Technology

Technology allowing litigants to run a civil money claim online from beginning to end should be in place by this time next year, with nearly 70,000 having already used the more limited version available now.

Professor Richard Susskind, IT adviser to the Lord Chief Justice, clashed with MPs yesterday over whether the government’s court modernisation programme is doing enough to combat digital exclusion.

Former Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge yesterday defeated government efforts to limit the extent to which future holders of the post will have a veto over the work of the online procedure rule committee.

The march of blockchain-backed property transactions accelerated this week when a high-value commercial building went on the market with online execution offered by a digital estate agent.

Artificial intelligence has been deployed to bridge the gap between ‘legalease’ and plain English, standardising something that has long been the exclusive preserve of lawyers.

The government is set to give the Lord Chief Justice the power of veto over what areas of law are moved into an online court system, it has emerged.

The government has no intention of making court processes exclusively online and so there is no need to give way to demands to guarantee this in primary legislation, peers were told this week.

Clients are now more scared of robots handling their work than lawyers are of losing their jobs to machines, the boss of a legal artificial intelligence business has said.

There will be massive consolidation in the legal tech world as two or three “legal tech app stores” take over in the next few years, a US academic and entrepreneur has predicted.

A  year-long study of the use of computer algorithms in the criminal justice system has recommended creating a national register to bring openness, expose built-in biases, and ensure public trust.

Artificial intelligence has “huge potential” to make a positive impact in the legal services sector, the Lord Chancellor said today as he announced further financial backing for lawtech.

A secure private client platform which stores financial and other details needed by executors has been launched by West Country law firm Ashfords, which said it was the first product of its kind.

Technology can make a positive difference but it must be carefully evaluated before adoption and be seen as supplementary to, not a replacement for, human-led legal services, a campaigner has warned.

Regulators need to monitor the development of legal technology and issue guidance to help maximise the opportunities it presents while delivering the necessary protection for consumers.

Criminal and civil lawyers have separately spelt out to MPs on the justice select committee a catalogue of ways in which court modernisation is undermining access to justice.