Legal Sector Research Articles

Algorithmic Dispute Resolution—The Automation of Professional Dispute Resolution Using AI and Blockchain Technologies

Legal Services industries are entering a period of major disruption caused by new legal technologies (LawTech), such as artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT) and Blockchain. An area already undergoing major innovation is alternative dispute resolution (Alternative Dispute Resolution (2017) Wikipedia,https://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Alternative_dispute_resolution), especially automated online dispute resolution (Online Dispute Resolution (2017) Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Online_dispute_resolution; Katsh, E. and Rifkin, J. (2001) Online Dispute Resolution: Resolving Conflicts in Cyberspace. Jossey-Bass Wiley, New Jersey). In terms of LawTech, we broadly divide online dispute resolution into (a) Consumer ODR—uses technology to facilitate the resolution of disputes between ecommerce parties, typically online suppliers and consumers; (b) Judicial ODR—covers any means of settling ‘ordinary’ disputes where there is a hearing (using technology) but outside of the courtroom, such as divorce or personal injury cases; and what we refer to as (c) Corporate ODR—the use of technology to manage the resolution of any contractual disputes that may emerge from major multi-partner projects or financial transactions. This paper focuses on ODR and specifically the future use of automating anticipatory Corporate dispute resolution using AI and blockchain technologies. The paper describes the legal sector, and how it is being radically transformed by computer science.

But Seriously Now … Lawyers as Agents of Happiness? The Role of the Law, Lawmakers, and Lawyers in the Realization of Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness

The concept of Gross National Happiness (GNH) – or the idea that a nation’s development strategy should have as its goal the maximization of a people’s happiness, rather than the maximization of their economic output – is appealingly persuasive in its humanistic simplicity. When he first articulated the concept it in 1979, the 4th Druk Gyalpo (hereditary King) of Bhutan signaled to the world that Bhutan’s integration into the global community must not be premised on the blind acceptance of standard definitions of development ‘progress,’ but that instead the country should be allowed to insist on its own definition of success – focused not only on economic growth but also on environmental conservation, preservation of culture and communities, and good governance. In retrospect, Bhutan’s insistence on the latter course seems particularly prescient. Today, GNH is seen as one of a handful of so-called alternative visions of international development, and is attracting global attention from a growing number of policy makers, diplomats, scholars, tourists, journalists, and even religiously motivated truth-seekers. This article discusses the implications of GNH for Bhutan’s lawmakers, lawyers, legal academics, and foreign development partners. This article contributes to the literature on law and development, but flips the analysis to speculate not on how legal reforms do (or do not) promote economic development, but rather how a unique national development strategy might in turn influence the nature of the legal sector.

Analyses dynamics of taxpayers behavior fating the influence of social-psychological factors

In this study, the main attention is paid to the problem of “shadowing” the Ukrainian economy in the crisis period. Theoretical approaches to determining the functions of taxes and factors affecting real tax revenues were studied. A scientific study was carried out which would reveal the motives for the behavior of taxpayers, which are explicitly or implicitly laid in the basis of approaches to the formation of the mechanism of taxation and tax policy of the state. Therefore, we tried to determine the reasons why the behavior of each individual taxpayer is completely determined by his individual rational choice, determined by the desire to maximize his own benefit, i.e. does not depend on the choice of the tax behavior of other agents and the effects that individual taxpayers have on each other. Our results show that the reduction of transaction costs in the legal sector of the economy and the creation of conditions that impede the illegal conduct of transactions are not sufficient conditions for the implementation of formal taxation rules.

An enhanced handwritten signature verification model applied on off-line benchmark data sets

ABSTRACTThe automatic, highly accurate and instantaneous authentication of a static off-line handwritten signature is highly required in financial, legal and governmental sectors. The genuine signature features are extracted by models like scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT) and speeded-up robust features (SURF), then the common patterns among these features are recognised for verifying new signatures. Although SIFT/SURF-based matching models are commonly used because of their robustness and low computational complexity, their tolerance to the unconstrained signature styles of large variations is not very satisfactory. This work presents three main drawbacks of the traditional application of this model in signature verification and proposes a set of modifications to customise this model to fit the nature of the handwriting domain. These modifications consider initially the limited size of the descriptor window in SIFT/SURF model, then consider the single point-to-point and the crisp matching of the points-of-interest in the tested signature pairs. The experimental work is applied on two benchmark data sets that contain a set of genuine and skilled forged signatures of multiple users. Furthermore, a comparative analysis is applied to show the reflection of each modification in enhancing the accuracy percentage of the signature verification.

The macroeconomic impact of organised crime: A post-Keynesian analysis

The paper proposes an extended post-Keynesian model, where effective demand drives income levels and growth rates, to explain how organised crime affects the economy. In our set-up, some criminal activities, such as extortion, the criminal trade and corruption, reduce demand by draining resources from the legal sector; whereas others, such as money laundering, increase demand. The model determines under which conditions each effect prevails. Finally, we perform a simulation exercise that considers Italy, showing that the size of the criminal trade is so excessively large that organised crime impacts negatively on the Italian economy. In this context, we also provide several policy recommendations.

Tax Evasion with Mobility between the Regular and Irregular Sectors

This paper incorporates mobility between the legal and black economies into a model of tax evasion with endogenous labor supply in which underreporting is possible in one sector but impossible in the other. We have found that the results of the effects along the extensive margin (number of evaders) become more robust and conclusive than those along the intensive margin (hours of illegal work) usually considered by the literature. In particular, it is shown that the following policies reduce the number of evaders: (a) larger and more progressive evasion penalties; (b) higher detection probabilities; (c) an increase in the legal sector wage rate; (d) a decrease in the moonlighting wage rate; (e) higher costs for creating opportunities to evade; (f) lower opportunities to evade, and (g) greater psychological costs of tax evasion. When tax concealment and illegal work also are taken into account, the effects do not vary significantly under the assumptions in Cowell (1985), except for the fact that policies (a) and (b) only hold as regards low- and middle-income groups and policies (e) and (f) as regards high-income groups.

Extending ethical consumerism theory to semi-legal sectors: insights from recreational cannabis

Ethical consumerism theory aims to describe, explain, and evaluate the ways in which producers and consumers use the market to support social and environmental values. The literature draws insights from empirical studies of sectors that largely take place on the legal market, such as textiles and agri-food. This paper takes a first step toward theorizing ethical consumerism in semi-legal sectors where market activities occur legally and illegally. How does extant theory extend to sectors such as sex work, cigarettes, and recreational drugs? This study draws on the case of recreational cannabis (marijuana) in Portland, OR (USA). Data from 33 interviews, structured fieldwork at 64 dispensaries, and the US Census Bureau American Community Survey are analyzed using qualitative, quantitative, and spatial methods. The findings are compared to 12 suggestions that emerge from the literature on fair trade, organics, alternative agriculture, and political consumerism. I argue that not all ethical consumerism theory extends to semi-legal sectors. Cannabis closely resembles theoretical expectations in terms of supply/demand, prioritization of ethical issues, and pervasiveness of false claims, but differs in terms of who organizes, which types of strategies are pursued, and how ethical products are framed. The differences stem from several pervasive stigmas about cannabis. I also argue that the stigmas that set cannabis apart from other (more legal sectors) and present challenges to ethical consumerism in cannabis are directly related to the War on Drugs. These insights suggest that prohibition (and its lingering effects) can inhibit the emergence of ethical consumerism.

Публично-правовые средства противодействия недобросовестной конкуренции: аспекты России и США

The issues of the legal regulation of social relations in the sphere of counteraction of unfair competition are raised in present article. The author outlines the legislative tools which are used in Russia and the United States for the regulation of liability for such acts. Also the author identifies the similar and different ways of legal regulation of these social relations. In this context the most relevant fact is the fact that the legal regulation of these issues in the United States started in the beginning of XX century, and the Russian legislator started to learn them only in the end of XX century.
 The purpose of the present article is to study the antitrust laws of Russia and the USA; to identify the features of the historical development of legal provisions in this field; to make a comparison of the administrative and penal sanctions on persons violating the rules of fair competition, but not only in a view of the responsibility, but in context of the prevention of such offences; to make a comparative analysis of definitions and levels of responsibility for violations in this sphere.
 The set of general scientific and private scientific methods of cognition were used during preparing of this article: the dialectical method, the method of analysis and synthesis, logical method, method of comparative law, sociological, historical, formal-logical and other scientific methods. The study was made not only on the basis of the standard manual but also the case law of the higher judiciary.
 At the end of the study the author comes to the conclusion on necessity of the improvement of legislation in the field of counteraction of unfair competition, in particular in the direction of the creation of the criminal liability institute for legal persons in Russian legislation and the development of the concept of penetration under the corporate veil in the public legal sectors.

The Effect of Perceived Legal System Ineffectiveness and Informal Sector Competition on Patenting

The Effect of Perceived Legal System Ineffectiveness and Informal Sector Competition on Patenting

Assessing the Extent and Impact of Illicit Financial Flows in the Wildlife and Tourism Economic Sectors in Southern Africa

This study on Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs) in the Wildlife and Tourism sectors in Southern Africa emanated from the TrustAfrica (TA) and the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) project “Assessing the extent and impact of illicit financial flows in key economic sectors in Southern Africa”. The three components of the project are mining, agriculture and wildlife. IFFs are illicit movements from one country to another of money or products that are illegally acquired. The money typically originates from three sources in the private sector: commercial tax evasion, trade misinvoicing and abusive transfer pricing. However, other types of criminal activity can produce IFFs, which in this study include the trafficking of live animals and plants and their products and associated corruption (bribery and theft by corrupt government officials) through which the proceeds end up in another country. This wildlife trade and tourism IFF study is the first of its kind and the methodologies involved a combination of population modelling, estimated product offtakes and open source trade data. The trade research is limited to eight species groups – elephants, rhinos, lions, pangolins, crocodiles, abalone, sharks and rays, and cycads. The study concluded that for the period 2006-2014, Southern Africa lost almost US$ 1.5 billion in illicit transfers of funds or products overseas, or close to 50% of all wildlife commodity exports. Surprisingly, illegal exports of abalone meat made up almost half of this amount. The IFFs in the wildlife tourism sector were much larger, estimated at over US$ 22 billion in the ten years 2006-2015, and deriving mainly from tax evasion and trade misinvoicing, sometimes involving offshore shell companies. We predicted that more than US$3 billion could have been lost in 2016 in the eight countries covered in this study. The main causes of the huge losses to the economies of Southern Africa in wildlife trade were CITES trade bans and the fact that local communities were not empowered to manage what should rightfully be their resources on their land. Trade bans and disenfranchisement led communities to harvest illegally and to sell wildlife products to illegal exporters. The only way to mitigate these losses would be to do away with trade bans, bring most species into the legal sector, and establish supply and demand regulatory systems that would ensure conservation of the species while also satisfying legitimate stakeholder interests, primarily those of communities and enterprises that live in association with the wildlife and which share common habitats.

Building bridges

This article explores how universities and industry can work together to improve access to graduate opportunities for disadvantaged students. Focusing on an initiative which involved students from a ‘post-1992’ UK university experiencing London’s legal sector, the article analyses the factors that contributed to the students’ perceptions of their increased self-efficacy as a result of participating in the event. Using a focus group methodology, the authors critically examine the barriers that can be imposed by students’ socio-economic backgrounds, which may prevent such initiatives from having a meaningful impact on diverse recruitment and fair access to the higher professional occupations. Concentrating on two strands of the Triple Helix model, the authors also make recommendations for building more effective bridges between universities and industry to improve access to the elite professions.

Financial Law in the System of Public and Private Law

The article is devoted to the place of financial law in the system of public and private law. The author thoroughly examines the question concerning dividing the system of law into legal sectors of public and private law, as well as the objective nature of such a division. Meanwhile the author highlights different approaches: division of private and public law on the basis of substantive and formal criteria. The author scrutinizes an interest as the material basis of dividing law into public and private. Public law is seen as a set of rules designed to protect values aimed at protecting values associated with the mere existence of the State, and private law is seen as a block of legal norms ensuring the ongoing vitality of the citizen. Along with this, the article contains criticism of dividing law into public and private based on the definition of a public interest as public interests recognized by the state and expressed in the regulatory rules and enforced by the state; division of law into public and private based on the primary role of the State in protection of the interests of an individual, which makes law private. The article substantiates the fallacy of the conclusions. The author notes the inadequacy of the material criterion used to divide law into public and private. The paper analyses the formal criteria of dividing law into public and private depending on the way the right is protected, by way of regulating relations. The author draws a conclusion with regard to the need to apply both substantive and formal criteria to divide law into public and private. In the light of identified criteria, financial law is referred to branches of public law. The article notes the impossibility of making an extremely strict classification of legal material into public and private law, the process of convergence of these two legal categories. The author raises a problem of providing a balance between the public interest of the State and private interests while organizing financial and legal regulation. The author stresses that detailed regulation of the rights and obligations of natural and legal entities in the sphere of public finance activities will contribute to balancing public and private interests in financial law. In the end, the author concludes that public grounds dominate in financial and legal regulation, as well as individual elements of private regulation still can be found.

Liberalisasi Fee Advokat: Antara Perlindungan Dan Kompetisi Terhadap Advokat Indonesia

<p><strong><em>Abstract</em></strong><strong><em> </em></strong></p><em>This article analyses issues related to the implementation of fee liberalization by the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) and its effect to the legal service business sector. Indonesian lawyers, as a consequence, will then have to compete with foreign legal service providers. It is assumed that through fair and transparent competition a more accountable business atmosphere can be created. However, a number of legal regulations at the national level establishes non-trade barriers, effectively obstructing the AEC’ market liberalization project. The authors standing here is that the policy of protecting domestic lawyers or advocates should be rescinded and to that purpose Indonesia should amend the prevailing Law on Advocate.</em>

The Role of Neuroscience and Psychology in the Criminal Justice System

This paper will review the role of neuroscience and psychology in the criminal justice system. Law and Neuroscience (Neurolaw) is a relatively new and highly interdisciplinary field that brings together researchers from the legal sector, social sciences, mind sciences and brain sciences, to examine the potential for neuroscientific discoveries and techniques to address a range of legal issues. The present criminal justice system has begun to utilise advances in neuroscience and psychology in criminal trials, sentencing options for offenders, rehabilitation treatment of offenders, and risk assessment for probation. It is with these recent developments, this paper will discuss three main areas in which neuroscience and psychology may be utilised in the criminal justice system. These are: (a) establishing the truth of the facts and evidence presented in a criminal law case; (b) effective judicial sentencing guidelines of offenders; (c) rehabilitation treatment and probation (both for actual offenders and supposed offenders), in order to reduce recidivism and subsequently ensure public safety.

Embedded Legal Information Professionals: Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract‘Embedded librarianship’ has been on the rise in the legal sector since the early 2000s, but what is it and why has it become so popular? This article, written by Peter Wilson and Cosmo Anderson, aims to open up the wider conversations around embedded librarianship through a combination of the authors' practical experience and original research of librarians in UK and Irish law firms.

The Shadow Economy is Retreating: The Example of Georgia

The economy of Georgia had corruptive characteristics at the end of the last century and that has largely contributed to the existence of high-scaled shadow economy. Tax avoidance by entrepreneurs is onsidered to be the main cause of shadow economy (Gabidzashvili, Kbiladze, 2010). The methodological measurement and assessment of the shadow economy is characterized by certain peculiarities; therefore, we have aimed to examine and assess the scale of shadow economy and its impact on the overall economy of Georgia. The research shows several di_erences between real indicators, obtained by interviewers using hidden chronometry, and those indicators declared by entrepreneurs (the non-traditional method of research). The differences reveal unregistered micro-level economy, and provide the basis for determining the scale of shadow economy on the macroeconomic level. This problem was discussed several times by the president of Georgia. The research uses methods of average values, time series and the correlation-regression analysis of data. The study allowed us to identify the pattern of shadow economy reduction in Georgia during recent years and its shifting from the illegal to legal sectors, also, the maintenance of same trends before 2020.

Applicability of anti-money laundering laws to legal practitioners in Nigeria

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to review the recent judgement of the Federal High Court exempting Nigerian lawyers from anti-money laundering (AML) obligations and to proffer suggestions as to ways of complying with international standards. Design/methodology/approach An analysis of the case and judgement was undertaken and a commentary on the effect of the obligations on lawyers was given. As a result of the analysis, suggestions were made to satisfy regulatory requirements while recognising the sanctity of the legal profession and the professional responsibilities members owe to their clients. Findings AML obligations are tasking and may impact negatively on rights of both lawyers and of their clients. However, with some measures taken by both regulators and lawyers, loopholes can be comfortably covered without leaving the legal sector exposed to criminal intents. Research limitations/implications There has not been any appeal on the case, and therefore the paper may not be conclusive. Practical implications Very relevant recommendations were made and, if taken up, may provide a meeting point for both parties and achieve the key purpose of detecting and/or preventing money laundering. Originality/value This is the first academic paper to analyse the current case and to provide relevant suggestions on the matter.

A Law Firm Librarian's Guide to KM

AbstractThis article is written by Hélène Russell, author and teacher in the field of legal sector Knowledge Management. It presents an easy to read foundation level guide to legal sector Knowledge Management for law firm Information Professionals. It explains what Knowledge is, what Knowledge Management (KM) is, how it differs from Information Management (IM) and how law firm Information Professionals can expand their roles to help their organisations meet business goals through strategic KM as well as IM, or manage an imposed transition from IM to IM+KM.

Excepcionais normais? A(s) trajetória(s) de três pastores no Sul do Brasil (1824-1893)

This paper aims to analyze the trajectory of the Lutheran pastors Joao Jorge Ehlers, Carlos Leopoldo Voges and Frederico Cristiano Klingelhoeffer by using the concept of exceptional normal formulated by Edoardo Grendi. The three ministers arrived between 1824 and 1826 in the German colony of Sao Leopoldo, the province of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, following German immigrants who settled there. Conflicts that arose between them are related to the attempt to get established at the center of the colony in the position of senior pastor. In this case, the methodology of micro-history helped to carry out this analysis as it allowed the trajectory of Ehlers, Voges and Klingelhoeffer cast light on the exercise of the pastoral ministry developed in Brazil in the 19th century. The sources are located in the Historical Archive of the Rio Grande do Sul and in the Historical Archive of the Evangelical Church of the Lutheran Confession in Brazil, and the main references are in the libraries of the University of Vale do Rio dos Sinos and Faculdades EST. The use of the concept of exceptional normal applied to the investigation made it possible to deepen the analysis of how the non-Catholic ministers corresponded to the expectations of the Church and their congregations. Results show that there was exceptionality and normality in the activities of those pastors as they ministered to their faithful and dialogued with national authorities representing the legal and bureaucratic sectors of the Brazilian empire and the Rio Grande do Sul province. Keywords: immigration, Rio Grande do Sul, 19th century, pastor, exceptional normal.

Mapping the Ecology of China’s Corporate Legal Sector: Globalization and Its Impact on Lawyers and Society

AbstractGlobalization is rapidly changing the landscape of law practice in China, especially its corporate legal sector. This article reports on the preliminary findings of the China research of the Globalization, Lawyers, and Emerging Economies (GLEE) Project—a comparative study that examines how globalization is reshaping the market for legal services in important emerging economies and how these developments are contributing to the transformation of the political economy in these countries and beyond. Adopting an ecological approach, which examines how different segments of the legal system interact with one another in complex ways, this article maps the corporate core, international linkages, and domestic contexts of China’s globalizing corporate legal sector and discusses its impact on lawyers and society.