Lots of reasons for that - misjudging the other person from the start, you misjudging yourself, or one or both of you changed significantly during the relationship.
Even if you are angry, that doesn't mean you're also spiteful and greedy; you may hate the other partner but aren't trying to screw him/her over.
Of course, those types of divorces don't make the news; they just quietly happen.
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Sure, mine is amicable. My ex was heading off into super hippy land and hypochondria had her trying all sorts of remedies from coffee enemas to lemon/vinegar drinks, to eating some special kind of dirt, etc. Personally I didn't mind eating better but I drew the line at coffee enemas.
(There was a lot more than that but yea, we worked out the split, she headed off to the coast and I'm quietly enjoying myself in a flyover state.)
[John]
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Amicable divorces never needed lawyers anyways...
In many jurisdictions they are painless and easier than getting the marriage license. Kids complicate things though. Then it's not exactly "amicable" anymore. At least some states will make it a royal pain in the ass even if the parties are otherwise agreeable.
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Of course, you can still hire a $250-750/hr human lawyer when your e-lawyer screws up. Hopefully, that won't happen too often.
Rockets to the sun (Score:2)
I'm waiting with bated breath for the announcement of the launch date of the first rocket ship full of lawyers to the sun.
Not.
In the mean time, were can I find a reputable telephone sanitizer?
Now H1b for them (Score:1)
Can we get some H1b lawyers to lower the cost of the rest?
could be good for patent and ip law (Score:2)
if is_patent_dispute(case) {
if regex(case.claims, "\(.*software.*\)|\(.*internet.*\)") or find_prior_art() != null or !working_prototype_exists() {
invalidate_patent()
}
}
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Way too complicated. You can basically replace the current system with one line:
return (partyA.totalAssets > partyB.totalAssets) ? partyA : partyB;
I thought so (Score:2)
"If they reach a resolution, they can print up divorce papers that are then reviewed by an attorney to make sure neither side is giving away too much before they are filed in court."
There has to be some reason for the lawyers to add on a huge fee
taking them out of the loop... (Score:1)
Time to update Shakespeare ... (Score:2)
Writing machine-compatible laws (Score:4, Interesting)
Car Analogy (Score:2)
If you think 1,000 taxi medallion holders causing strife over Uber is bad, wait until the lawyers start marching in protest against Modria. The zombie apocalypse will be a children's ballet recital in comparison.
Bad sign for employment? (Score:3)
Lawyer jokes aside, this is a field that has expensive training, accreditation requirements (Bar Exam), and even for some folks allows you to have a title (I have a lawyer friend that tacked on Esq. to his name). The fact that they can be replaced even for a decent subset of their job doesn't make me feel happy for long term employment hopes.
Very simple algorithm (C#ish pseudocode) (Score:2)
public bool DoesSide1Win(Side side1, Side side2)
{
int totalCashSide1 = side1.GetTotalAvailableCash();
int totalCashSide2 = side2.GetTotalAvailableCash();
return totalCashSide1 > totalCashSide2;
}
Cautionary tale for IT - can't happen here, right? (Score:4, Interesting)
I actually feel bad for lawyers/law students. Yes, yes, cue the lawyer jokes, but what's happening to law is a perfect example of what's coming for basically all white collar work in the future. Hopefully I'll be retired or dead before it fully takes over. It's also a preview of what's happening in IT, accelerated significantly, so it should be taken as a cautionary tale.
It used to be that even doing an OK job in law school and passing the bar was an absolutely guaranteed ticket to permanent employment at the very least, and firm partner/country club lifestyle at the top end. From what I've read, the American Bar Association has done exactly what is being done in IT in the last 20 years:
- Increased the supply of new grads by accrediting more and more law schools.
- Decreased the equilibrium price of legal services by allowing offshoring of routine tasks as well as expert systems like the article is talking about. Apparently you needed to pay a full lawyer salary previously to have case documents reviewed for discovery, etc. Now new law grads are doing this job for Starbucks wages.
- Encouraging more and more people to get into the lucrative field of law, failing to mention the lack of opportunities.
Sound familiar? Tech executives complaining about a labor shortage fund extra educational programs, they offshore work, and they have the H1-B to fall back on.
Apparently, there are still insanely lucrative law jobs out there. Big corporate firms start their associates at $160K a year in New York, plus bonus. If you stay on that track, you will never want for money again -- you'll be well into the luxury lifestyle forever. BUT - there's a catch. You have to go to one of the top 14 law schools in the country, preferably Harvard/Yale/Stanford, graduate in the very top of your class, and do activities like law review on top of all that. Otherwise, you might as well not even go to law school, because you'll never make back your investment. There are tons of pissed off law grads in this boat -- I would be too if I were told there would be guaranteed riches at the end of the rainbow and wasted 3 years of my life plus bar exam preparation time.
Right now, the only professions that are safe are medicine and pharmacy. Mostly this is due to a very strong lobbying group (AMA) and the regulations/licensure surrounding the profession. I think it's definitely time to license the engineering/design side of IT and make the operations side a trade with all the protections that entails. I know I'd be a lot more comfortable if new entrants into the IT field went through an actual apprenticeship as opposed to a Ruby on Rails coder bootcamp or MCSE certification mill. Plus, having the actual engineers/architects licensed would bring personal liability into the picture and result in higher quality work overall. Time for the profession to grow up and get out of Mom's basement, so to speak.
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The other way around (Score:2)
Until they come for you... (Score:2)
If you outsource or automate farming, nobody cares except the displaced farmers.
If you outsource or automate factory work, nobody cares except the displaced factory workers.
If you outsource coders nobody cares except the displaced coders.
If you outsource or automate lawyers, all hell breaks lose because they have the power to stop it by erecting legal barriers and suing.
This country was founded by lawyers for lawyers.
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Many were both landowners and lawyers. Back then it was easier to be a polymath because the total knowledge needed to be competitive in each topic was smaller.
A contract by any other name. (Score:3)
The "expert system" is just a much more involved contract that happens to be written in code. That "code" is great, so long as both parties understand exactly the terms of the code that they are agreeing to. If both parties do not have an equally good understanding of the code, then the expert system is just another unfair one sided contract foisted on people by businesses with the aid of their programmers.
So, Not Then. (Score:2)
"Papers... then reviews by an attorney..."
So much for taking lawyers out of the loop.
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"Papers... then reviews by an attorney..."
So much for taking lawyers out of the loop.
Not only that, no ethical lawyer will review an agreement on behalf of both sides, as that represents a conflict of interest. You still need two lawyers if both sides feel the need for a review.
Thank God (Score:2)
I'm a lawyer, and I breathe a sigh of relief whenever I hear about the automation of the drearier aspects of my profession. Nobody goes to law school to fill out forms and file the same document 10,000 times, but that's what most attorneys end up doing. I can't wait for routine bankruptcy work to be fully automated, for example. Much legal work is just cleaning up messes, and like other janitorial work, we are quickly making robots to do it for us.
Good, I will make more money. (Score:2)