With a few ILTA Resolutions checked off from list one and/or list two you should feel great about the start of 2016. Now prepare yourself for what’s to come in 2016 with some legal technology predictions and reminisce with some 2015 year in review articles.
Legal Industry Predictions and 2015 Year in Review
The Business of Law Blog from Lexis collected several predictions from law firm partners, legal industry consultants, law professors, journalists and legal technology providers. Beautiful Minds: 41 Legal Industry Predictions for 2016. The American Lawyer provided predictions for Big Law in “Top 10 Predictions for Big Law in 2016.” Bloomberg BNA’s Big Law Business offers warnings for various executive level positions in large law firms in “Top Legal Trends in 2015, Predictions for 2016.”
For a review of 2015’s legal technology trends read ILTA’s 2015 Technology Survey and the 2015 ILTA/Inside Legal Technology Purchasing Survey. Robert Ambrogi lists “The 10 Most Important Legal Technology Developments of 2015” on his blog, LawSites. Many ILTA members shared their predictions and forward thinking ideas on legal technology in late summer at ILTACON 2015. These include Future Technologies Roundtable, Legal Technology Innovation: Bolstering AND Destroying the Legal Profession, Past Performance and Future Success: What’s Next for E-Discovery?, Rise of the Machine: Threat, Opportunity or Science Fiction? and Transformers: Lawyers as Agents of Change? In Disguise!
E-Discovery 2016 Predictions and 2015 Year in Review
Chris Dale of the E-disclosure Information Project provides e-disclosure/e-discovery predictions for 2016 in the Society for Computers and Law. The predictions fit his self-described theme of “disclose less, with technology as your sword and proportionality as your shield.”
Recommind reminds us of new Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in 2015, the end of Safe Harbor, new ethics opinions and more in “Recommind’s 2015 eDiscovery Year in Review.” For a more playful take comparing e-discovery issues to top songs on the pop music charts, see Xerox’s “The Year In eDiscovery Music, Part I” and Part II. You can also return to ILTA’s white paper from May of 2015, “Litigation and Practice Support: A 2015 Snapshot” to compare the end of 2015 with a mid-year review.
AI Predictions
Artificial Intelligence, or rather Kenneth Grady’s newly coined term “Augmented Human Intelligence”, is top of mind for 2016. CIO.com offers “Five Enterprise Software Predictions for 2016,” ZDnet lists AI at the top of its list, “Tech Predictions 2016: 4 Business Trends to Watch” and Microsoft offered “From AI and Data Science to Cryptography: Microsoft Researchers Offer 16 Predictions for ’16.” Some law firms already use AI systems. For an explanation see, “Don’t Fear Artificial Intelligence! It Can Transform Your Organization.”
These are just a few of the predictions and year in review articles shared in this season of looking backwards and forwards. Add your favorites in the comments section.
Wishing everyone a happy and healthy 2016!
As ILTA’s content curator, I’m always monitoring the discussion forums to discover what topics are top-of-mind among the members. Each week, I focus on a few areas that spark your interest, and I provide some curated resources to assist your own information-gathering on the topics. If there are specific topics you would like assistance exploring, please contact me at joanne@iltanet.org.