Decoding the Law on Legal Tech
In this regular segment, Guest Work Agency’s Director and Founder, Alana Kushnir and Paralegal, Eve Rayner, demystify a specific area of law as it relates to art. This glossary translates legal speak into people speak, focussing on legal tech jargon that artists, curators, fabricators, galleries and museums should know.
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AI is an evolving technology designed to emulate human intelligence. Widely used for a variety of tasks in day-to-day life, voice assistants like Siri employ AI predictive technology. More recently, Chatbots have increased in popularity by answering questions and responding to prompts in a quick and nuanced capacity.
Some AI has a narrow programming structure, allowing them to respond to specific prompts such as ‘What is the weather today?’. More advanced AI can continuously improve its dataset, learning from past experiences in order to solve problems.
AI is increasingly being used by workplaces, including law firms, to bolster efficiency and improve client experiences. To read more about the Australian Government’s interim response to AI, see our February edition of The Host here.
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A chatbot is an automated software program. Chatbot’s are increasingly used in the legal industry to assist in collating information for contracts and other legal documents, streamlining the drafting process.
Guest Work Agency’s Contract Builders feature chatbots which ask the user a series of specific questions in order to automatically populate documents drafted by us, based on your responses to their questions.
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Tailored specifically for the arts industry, our Contract Builders are designed by Guest Work Agency - specialist art lawyers, familiar with documents of this kind. Knowing how often contracts are not used in practice, but should be, each Contract Builder has been designed to comply with Australian contract, consumer and intellectual property laws. Our Website Store Terms, Confidentiality Deed and Copyright Assignment Deed Contract Builders are simple to navigate and currently available to purchase online.
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Datasets are units of information used by computers which come in a variety of forms. In an AI context, datasets comprise of resources scraped from the internet and then embedded into computer programs in order to train artificial intelligence models. Using datasets to teach AI is called machine-learning.
Datasets can be numerical, comprised of images, text or characters. While they are essential to the development of AI, from a legal perspective, there are concerns that copyright-protected data used by AI, when not licensed correctly, could infringe copyright laws.
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Automated documents are drafted using pre-existing text and data. Each software program used to create an automated document contains a set of rules which allow for users to add information that is inputted into a base document. This allows documents to be generated at scale using a defined set of rules.
Document automation is extremely helpful for lawyers. Legal rules and regulatory schemes are often repeated within contracts. An automated contract can efficiently refer to relevant law in a standard form contract. Lawyers are able to input data that is unique to a given situation, allowing the document to be automatically prepared, thereby streamlining the drafting process in a reliable and efficient way.
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Document management refers to the organisation and storage of electronic documents such as PDFs, Word documents and images on your computer.
Replacing binder-folders and filing cabinets, document management replicates traditional organisational methods for paper-based content.
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E-discovery is an important part of the litigation process whereby documents are shared and subsequently examined by opposing litigating parties. This ensures that both sides have an equal opportunity to respond appropriately to the other party’s arguments.
Traditionally, e-discovery occurred by physically swapping binder-folders containing relevant information about the dispute. This was a time consuming process involving printing, collating and sending documents to other parties. Electronic discovery or ‘e-discovery’ has streamlined this process, making it far more efficient by allowing all parties to review these documents in digital form. Generally, the relevant material is assembled digitally and sent via a secure link by email to the other side. This advancement has been an important evolution in the discovery process, saving time for lawyers and costs for clients.
E-discovery can also be used for other processes such as internal review and policy compliance. As a fast way to collate and send important documents, e-discovery is increasingly being used within the public sector for Royal Commissions and regulatory notices.
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Electronic signatures are a visible representation of a person’s signature or initials, used to signify acknowledgement electronically. Electronic signatures are now common practice in the legal industry.
Electronic signatures vary from signing your name at the bottom of an email, to ‘check box’ consenting to a set of terms and conditions. Platforms specifically catering to electronic signatures such as DocuSign are commonly used when signing employment contracts or commercial agreements. Word documents and PDFs have the ability to save signatures to be inserted. Nowadays in Australia, electronic signatures are accepted when signing legal documents in most jurisdictions, for most types of declarations.
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Generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence which can create images, text or other data in response to user given prompts. Their outputs seek to mimic human-generated content as much as possible. Generative AI software is sometimes trained on scraped content from the internet, which is used to formulate large datasets of information.
Today, generative AI is being used in a variety of ways, such as voice recognition technology, improving accessibility through image to text conversion, and for personalising learning and educational tools.
When it comes to the law, generative AI assists in streamlining the legal process, helping to formulate and draft documents. It can also be helpful for legal research purposes and creating case summaries, increasing the efficiency of lawyers.
Some artists write their own algorithms and create custom-made data sets using original works where they own the copyright. On the opposite end of the spectrum, some artists use AI text-to-image generators such as DALL-E 2 and Midjourney. Generative AI can be a useful tool, but it does disrupt traditional legal definitions of copyright and human authorship.
It is important to read the terms of service of generative AI platforms before using them, as these terms stipulate what rights the platform and the user have to their inputs and outputs.
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Legal design is a term used to describe the application of design-oriented thinking to the law and access to justice. Legal design makes legal jargon easier to understand for non-lawyers. Our Contract Builders are an example of implementing legal design, where the drafting of legal documents is simplified through a chatbot and automated contract process. Legal design seeks to produce a more client-focused approach to the law.
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Given that much of the law in Australia can now be found in precedents set by court judgements, legal research is integral to the law. As technology has evolved, so too have the research platforms that lawyers frequently use to ascertain what the law is. Legal research companies are investing in AI powered search tools, resulting in faster and more accurate search responses.
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As technology is becoming more advanced, it is increasingly used within the legal industry to enhance client solutions. Technology and software are often used to support and progress legal services, by streamlining administrative tasks and improving the overall efficiency of lawyers. Examples of legal tech include the filing of court documents, electronic or ‘e-discovery’ and the drafting of documents based on information provided by the client.
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Machine learning is where computer systems are able to analyse and draw inferences from data patterns. Machine learning is an AI technique which enables computers to ‘learn’ from these patterns and be able to answer questions and solve problems.
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Online dispute resolution allows for parties to negotiate in separate locations as well as reducing the cost of filing fees and court dates. Online dispute resolution is also able to be used for a variety of different legal issues, such as small claims in the tribunal.
In 2020, the Australian Government implemented amica, an online dispute resolution serviced aimed at helping separating couples resolve disputes. This tool minimises costs to parties and allows dispute resolution without having to attend court in person, facilitating negotiation as well as property and parenting agreements.
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Open source is a phrase generally used in the context of software. When the copyright owner of source code declares their work to be open source, this allows users to use, change and distribute the work without obtaining express copyright permission from the copyright owner. The public nature of open source software codes enables collaboration and sharing without the need for the user to obtain a licence for use.
Whilst commonly associated with code, open source can also include the sharing of information in other industries, including pharmaceuticals and food.
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Smart Contracts allow for the automatic execution of contracts, so that the contract is immediately in effect once signed. The form of smart contracts varies. For example, a smart contract can be as simple as a vending machine dispensing a product once you have paid or can be used by banks to automatically transfer funds if the user has set up a reoccurring payment option. Both are subject to pre-conditions which can be executed quickly and efficiently.
On a blockchain, smart contracts are written in code. Transactions can then be facilitated without the need for a third party, and terms are automatically executed.
Please note that the information contained in this Go-To Glossary does not constitute legal advice. If you require legal assistance, please contact us at info@guestworkagency.art.