Legal Technology Blog Announcement

The lecture was delivered by Laura Wood who is a client advisor at LexisNexis Enterprise Solutions a global leading legal technology provider in legal research, legal and regulatory information, business information and analytics. Laura is an advocate for driving efficiency with legal tech, working tirelessly to help clients realise the potential of their software, and discover the very best solutions suited to their needs.

The lecture and discourse centred around the history of LexisNexis, the ecosystem and latest advancements of LexisNexis which includes Lexis+, LexisVisualfiles, Lexis+ AI, Lexis Create+, Mlex, Lexis Newsdesk and many more. Laura demonstrated how the platform can be utilised for legal case management, legal analytics, research, legal drafting, proof reading and even the Lexis AI Assistant Protégé that can be personalised for effective workflow. It was an insightful and interesting lecture, and I say this on behalf of the students as well, if the resounding clap they rendered at the end of the lecture was anything to go by.

It is one thing to read about digital transformation in the legal sector and have those discussions in the live lectures and the bi-weekly seminars, and it is yet another thing to see it demonstrated.

It was amazing to have Dr. Janis Wong, a data and technology law policy advisor at the Law Society of England and Wales who leads on the regulatory, digital, and policy developments across data protection, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and technology to support the legal profession and access to justice visit.

Dr. Wong delivered an incredible and insightful lecture on how the law society fits into the evolving legal technological landscape; the role of the law society in educating and training legal professionals, addressing consumer harms, providing policy recommendations and advocacy and its member and stakeholder collaboration with LawTech UK, Legal Geek, Law Centres and many others, some of which students have considered in the module seminar discussions.

It was yet another insightful and interesting lecture for the students to get first-hand information and a direct experience from the law society.

It was yet another exciting lecture. To have present Claire Smeaton, a practicing solicitor with Crawford & Company Legal Services Limited, which is a UK legal firm attached to the international claims management company, Crawford & Company. Clare has nearly 20 years of litigation experience in a variety of practice areas including housing, mental health, personal injury, commercial and construction working for both claimants and defendants and is a mentor with the Leeds Beckett Law School mentor scheme and has offered paid student placements with Crawford Legal Services Leeds Beckett students.

The lecture focused on how legal tech is impacting dispute resolution and access to justice in practice with the automation of claims processes for example the online civil money claims, possession claims, online injury claims, and the challenges that are consequent of using technology in legal services. The lecture was quite informative and reflective of some of the practical examples discussed during the module seminars and lectures.

The class was able to appreciate the practical realities faced by solicitors when dealing with technology in the course of their work, some of which were outside of the sometimes-theoretical discourse we have in the class.