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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