This document summarizes applications of technology in the legal field, including decision support, predictive analytics, legal automation, and machine translation. It provides examples such as US sentencing guidelines, an Israeli system for criminal sentencing, and the Rechtwijzer platform for marital disputes. Predictive analytics examples include Lex Machina's tools for patent litigation. Legal self-service platforms like LegalZoom are discussed. The role of machine translation in patent applications and the European Patent system is also summarized.

1. TLS0070 Introduction to
Legal Technology
Lecture 7 Applications III
decision support, prediction,
automation, self-service
University of Turku Law School 2015-02-17
Anna Ronkainen @ronkaine
anna.ronkainen@onomatics.com

2. Decision support

3. Decision support
- using technology to create consistency and
efficiency in the judiciary, legal aid etc.
- structured approach: gives a checklist for
what to consider but may also limit
discretion

4. Non-computerized example:
US sentencing guidelines
- introduced on the federal level in 1984, also
used on state and local level
- initially considered binding for judges
- 43 offence levels, 6 categories for criminal
history; up/downward departures from the
table allowed when special circumstances
- US v. Booker (2005): mandatory guidelines
violated constitutional right to trial by jury
- now no longer binding, but judges still have to
give reasons when deviating from the guidelines

6. Computerized example 1:
Previous record in criminal sentencing
- Israeli prototype system for research
purposes (see Schild & Kannai 2005)
- rule-based system based on knowledge
elicitation from experienced judges
- supports two different approaches for
sentencing: utilitarian and desert-based

7. (Schild and Kannai 2005)

8. Computerized example 2:
Rechtwijzer
- developed at HiiL for Dutch legal aid
- an integrated platform for decision support,
originally for marital disputes:
- problem diagnosis
- automatic guidance
- communications + ODR, based on the Modria
platform
- final review by a lawyer
- a similar project mainly for the decision support
part: Split Up (from Australia, see Bellucci &
Zeleznikow 2005)

9. (Bellucci & Zeleznikow 2005)

10. (Rechtwijzer demo)

11. Not just for judges (or even lawyers):
Today’s obligatory TrademarkNow slides
- risk meter as decision support for trademark
applicants
- trademark lawyers obviously know better,
but what about general counsel?
- everything based on a model of likelihood of
confusion for trademark pairs (basically
decision support for opposition cases), used
as basis for relevancy ranking and risk
analysis

13. Predictive analytics

14. Predictive analytics
- using data about past cases to predict the
future
- “The prophecies of what the courts will do
in fact, and nothing more pretentious, are
what I mean by the law.” – Oliver Wendell
Holmes (1897)
- potential for a wealth of approaches, but
we’re only just getting started...

15. Example: Lex Machina
- Stanford CS+Law research project spin-off,
founded in 2010
- “Moneyball for lawyers”
- predictive analytics to support patent
litigation, basically looking into everything
else except the actual merits of the case

16. Legal Analytics® by Lex Machina,
for example:
- patent portfolio characteristics
- litigation frequency
- duration of trial
- likelihood of settling
- patent troll non-practicing entity?
- opposing counsel characteristics
- assigned judges’ characteristics
- decision history: pro-plaintiff or pro-
defendant

17. Legal automation and
self-service

18. Legal self-service, or
DIY law
- nothing fundamentally new: books with sample
contracts have been available for ages, and
bookstores even sold ready contract templates
- online platforms help you with selecting the
right document type and give support for filling
the appropriate information
- providers for example:
- LegalZoom
- Rocket Lawyer
- avtal24 / agreement24
(commercial break: http://www.agreement24.com )

19. Typical offerings
- company incorporation
- corporate filings, tax work
- trademark and patent filings
- compliance filings
- wills and trusts
- prenuptial agreements
- real estate leases and deeds
- often also related services of a lawyer are
available from the same provider (typically for
an additional fee)

20. Something completely
different: machine translation

21. Is this a legal technology?
- traditionally legal translation one of the
most demanding (and best paid) types of
translation work available
- legal translations have to be extremely
accurate, but legal concepts in different
languages carry all the semantic baggage of
their “home” legal systems
- so what on earth could machine translation
possibly have to do with it?

22. Well, it kind of is...
- one of the big issues for the new European
Unitary Patent were translations
- in the old European patent system,
applications had to be translated manually to
languages of all designated jurisdictions
- no more: English/French/German (plus a second
language for a transitional period) is enough
- for non-Anglophones, there’s Patent Translate
- additional manual translations may still be
needed in court cases

23. Patent Translate
- machine translation specifically adapted for
translating patent documents
- based on Google Translate: collaboration
between Google and EPO
- now complete, to/from English for 31
languages, to/from French and German for
27 languages
- http://www.epo.org/searching/free/patent-translate.html
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjPBUvRegZE

24. Questions?