Legal Case Management Research Articles

Legal Challenges and Responses to Artificial Intelligence-Assisted Decision-Making in the International Economic Law System

Abstract Legal judgment prediction is becoming a research hotspot in the legal field as an important artificial intelligence-assisted decision-making tool in legal case management, which is able to predict judgment results. In this paper, data from the 2018 China Law Research Cup competition is gathered, and the dataset is preprocessed in the context of international economic law. Then, a multi-task model for legal verdict prediction is proposed, and the training optimization and prediction of the model are designed using CNN, RNN, and LSTM as the semantic coding layer. The model proposed in this paper achieves a significant improvement of 8% and 6% in the accuracy of the model in the prediction of the charging task and the legal sentence task, respectively. In case outcome prediction, the accuracy of the model proposed in this paper is improved by 14.6% on average compared to the feature model-based modeling approach.

Legal Project Management: Projectifying the Legal Profession

Post-Global Financial Crisis, global law firms and in-house departments have started to take up ‘Legal Project Management’ (LPM). LPM adopts and adapts project management methods for the law context as a means of streamlining, planning and costing legal work. This article examines LPM as an aspiring driver of managerialist change within the legal profession. In its reframing of all legal matters as ‘projects’, LPM is also an example of a more specific type of managerialist change, ‘projectification’: the process by which work activities, and our activities generally, are being organised and shaped as projects or temporary endeavours. Though we know managerialism is occurring, our understanding of how it manifests in, and is promoted by, specific practices and discourses within the workplace organisation is under-developed in the law context. It may be tempting to read managerialism as sullying traditional professionalism. But an extensive body of literature has documented the interactions of professional and managerial imperatives that result in what has been described as a hybridisation of different logics or belief systems. This article adds vital detail to the existing literature about managerialism within the legal profession by looking closely at LPM as projectification. To do so, it utilises Mirko Noordegraaf’s three dimensions of professionalism that represent core points of distinction: coordination of work, authority or the grounds for legitimacy, and values at stake. Through these facets, it analyses LPM’s somewhat contradictory aspects, illustrating the schismatic nature of projectification as both exciting and empowering, and ethically risky and dehumanising.

UNSW Law Mini-Curriculum Review Report on Technology and the Law School Curriculum

The MCR recommendations/findings are that: 1. The Law School add to the 8 existing cross-cutting themes that were adopted in response to the 2010-2013 Curriculum Review a further theme: “technological innovation and its impact on legal practice, law and society”. This is to encourage all academic staff to consider how technology may affect the content of their existing courses. 2. The Associate Dean – Education (a) investigate the availability of resources to assist core course convenors to address the new cross-cutting theme in core courses; and (b) fund a project officer to liaise with core course convenors to obtain information as to how the new cross-cutting theme is addressed in core courses. 3. The project officer report to the Associate Dean – Education on how each core course addresses the new cross-cutting theme by August 2018. The Associate Dean – Education to report these findings to the Qualifying Degrees Committee. 4. The Law School currently offers a range of outstanding courses that address the legal, ethical and policy issues presented by the use of technology in business, government and society. However there are some gaps in the UNSW Law offerings that may be addressed through new electives that should be developed in a coordinated manner amongst law school academics. 5. The Law School offer (or continue to offer) the following technology related electives: • Law Apps course – addressed through LAWS3196 / JURD7596 “Designing Technology Solutions for Access to Justice” which was offered for the first time in semester 2, 2017. • Startup Law – no course at present. • FinTech and RegTech - UNSW Law will offer LAWS8174 Financial Law and Regulation in the Age of FinTech to postgraduate and JD students in 2018. • Legal Practice, Ethics and Technology course - no course at present. • Introduction to Coding / Introduction to Computer Programming - no course at present. 6. The Law School recognise that the advent of technology also requires the development of other skills, which in turn requires opportunities within the law curriculum for students to obtain those skills, namely: • Emotional Intelligence – as part of courses requiring collaboration and group work. • Legal Project Management – as part of clinics and internships, but possibly also as a postgraduate course. • Legal Analytics – as part of existing courses dealing with technology or as an elective course. 7. The Law School work with the student Law Society and other student groups to support extra-curricular activities that develop skills and experience with technology and related areas. In particular, a Law hackathon should be institutionalized. 8. The Law School and its academic staff adopt an approach of continuous improvement in relation to the inclusion of technology and contemporary examples of contexts in the curriculum through the continued, incremental enhancement and development of courses to take account of rapid technological change. 9. The Law School provide opportunities for academic staff to learn about technological developments that impact their areas of teaching.

Legal Project Management: Passing Fad or Here to Stay?

AbstractIn this article, James Mullan addresses the recent trend relating legal project management (LPM) by law firms and assesses the long term potential for this concept. In addition, he seeks to identify how those in the law library and information profession can play a significant role in its introduction and development within a firm.

Nurses and the attorney-client relationship.

Because most nurses are unfamiliar with legal issues and systems, they may take a passive role in the attorney-client relationship and legal case management and as a result may be dissatisfied with legal services and outcomes. Nurses can use a patient bill of rights to understand what they should expect from their attorneys and to take a more active role in the management of their case. This article presents one version of a client bill of rights and uses familiar healthcare situations and real-life experiences of nurses to discuss the meaning of individual rights.