Argument by Numbers: the Normative Impact of Statistical Legal Tech
The introduction of statistical “legal tech” raises questions about the future of law and legal practice. While technologies have always mediated the concept, practice, and texture of law, a qualitative and quantitative shift is taking place: statistical legal tech is being integrated into mainstrea...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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North-West Institute of Management, Branch of Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA)
2022-10-01
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| Series: | Теоретическая и прикладная юриспруденция |
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| Online Access: | https://www.taljournal.ru/jour/article/view/199 |
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| author | L. Diver P. McBride |
| author_facet | L. Diver P. McBride |
| author_sort | L. Diver |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The introduction of statistical “legal tech” raises questions about the future of law and legal practice. While technologies have always mediated the concept, practice, and texture of law, a qualitative and quantitative shift is taking place: statistical legal tech is being integrated into mainstream legal practice, and particularly that of litigators. These applications — particularly in search and document generation — mediate how practicing lawyers interact with the legal system. By shaping how law is “done”, the applications ultimately come to shape what law is. Where such applications impact on the creative elements of the litigator’s practice, for example via automation bias, they affect their professional and ethical duty to respond appropriately to the unique circumstances of their client’s case — a duty that is central to the Rule of Law. The statistical mediation of legal resources by machine learning applications must therefore be introduced with great care, if we are to avoid the subtle, inadvertent, but ultimately fundamental undermining of the Rule of Law. In this contribution we describe the normative effects of legal tech application design, how they are (in)compatible with law and the Rule of Law as normative orders, particularly with respect to legal texts which we frame as the proper source of “lossless law”, uncompressed by statistical framing. We conclude that reliance on the vigilance of individual lawyers is insufficient to guard against the potentially harmful effects of such systems, given their inscrutability, and suggest that the onus is on the providers of legal technologies to demonstrate the legitimacy of their systems according to the standards inherent in the legal system.The translation and publication of this article is based on the CC BY Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license, under which this article was published in English at https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/ts259/. The article is accepted for publication in Communitas (2022). |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-42988538ad8e4a7bb1fa7a263446bc1b |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 3034-2813 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2022-10-01 |
| publisher | North-West Institute of Management, Branch of Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA) |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Теоретическая и прикладная юриспруденция |
| spelling | doaj-art-42988538ad8e4a7bb1fa7a263446bc1b2025-01-14T11:56:23ZengNorth-West Institute of Management, Branch of Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA)Теоретическая и прикладная юриспруденция3034-28132022-10-010382210.22394/2686-7834-2022-3-8-22130Argument by Numbers: the Normative Impact of Statistical Legal TechL. Diver0P. McBride1Vrije Universiteit BrusselVrije Universiteit BrusselThe introduction of statistical “legal tech” raises questions about the future of law and legal practice. While technologies have always mediated the concept, practice, and texture of law, a qualitative and quantitative shift is taking place: statistical legal tech is being integrated into mainstream legal practice, and particularly that of litigators. These applications — particularly in search and document generation — mediate how practicing lawyers interact with the legal system. By shaping how law is “done”, the applications ultimately come to shape what law is. Where such applications impact on the creative elements of the litigator’s practice, for example via automation bias, they affect their professional and ethical duty to respond appropriately to the unique circumstances of their client’s case — a duty that is central to the Rule of Law. The statistical mediation of legal resources by machine learning applications must therefore be introduced with great care, if we are to avoid the subtle, inadvertent, but ultimately fundamental undermining of the Rule of Law. In this contribution we describe the normative effects of legal tech application design, how they are (in)compatible with law and the Rule of Law as normative orders, particularly with respect to legal texts which we frame as the proper source of “lossless law”, uncompressed by statistical framing. We conclude that reliance on the vigilance of individual lawyers is insufficient to guard against the potentially harmful effects of such systems, given their inscrutability, and suggest that the onus is on the providers of legal technologies to demonstrate the legitimacy of their systems according to the standards inherent in the legal system.The translation and publication of this article is based on the CC BY Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license, under which this article was published in English at https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/ts259/. The article is accepted for publication in Communitas (2022).https://www.taljournal.ru/jour/article/view/199legal statistical technologiesmachine learningdigitalization of justice |
| spellingShingle | L. Diver P. McBride Argument by Numbers: the Normative Impact of Statistical Legal Tech Теоретическая и прикладная юриспруденция legal statistical technologies machine learning digitalization of justice |
| title | Argument by Numbers: the Normative Impact of Statistical Legal Tech |
| title_full | Argument by Numbers: the Normative Impact of Statistical Legal Tech |
| title_fullStr | Argument by Numbers: the Normative Impact of Statistical Legal Tech |
| title_full_unstemmed | Argument by Numbers: the Normative Impact of Statistical Legal Tech |
| title_short | Argument by Numbers: the Normative Impact of Statistical Legal Tech |
| title_sort | argument by numbers the normative impact of statistical legal tech |
| topic | legal statistical technologies machine learning digitalization of justice |
| url | https://www.taljournal.ru/jour/article/view/199 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT ldiver argumentbynumbersthenormativeimpactofstatisticallegaltech AT pmcbride argumentbynumbersthenormativeimpactofstatisticallegaltech |