By Joseph Raczynski
I put this video together in November for a written piece that will be coming out in January.
This is an example of what Mixed Reality might look like while wearing a special set of glasses which sees everything around you but then projects imagery onto your physical space. I have compiled several short videos from Magic Leap to illustrate their vision.
By Joseph Raczynski
The hacking of Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca last April resulted in 11.5 million leaked attorney-client privileged documents, exposing the widespread use of off-shore businesses by wealthy individuals and corporations around the world and highlighting the imperative need for proactive measures against corruption and other illicit financial activity.
But what it also revealed was just how vulnerable law firms can be to hackers and other cyber criminals.
Daniel Garrie is an arbitrator, forensic neutral and technical special master at JAMS, available in Los Angeles, New York and Seattle. He is executive managing partner of Law & Forensics LLC and head of the computer forensics and cybersecurity practice groups, with locations in the United States, India and Brazil. He is also a Partner at Zeichner Ellman & Krause LLP, where he heads their global cyber security practice, and an adjunct professor at Cardozo School of Law.
I recently spoke to Daniel Garrie, Global Head of eDiscovery, Forensics, and Cybersecurity Practices for Law & Forensics LLC, to get his insight into some of the cyber security issues facing law firms today:
Q. Daniel, why do hackers and other cyber criminals target law firms?
First, for information. All kinds of potentially valuable information: M&A information, IP information, real estate information, divorce information; information that can make people money or give them leverage. If you think about the law firms that just do mortgages, for example; getting a fully detailed mortgage package with social security numbers, bank account numbers, wiring information — that’s a pretty interesting piece of information.
Second, because in many cases, the law firm is the weakest link. Take the case of an M&A deal, for example. Why invest money and resources to hack the companies — which are more likely to have robust cyber security frameworks — when you can just hack the law firm, where cyber security resources are fewer and far more fragile?
Q. So law firms are not prepared to deal with these threats?
No, but not because they don’t want to be, but because of how law firms work as a partner profit-sharing entity. There has to be a reason to invest in measures to prevent them.
Q. And what are those reasons?
The consequences of unprotected and disclosed client data are two-fold. Not only do a law firm’s clients face potential reputational, financial, and legal risks when their private information is accessed and potentially distributed, the firm itself faces those same risks.
All law firms are competing for business and firms that don’t protect against cyber security threats run the risk of losing a substantial amount of business. Law firms are becoming acutely more aware of the fact that if they’re hacked, chances are, they’re no longer going to be a law firm.
Q. So what steps can law firms take to get prepared to deal with these threats?
First, focus on cyber hygiene. Do whatever it takes to put the right preventative measures in place in place:encryption, “least access necessary” policies, training and education for staff, etc. Second, find trusted partners.Do business only with those whom you can trust because if they are labeled as “hacked,” it could devastate your business, too.
Original post in AnswersOn
By Joseph Raczynski
Visit to the Communitech Innovation Lab near Waterloo Canada to see the Thomson Reuters Innovation Lab. In addition, a group of customers and TR employees went through a Design Thinking Workshop. Other companies at the location include; Google, GM, TD Bank, Canon, Deloitte, Fairfax Financial, Manulife. Special thanks to Brian Zubert for all of his hospitality and education during the day.
By Joseph Raczynski
360 Degree Video of a Design Thinking Workshop at Communitech, Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. Led by Dave Inglis we start down the path of a Design Thinking Workshop with Alston & Bird. Shot with the #SamsungGear360.
*With 360 Video you can move the video around to whichever view you would like at any point. Please click and hold the video and move the screen around in any direction.
By Joseph Raczynski
“Blockchain is Hot: More than $1.5 Billion has Been Invested in Blockchain in the Last 18 Months”
NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — If someone had told you in 1993 that the Web would be integral to your life today, would you have believed them? Well, the discussion around blockchain technology at ILTACON 2016 harkened back to that same scenario of the early ‘90s. This is a reboot, where another new technology will revolutionize the world.
Moderated by the esteemed Ron Friedmann, Partner at Fireman & Company, we were led down the path of what to expect with blockchain. Rohit Talwar, CEO of Fast Future Research, started us off with his futuristic vision on what we can expect over the next five years. Joe Dewey, Partner at Holland & Knight, who specializes in blockchain, discussed the law and smart contracts. Lastly, Tori Adams, a data scientist at Booz Allen Hamilton, illustrated her predictions on the reality of this technology in the near term.
Current Landscape
All major industries are looking toward blockchain — most pointedly, the financial sector. Talwar focused on one platform that is pushing this new space forward quickly — Ethereum — a pseudo-Bitcoin 2.0 that allows users to code on top of the blockchain. This can create huge advances in how the blockchain can interact with the world; utlizing smart contracts and digital identities, an even executing stock trades. In fact, Talwar stated that Goldman Sachs estimated a legal savings of $11 billion to $12 billion per year from streamlining clearing and settlement of cash and securities through such technology.
Near Future
The next significant phase developing now is the DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations) which means that processes and companies are completely autonomous. This technology has the ability to disrupt a disrupter, e.g. Airbnb. Let’s say you visit a DAO-enabled travel site. The condo owner places an ad on the site to rent their place weekly. You choose their place in Miami, agree to the terms (date of check-in and -out, etc.) and agree to the fee and deposit (paid automatically). When you arrive at the condo to check-in, simply enter the password at the door through an Internet of Things (IoT) tech-enabled doorknob (check out Slock.it) and you gain access. That lock at the front door knows who you are and how much you paid, and it can also see your contract for the rental of the condo and knows when you are to be out. The DAO can do all of this with one employee running the entire operation.
Law Firms Start to Embrace Blockchain
Several law firms are starting to make a foray into this space. Recently Steptoe & Johnson began a multi-disciplinarian practice to help manage the blockchain for clients. They will also be accepting Bitcoin as payment. Most importantly, they co-founded the Blockchain Alliance6, a coalition of 25 blockchain companies and 25 regulatory and law enforcement agencies — including Interpol, Europol, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the FBI — to educate enforcement agencies about digital currencies and blockchain technology. Other law firms including Holland & Knight see exponential growth of attorneys laboring in this discipline.
Smart Contracts
Holland & Knight’s Dewey said he believes the definition around smart contracts can be varied. For the purposes of this conversation, it is snippets of code that can change the ledger or a legal contract that is implemented on the blockchain. Of course, he outlined several benefits and challenges to this new innovation in the area of smart contracts:
Benefits:
Challenges:
So a real world example of how a smart contract was implemented can be seen in how Barclays did it with an interest rate swap prototype. Essentially, the investment bank set up an incubator of coders who worked with their legal department to understand how these swaps (trades) worked legally. They distilled three lines in the process that could be coded — (x) the amount of cash; (y) the interest rate; and (z) the currency. Once this information was garnered, the transaction could be solidified and then stored on a blockchain.
One of the most surprising revelations of the session came from Dewey when he stated: “Big news for attorneys, existing law — passed well before blockchain technology was contemplated —not only validates transactions, including the trading of credit interests accomplished through the use of the technology we are discussing, but as a matter of policy, strongly supports it.”
There is little question that this is an industry that will be growing rapidly over the next few years. Many firms are moving forward with practice areas and educating their attorneys on the technology to better position themselves for the coming wave.
Lastly, Dewey added some additional encouraging words surrounding the future of blockchain. In May, the State of Delaware — which is home to almost two-thirds of the Fortune 500 companies — announced a Blockchain Initiative so that corporate filings can be added to the ledger. “This is a clear sign that blockchain technology will have a significant impact on business,” he said.
By Joseph Raczynski
The cloud is becoming increasingly ubiquitous at law firms. In fact, a recent ABA Technology Survey stated that 46 percent of cloudless firms will be transitioning in the next 6-12 months. In the session on the “New International Standard for Cloud Due Diligence,” Gregg Brown, senior director Technical Strategy, Computer Standards at Microsoft, and Patrick Oot, partner at Shook, Hardy & Bacon, discussed the changes to the cloud over the last six years and what is coming down the road.
Small- and medium-sized firms have embraced the cloud, while the largest firms have been more reluctant, saddled with restraints placed by their clients – especially in the financial industry. That said, there now seems to be some loosening of the straps in that particular space.
Benefits of the cloud:
The duo argued multiple reasons for jumping to the cloud. First, firms can take advantage of the latest innovations, features and capabilities with updates released every month, compared to waiting years for internal upgrades to their current systems. In addition, the cloud offers greater agility – not having to retrain or rebuild as needs expand.
Oftentimes, clients require more capacity on short notice, which the cloud can easily accommodate. At a base level, the cloud is a fraction of the cost of on-premises solutions – though add-ons can sometime raise the price close to that of an in-house solution.
As more firms adopt BYOD (bring your own device), the cloud enables firms to meet workforce demands with a per-user license. But with BYOD comes another layer of security concern, which the cloud can more readily accommodate as most vendors will be up-to-date with regard to security patches.
As Brown also noted, another inherent benefit to cloud technology is access to analytics. With all of its data in the cloud, a firm can easily deploy search and analytics across all of its information/eDiscovery, compared to what one might have with an on-premises solution.
Risks in the cloud:
As firms move to the cloud, one of the most persistent risks associated with the technology is multitenancy, means that a software application may not work well as designed in the cloud with multiple users trying to gain simultaneous access to it. And of course, with complexity tied to data transfer laws, particularly between the US and EU, firms should consider the challenges of data access and the courts, Oot noted.
New ISO Standard Impacting the cloud in 2016:
Brown also described that by the end of 2016, there will be a new “Cloud Service Level Agreement (SLA) Framework” – known as ISO/IEC 19086-1 – published, which will offer a set of considerations for cloud agreements. He noted this will be a boon for law firms as it will lay out a guidance standard verses the normal compliance standard. This should have a positive impact, although Brown cautioned that these guidance standards will raise key questions and require analysis and evaluation.
Reflecting on the session, Oot and Brown surmised that technology still has a few pessimists, but that the forecast is looking positive as more and more firms opt-in. With its waxing advantages and waning risks, it appears that greater cloud adoption is near.
As they concluded, Oot and Brown pointed out one last benefit of the cloud – terms of service from providers can now be negotiated, where previously this was not permitted.
Based on what they outlined, there is little question that fewer barriers remain to adopting the cloud.
Joseph Raczynski is manager, Technical Client Management, Thomson Reuters
By Joseph Raczynski
“The story of disruption was just the first act of 21st century business, now begins the tale of total transformation.”
— Mike Walsh
NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — So reverberated the words of Mike Walsh a Futurist/CEO of Tomorrow, across an audience of more than 3,000 legal professionals at ILTACON 2016, a four-day conference that centers on the intersection of technology and the legal industry.
Walsh gave the keynote on the opening day of the annual conference, and the lens he cast enlightened the onlookers to a futuristic view of our current world. He then bridged that technological vision to the 21st Century Legal realm and focused on several thought provoking questions.
Can you think like an 8-year-old?
The key to transformation is to be ahead of it. Through the optics of an eight-year-old we can view the direction that technology is shifting. They embrace mobile — why? Because parents have pacified their kids for years with iPads and mobile phones. Their learnings began on those platforms which became almost intuitive to them and will now dictate our future.
Now! The biggest social shifts are shaped by the data-driven world. Disney World offers the most advanced of data collection and use. Their MagicBands are linked to a credit card and function as a park entry pass as well as a room key. They know who you are, where you are, and increasingly know what you want — predictively. Food can be delivered to you without you ever specifying a location. All of this is using data and machine learning to better understand consumer, and thus human behavior.
WeChat, an app primarily used in China, was also offered as a good example of where we are going. With this app, people in China can play games, pay for things and buy insurance — the whole time interacting with a bot that is constantly gathering data and learning. This is what we will begin to see in all businesses in the near future.
In preparation for his transition into a discussion around legal, Walsh offered another thought. The children of today will be the first generation to be raised partly by artificial intelligence (AI). If you think about the platforms that are prevalent now, kids are interacting with them increasingly — Alexa, Google and Siri. Law firms have to start thinking about how these eventual employees will work and interact with each other both inside and outside of the firm.
How will a 21st century law firm differ from a 20th century firm?
The world is now global. The largest corporations and law firms have back office and operations support overseas. As an example, Walsh talked about something he saw in India which illustrated where we are headed. An AI machine (physical computer) is situated alongside other staff in a cubical at an office center in India. It is fully embraced and accepted as a highly efficient employee — and continues to improve rapidly with its own productivity.
Speaking of actual human employees, recruiting people will transform, Walsh noted. The next generation of hiring future lawyers, and collaborating with clients should focus on rethinking how we hire. Offer a prospect a clean sheet of paper and ask them to come up with a solution to a problem. Another idea, after a month on the job, ask what processes the newbie might change based on what they are seeing.
What kind of mental software are you new hires running?
Going forward, the operating system of a 21st century lawyer is as much about the culture as it is about the code. All firms will have to be agile, and firms will have to hire people that think that way. Everything around our traditional culture and space is changing. People will increasingly be working from other locations, so this concept has to be reimagined. Walsh’s suggestion was to think about the person you are hiring — are they energized by solving problems? Additionally, environments have to be reconsidered. How do you design an office for people that do not need one?
Lastly, are you leveraging all of your data?
Law firms are rife with all sorts of data. One question that Walsh suggested was worth posing is how are firms using that data? Increased productivity can be gained by applying analytics to the whole.
In closing, Walsh pleaded for the legal space to adjust their mindsets, how we see and use data, which people are hired, and what technological processes are in place. We need to think like an eight-year-old to see how the world will change and adapt now, he explained.
The data inside law firms has to be better leveraged and analyzed with new tools. When hiring, do so by unearthing agile people and creating more social workspaces. One of the best ways to do that is by rethinking your communities, picking some high-profile projects and challenging those new teams to experiment.
In conclusion, Walsh noted: “When preparing for this new future, embrace that the future means challenging everything we know to be true.”
By Joseph Raczynski
“In the not too distant future, exponential technology could upend the $650-billion-dollar legal industry — or, there will be a $78 to $120 trillion-dollar opportunity for agile players who are prepared.”
— Rohit Talwar
NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — At ILTACON 2016, Rohit Talwar, CEO of Fast Future, spoke about the disruption in the legal industry occurring around us and more precisely which technologies will have the largest impact on law firms in the near future.
In his discussion “Building the Exponential Law Firm,” Talwar began with the baseline of Moore’s Law — the theory that processing speeds of computers double roughly every 12 to 18 months. Building on that, he added what he considers to be the core of this exponential growth: machine learning. These are machines with the ability to create visual perception, reasoning, planning, intuition and decision-making all starting from a simple ruleset.
In his fascinating discussion, Talwar pointed to a recent development with Google, using DeepMind, its artificial intelligence (AI) computer, and playing Go — one of the most complicated games known to man. In this scenario, Google did not program the computer, only gave it rules of the game.
In short order, the world Go champion lost 4-to-1 to DeepMind in dominate fashion. While this happened in early 2016, this was not expected to be possible until 2026 — a full decade in the future.
What Talwar was illustrating through the AlphaGo example and countless others is that AI is here and is being used all around us. It is becoming pervasive, embedded, augmented, immersive, and connected to a multi-sensory network.
There were a host of various legal sector applications he cited as occurring now, such as those in areas such as:
Over the next several years Talwar said that he believes blockchain technology will have a monumental impact on law firms, providing firms with the ability to store information in a secure distributed ledger. In fact, Goldman Sachs estimates a cost saving of $4 billion annually on its legal bill by moving real estate titles to distributed ledgers that use blockchain technology.
Talwar pointed out that law firms have a huge potential upside with all of the technology that is emerging. However, he warned, if a firm does not adapt and become agile it will be very difficult for it to keep up with the pace of change that will be occurring, and ultimately its intransigence will make it difficult for the firm to win business.
In the second phase, being tested right now, the Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) will execute contracts free of human intervention; and in the future, we’ll reach Algocracy, a full automation of the law.
In this scenario, we would have a complete rewriting of the law that would be embedded in software. This would allow for automatic fines, standardized open source legal documents and automated judgments. For example, if someone stole a candy bar from a convenience store, their own body camera would catch them and automatically impose a fine on that person. A payment would be removed directly from their bank account, and would be executed without human intervention.
Not surprisingly, Talwar pointed out that law firms have a huge potential upside with all of the technology that is emerging. However, he warned, if a firm does not adapt and become agile it will be very difficult for it to keep up with the pace of change that will be occurring, and ultimately its intransigence will make it difficult for the firm to win business.
The wonderful aspect about this change is that it is all new. Most of these technologies are not governed by law, which creates an incredible opportunity for legal advice because clients have to understand how to handle these new technologies.
By Joseph Raczynski
Recorded at the University of Maryland, Baltimore during the “Cybersecruity and You” morning session. Discussed is the current landscape of cybersecurity at law firms and corporations, the primary issues these organizations are finding and general awareness of what is happening.
By Joseph Raczynski
Abstract: This white paper discusses the history, inner workings and applications of blockchain, an online public ledgering system, and how it will soon significantly impact many aspects of the legal industry. The first part of this paper will show the marvels and the pitfalls of Bitcoin and its underlining blockchain technology. The second part will describe what full global adoption of a cryptocurrency and blockchain technology would entail. And the third will explain the potential legal implications of blockchain technology.
Joe Raczynski Technologist 