The CodeX FutureLaw Conference #5 was exponentially better than the terrific past four events. It just keeps growing and growing and growing! There’s plenty of percolating ideas, inspirations and surprises. If you would like to share your experiences, ping me at mbay@codex.stanford.edu. In the meanwhile, here is a visit to the morning speakers.

DRIVE MY CAR

While walking into the Paul Breast Hall for CodeX FutureLaw #5 on April 6, almost everyone was mesmerized by the Ford Autonomous Vehicle Development car, adorned with Stanford’s iconic “S” with the tree. How was that relevant?

Sarah Thornton, a PhD Candidate at the school’s Dynamic Design Lab, was one of the speakers at “The Rule Systems Panel,” moderated by Stanford’s Michael Genesereth, Associate Professor of Computer Science and the Law School.

Other panelists were Michael Mills, Chief Strategy Officer, (Neota Logic); Abhijeet Mohapatra (Dept. of Computer Science); Harry Surden, Professor of Law, University of Colorado; and Manik Suri, CEO, Coinspect.

 

Newbees: “Computational Law is the branch of Legal Informatics concerned with the mechanization of legal analysis [whether done by humans or by computers].”

 

 

 

KEYNOTE

But before the above panel began, there was a terrific keynote by Gillian Hadfield, the Richard L. and Antoinette Schamoi Kirtlard Professor of Law and Professor of Economics at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law. It was titled “Rules For a Flat World—Why Humans Invented Law and How to Reinvent It for a Complex Global Economy.”

(You can get her book of the same name at Oxford University Press.)

 

 

 

PERILS & PROMISES

Lawyer Dera Nevin, E-discovery Counsel at Proskauer Rose, blew the roof off at “The Perils and Promise of Predictive Analytics in Law.” The panel was moderated by Daniel Martin Katz, Associate Professor of Law, Illinois Tech—Chicago Kent College of Law and Director of the The Law Lab at the school. Other speakers included Josh Becker, CEO at Lex Machina; Gipsy Escobar, Director of Reseach and Analytics, Measures for Justice; John Nay, CEO of Skopos Labs and Research Fellow at Vanderbilt University.

 

Said lawyer Nichole Shanahan, CEO, ClearAccessIP (and former Resident Fellow at CodeX):   “I thought Dera Nevin was great. She is a practitioner and seems to *really* get AI. Loved her reference to the Go match changing the nature of the game, and why we should view this as significant in changing the narrative around legal services.

Videos will be available soon on YouTube. I will update this when it goes live.

Monica Bay is a Fellow at CodeX and a freelance journalist and analyst. Email: mbay@codex.stanford.edu. Twitter: @MonicaBay.

Photos by Monica Bay except for Thornton and book cover.