Michael Legg - Böcker

How are new technologies changing the practice of law?With examples and explanations drawn from the UK, US, Canada, Australia and other common law countries, as well as from China and Europe, this book considers the opportunities and implications for lawyers as artificial intelligence systems become commonplace in legal service delivery. It examines what lawyers do in the practice of law and where AI will impact this work. It also explains the important continuing role of the lawyer in an AI world.This book is divided into three parts:Part A provides an accessible explanation of AI, including diagrams, and contrasts this with the role and work of lawyers.Part B focuses on six different aspects of legal work (litigation, transactional, dispute resolution, regulation and compliance, criminal law and legal advice and strategy) where AI is making a considerable impact and looks at how this is occurring.Part C discusses how lawyers and law firms can best utilise the promise of AI, while also acknowledging its limitations. It also discusses ethical and regulatory issues, including the lawyer’s role in upholding the rule of law.

This book undertakes unique case studies, including interviews with participants, as well as empirical analysis, of public and private enforcement of Australian securities laws addressing continuous disclosure.Enforcement of laws is crucial to effective regulation. Historically, enforcement was the province of a government regulator with significant discretion (public enforcement). However, more and more citizens are being expected to take action themselves (private enforcement). Consistent with regulatory pluralism, public and private enforcement exist in parallel, with the capacity to both help and hinder each other, and the achievement of the goals of enforcement in a range of areas of regulation.The rise of the shareholder class action in Australia, backed by litigation funding or lawyers, has given rise to enforcement overlapping with that of the government regulator, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. The ramifications of overlapping enforcement are explained based on detailed analysis. The analysis is further bolstered by the regulator’s approach to enforcement changing from a compliance orientation to a “Why not litigate?” approach.The analysis and ramifications of the Australian case studies involve matters of regulatory theory and practice that apply across jurisdictions. The book will appeal to practitioners, regulators and academics interested in regulatory policy and enforcement, and the operation of regulators and class actions, including their interaction.

This book undertakes unique case studies, including interviews with participants, as well as empirical analysis, of public and private enforcement of Australian securities laws addressing continuous disclosure.Enforcement of laws is crucial to effective regulation. Historically, enforcement was the province of a government regulator with significant discretion (public enforcement). However, more and more citizens are being expected to take action themselves (private enforcement). Consistent with regulatory pluralism, public and private enforcement exist in parallel, with the capacity to both help and hinder each other, and the achievement of the goals of enforcement in a range of areas of regulation.The rise of the shareholder class action in Australia, backed by litigation funding or lawyers, has given rise to enforcement overlapping with that of the government regulator, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. The ramifications of overlapping enforcement are explained based on detailed analysis. The analysis is further bolstered by the regulator’s approach to enforcement changing from a compliance orientation to a “Why not litigate?” approach.The analysis and ramifications of the Australian case studies involve matters of regulatory theory and practice that apply across jurisdictions. The book will appeal to practitioners, regulators and academics interested in regulatory policy and enforcement, and the operation of regulators and class actions, including their interaction.

The legal profession has undergone significant changes in the past few years. These have affected working structures and context within the profession, in turn affecting the wellbeing of individual practitioners. This book is the first to consider how these operate in practice and how they impact on the wellbeing of lawyers. This is significant because legal systems cannot operate without properly functioning lawyers. Changes considered include rapidly evolving technologies such as the internet, artificial intelligence and increasing digitisation, and innovations in legal practice. Such innovations include changes in the structures of law firms, changing requirements about whether lawyers must practice separately from other professions and changing employment practices in law firms.The Impact of Technology and Innovation on the Well-Being of the Legal Profession considers the impact of all of these developments on the legal profession. It begins with students and how their responses to questions about their attitudes to learning may provide clues as to why they and the professionals they become might be more vulnerable to depression and anxiety than the wider population. The analysis then extends to how both satisfaction and stress levels can be simultaneously high and the implications of this, considering the experiences of lawyers in private and public practice, as well as academics, and their responses to the interactions between all of these changes. Leading researchers assess the situation in Australia and the United Kingdom in these various domains, using empirical research as the foundation of the arguments put forth.Anyone who is interested in the future of the legal profession and the challenges currently faced as a consequence of the massive structural and environmental changes experienced should read this book.