1.
What is legal technology?
What is the Finnish Legal
Tech Forum?
Anna Ronkainen, president
@ronkaine
at Microsoft Flux, Helsinki, 2016-09-05

2.
What is legal technology?

3.
The most important legal technology to
date: written language!
Code of Hammurabi,
Mesopotamia 1754 BCE
(Wikimedia: Rama CC BY-SA 2.0)

4.
But more to the point...
- technology (especially ICT) that is used
- by lawyers (for legal work), or
- to do work conventionally done by lawyers
- research, development, deployment
- generally not the same thing as Law &
Technology or ICT law (substantial legal
issues related to (emerging) technologies)
- (old-fashioned) umbrella term for both: legal
informatics

5.
Some examples of legal
technology

6.
Legal information retrieval
- access to legal sources (cases, statutes,
doctrine)
- initially basic database functions, now
increasingly sophisticated
- NLP-powered interfaces, recommendations,
better UX
- new open data based solutions coming
(where data available!)

7.
Legal practice technology
- communication: e-mail and all its killers
- case/docket management and workflow
- timekeeping
- document management
- document automation
- knowledge management
- ...

8.
Court technology
- case/docket management
- online dispute resolution
- decision support

9.
Attorney/client interfaces
- legal services platforms
- lawyer matching
- lawyer/referral networks

10.
Task- and issue-specific solutions
- e-discovery
- due diligence
- contract analysis
- immigration
- family law: divorce, prenups, estates
- mergers and acquisitions
- bankruptcy
- construction
- end-of-life
- patents
- trademarks
- DRM
- parking tickets
- ...

11.
Legal tech in Finland: Industry
- publishers: Edita (Edilex/Finlex), Talentum
(suomenlaki.com)
- public sector ICT behemoths: Tieto, CGI
- NewLaw: e.g. Fondia, Turre Legal
- legal marketplace: Lakivälitys
- contract management: M-Files, Sopima,
ContractZen
- practice management: CSI Helsinki
- trademark AI: TrademarkNow

12.
Legal tech in Finland: Academia
Relevant research (that I’m aware of):
- legal AI: modelling interpretation and
vagueness (yours truly/Helsinki)
- Semantic Finlex (Hyvönen et al/Aalto)
- legal design (Haapio/Vaasa, Passera/Aalto)
- ODR (R Koulu/Helsinki)
Teaching:
- Turku law school: Introduction to Legal
Technology (by yours truly), spring 2015,
autumn 2016, ...
- Helsinki: dispute resolution and technology

13.
What is the Finnish Legal
Tech Forum?

14.
The Finnish Legal Tech Forum is...
- a newly started organization to promote
legal tech in Finland
- open for everyone interested in legal tech
- not that expensive to join (annual dues: 20 e
for regular members, 10 e for student
members, 150 e for corporate members)
- growing fast: ~40 members now

15.
Meet the Finnish Legal Tech Forum
board
- Anna Ronkainen (president)
- Antti Innanen (vice-president)
- Kristian Lauslahti (secretary)
- Petteri Günther (member secretary)
- Johanna Rantanen (member secretary)

16.
Concrete plans for the Forum
- taking over organizational responsibility for
the Helsinki Legal Tech Meetup (will remain
open also for non-members)
- autumn AGM in November/December
- massive behind-the-scenes lobbying to make
the world a better place with legal tech ;)
- other events and activities TBD
- join us to have a say in what we do!

17.
Where to go from here?

18.
General information on legal tech
- Legaltech News magazine
- blogs, e.g. Law Technology News, Lawyerist,
Above the Law
- my intro presentation from the first meetup
(on my Slideshare, link in yesterday’s email)
- Introduction to Legal Technology course
(Turku Law School) starting Oct 25 (last
year’s slides also on my Slideshare)

19.
Conferences etc. abroad
- huge tradeshows: Legaltech, ABA Techshow
- more interesting: e.g. Clio Cloud, FutureLaw
- Legal Geek legal startup conference (London, Oct
18)
- VQ Knowledge and Strategy Forum (Stockholm,
Oct 18)
- Tallinn IT Law Conference (Tallinn, May)
- meetups in Stockholm, Copenhagen, Tallinn...
- Nordic Conference on Legal Informatics (Stockholm
Nov 10–11)
- International Conference on Artificial Intelligence
and Law (London, Jun 12–16)

20.
Conferences etc. in Finland
- Riikka Koulu’s doctoral defence (Helsinki,
Sept 23)
- Berggren Future Forum (Helsinki, Oct 8)
- Käräjät 2016 (Edita, Helsinki, Oct 28)
- Legal Design Summit (Helsinki, Nov 16,
legalexperience.fi)
- Helsinki Legal Tech Meetup

21.
Upcoming meetups
- next: online dispute resolution (October, exact
date TBD)
- (some) potential topics for future meetups:
- why do government IT projects (almost) always
fail and what can be done about it?
- bot v. bot: automated enforcement and defence
- Finnish legal tech startup showcase
- legal tech from a law firm perspective
- legal publishing and legal tech
- we’re always looking for speakers and event
hosts, get in touch!

22.
Thank you!
http://legaltech.fi/
http://meetup.com/Helsinki-Legal-Tech-
Meetup/
Twitter: @legaltechfi #legaltechfi