We are pleased to present you a new edition of the Compliance Elliance Journal (CEJ). This edition will focus on questions regarding Legal Tech and Compliance.

We are pleased to present you a new edition of the Compliance Elliance Journal (CEJ). This edition will focus on questions regarding Legal Tech and Compliance.

If you have not been hiding under a rock you have heard the whispers about Bitcoin and Blockchain, and they are going to revolutionize everything we do (or scam everyone into debt at the very least). One very interesting part of this technology is the idea of Smart Contracts – programs that automate the process of an agreement between two entities essentially to circumvent aspects traditional problems with executing and enforcing said contract. While in the legal community Smart Contracts have been talked about at length about whether they can truly succeed in replacing certain functions of the legal system, one question that has yet to be asked is if they are a viable substitute are many people immediately placed in a detrimental or even harmful situation. The pervasiveness of Blockchain and Smart Contracts will not affect everyone in our society equally and that must be taken into consideration.

Smart contracts allow for automated compliance with contractual rules. They derive their “smartness” from an execution software that catches the most typical defaults and responds by mechanically triggering a compensation payment or another prearranged consequence. Through this self-enforcement mode, smart contracts are able to save time and effort that is associated with more customary rights enforcement mechanisms. Now, whereas compliance with in-house rules or corporate governance standards is common today, compliance with contract law only occurs on a voluntary basis. This might, however, change if businesses should be obliged to automatically meet customer claims through smart contracts. On the basis of a sample case, this article examines the pros and cons of smart consumer contracts and carves out the most suitable applications of smart contracts as a means to ensure private law compliance.

This article introduces the idea of legal chatbots and how legal chatbots might affect the legal market in the near future. We define chatbots as computer programs that automatically chat with users and assess their potential for legal consultation. We identify four potential strengths of legal chatbots: providing access to justice, serving as contact points for customers, reducing the knowledge gap between lawyer and client and automatically generating documents and taking further actions. In the concluding section we briefly discuss ethical aspects of legal chatbots and possible future developments.

While all industries that handle valuable data have been subject to increasing levels of cyber attack, there is a set of inter-related factors in the law firm cyber security ecosystem that makes such firms more susceptible to attack and also serves to prevent them from taking action to counteract attack vulnerability. As a result of the inter-related external and internal factors affecting law firm cyber security, the human element of firm security infrastructure has been neglected, thereby making humans, at once law firms’ greatest asset, their main cyber security weakness. 1There has been some movement of late, and regulators and clients alike are right to demand law firms do more to improve their cyber security posture.2 However, much of the scrutiny to which their conduct has been subjected has tended to overlook the complexities of the law firm cyber security quagmire, and unless these issues are addressed in the context of a potential solution, meaningful change is not While all industries that handle valuable data have been subject to increasing levels of cyber attack, there is a set of inter-related factors in the law firm cyber security ecosystem that makes such firms more susceptible to attack and also serves to prevent them from taking action to counteract attack vulnerability. As a result of the inter-related external and internal factors affecting law firm cyber security, the human element of firm security infrastructure has been neglected, thereby making humans, at once law firms’ greatest asset, their main cyber security weakness. 1There has been some movement of late, and regulators and clients alike are right to demand law firms do more to improve their cyber security posture.2 However, much of the scrutiny to which their conduct has been subjected has tended to overlook the complexities of the law firm cyber security quagmire, and unless these issues are addressed in the context of a potential solution, meaningful change is not While all industries that handle valuable data have been subject to increasing levels of cyber attack, there is a set of inter-related factors in the law firm cyber security ecosystem that makes such firms more susceptible to attack and also serves to prevent them from taking action to counteract attack vulnerability. As a result of the inter-related external and internal factors affecting law firm cyber security, the human element of firm security infrastructure has been neglected, thereby making humans, at once law firms’ greatest asset, their main cyber security weakness. 1There has been some movement of late, and regulators and clients alike are right to demand law firms do more to improve their cyber security posture.2 However, much of the scrutiny to which their conduct has been subjected has tended to overlook the complexities of the law firm cyber security quagmire, and unless these issues are addressed in the context of a potential solution, meaningful change is not likely. Part 1 of this paper outlines the current threat landscape and details the integral role of human error in successful cyber breaches before turning to discuss recent cyber security incidents involving law firms. In Part 2, we analyse elements of law firm short-termism and the underregulation of law firm cyber security conduct and how these, when combined, play a key role in shaping law firm cyber security posture. Finally, in Part 3 we outline a realistic solution, incorporating principles from behavioural science and modern technological developments.

In contrast to as in other jurisdictions, such as the United States or the UK, out-of-court legal services in Germany are strictly regulated by a statute, the Legal Services Act, which came into force nearly a decade ago and superseded the former Legal Counsel Act (Rechtsberatungsgesetz). According to this act, out-of-court legal services must be expressly permitted and are, in principle, reserved to lawyers. Consequently, there are certain legal restrictions for tech providers offering legal services in Germany that must be observed. The following article deals with the scope and limits for offering legal services by legal tech providers in Germany according to the German Legal Services Act. The author explains why some legal tech business solutions offering legal services may be in conflict with this act, which is a significant issue of compliance for both legal tech start-ups and their investors. Entrepreneurs, stakeholders of legal tech start-ups and capital investors should weigh the economic opportunities and legal risks carefully before placing a legal tech start-up on the German market.

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The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a key regulation that deals with the protection of personal data in the European Union. It will be enforced on May 25, 2018. The GDPR brings in significant changes compared to the previous Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC (DIR95). Therefore, the organizations that fall within the scope of the GDPR are required to make their information systems compliant. Due to the complexity of modern software and the magnitude of changes required for the successful adoption of the GDPR, adopting such requirements could be a challenging task. Various works have already been conducted in the past addressing different articles and principles of the GDPR. However, relatively new Legal Technology sector has not been the focus of the GDPR related research. The purpose of the thesis is to investigate how a Legal Technology organization is affected by the challenges of implementing GDPR related requirements into its information system. In order to address the aim of the study, a literature review was conducted, followed by a case study in Assently AB, a small-sized organization belonging to the Legal Technology industry. In order to gather detailed information about the challenges of implementing the GDPR in their information system, semi-structured interviews were conducted with the practitioners at Assently. The result of this study is a collection of challenges. This collection of challenges relates to understanding the regulation in order to implement it into information system, creating new tools and processes, reviewing existing tools and processes, human resource availability for the support, management and development of information system and facing possible customer-related issues. The study contributes to the GDPR and Legal Technology related research. Moreover, it can be used by the industry practitioners to prepare for the similar implementations in the future. Furthermore, it will be useful for the emerging Legal Technology organizations who may need to design their information systems in compliance with the GDPR.

Few state courtrooms in the United States have integrated information technology (IT) in court trials. Despite jurors' beliefs that using courtroom technology improves their abilities to serve as jurors, the attitudes and experiences among attorneys and judges toward the utility of IT continue to pose barriers. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore and describe the experiences of attorneys and judges in the State of Virginia with regard limited use of IT in state courtrooms. The conceptual framework included Davis, Bagozzi, and Warshaw's (1989) technology acceptance model; Rogers's (2003) diffusion of innovation theory; and Venkatesh, Morris, Davis, and Davis's (2003) unified theory of acceptance. A snowball sample of 22 attorneys and judges were interviewed using in-depth, semistructured questions. Data were analyzed using open coding techniques to identify themes and patterns with findings supporting the need for improved and expanded courtroom technology. Finding showed that attorneys and judges believed courtroom technology could be useful; however, the lack of training and the cost to implement technology limited their use of technology in courtrooms. Implications for positive social change include increasing the adoption rate of courtroom technology to support courtroom processes and empowering courts to improve the quality of justice through technology in an efficient and effective manner, thereby benefiting everyone in the judicial system and the public.