First In Legal Tech

In San Francisco, the future is now. Here, the cars drive themselves, prospectors “mine” the Internet for cashless currency, and technologies that change the world—for better and worse—are born. No industry is safe from disruption, even the tradition-bound legal landscape, which is undergoing a sea change thanks to a burgeoning new field. Legal tech utilizes software and digital platforms to change the delivery of legal services, including automating some of the tasks typically undertaken by first- and second-year junior associates.

UC Law SF has taken the upheaval in stride; already, the school has joined the legal tech revolution with its Startup Legal Garage, a project of UC Law SF’ Institute for Innovation Law. This February, the school launched yet another project on the bleeding edge of law and tech: LexLab, a hub to foster collaboration between faculty, students, and alumni interested in legal tech and the wider tech community of the Bay Area for the purposes of—what else?—innovation.

“It would almost be irresponsible of us, as a law school in San Francisco, not to build on the benefit of our location and engage with the tech space,” said Chancellor & Dean David Faigman. “This area is leading a revolution in tech and innovation, an intellectual revolution, and we have an intention to be a contributor.”

Academic Dean Morris Ratner concurs and is enthusiastic about the role that the law school can play in this space. The idea behind LexLab, he said, is to “put UC Law SF more squarely in the center of action taking place all around us.”

LexLab was originally Faigman’s brainchild born of a dawning realization that the new smart platforms of legal tech would begin to take over the repetitive, executional side of lawyering. These tools could review thousands of cases far faster than any human and leverage big data via AI to compile and synthesize information on a judge’s past rulings or analyze which attorneys have won before that judge to inform legal strategy.

“Understanding predictive analytics could be part of what it is to be a lawyer in the future,” Faigman said. One day, legal AI may even get good enough to write a draft brief. These advances have the potential to increase efficacy in powerful ways. According to Faigman, “Legal tech can help one lawyer operate with the force of 10.”

Educational Nexus

However, the rise of legal tech also calls for big changes, specifically to the field of legal education. Professor Alice Armitage, director of law and technology at UC Law SF, supervises LexLab. She sees it as a way to give newly minted attorneys an edge by making them legal tech experts equipped to help big firms implement new platforms and tools, and to confidently manage the technology (which is doing the work they would have once performed themselves). “There will still be a need for junior associates, but they’ll fill a different role. In addition, the use of technology in the practice of law will provide the data necessary to change pricing models for the delivery of legal services. The billable hour will go out the window,” Armitage predicted.

Eventually, Armitage would like to see UC Law SF offer a concentration in law and technology. She and her colleagues also want LexLab to become a go-to resource when someone from the general public wants to learn more about the field. “If anyone Googles legal tech, we want UC Law SF to come up as a resource,” she said.

Armitage imagines LexLab working with all kinds of partners—small startups, major law firms, heavy-hitting tech giants, and state and local governments. To start, she cites the San Francisco Mayor’s Office of Civic Innovation (MOCI). “Legal tech can help residents better access and understand the myriad regulations issued by city hall,” she said. And UC Law SF students involved in LexLab will be perfect candidates to help the city figure out how.

Once in full swing, LexLab will offer a five-part program, including a legal tech incubator, a speaker series and events focused on legal tech, and a suite of online resources. Soon, LexLab will take on an advisory board and special projects, such as Armitage’s proposed partnership with MOCI. Finally, there will be a curricular track for students pursuing a concentration in law and tech. This academic year, LexLab launched the series and the academic offerings.

Last year, UC Law SF offered three legal tech classes: one on secured transactions taught by Judge Charles Novack ’83 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Northern District of California; one on legal tech startups offered by Armitage; and one on artificial intelligence and the law taught by visiting lecturer and special master Francis McGovern of Duke University School of Law. The description of McGovern’s class notes that it would “leapfrog students into the third year of law practice by helping them to understand and master the use of AI in the legal space.” The course explored the ethical implications of applying AI to legal work and gave students an introduction to the integration of “legal robots” into the practice of law.

Pitching Startups, Shark Tank Style

In Armitage’s class, each student developed an idea for a legal tech startup, built a team, drafted a business model canvas, prototyped the idea, and grappled with the legal issues native to his or her venture. The final challenge was a three-minute pitch before a panel of legal tech experts, Shark Tank style.

The class gave students the opportunity to put the careful circumspection of law aside and to think like entrepreneurs. Armitage says that she challenged the budding lawyers to “embrace risk.”

For students, the course was a revelation about the teeming world of legal tech. “I had this view of the legal field as stuck in its ways,” said then–2L Chad Weeks. “I didn’t realize there was so much evolving via tech.” Prior to law school, Weeks had worked as an accountant in the nonprofit sector. He later co-founded a nonprofit clothing company called Hey Hope, the proceeds of which went to cancer patients. Recognizing how hard it is to get a venture off the ground without legal knowledge, Weeks took the class to develop legal skills that would allow him to better help small startups and to shore up his business knowledge. Even with his own startup experience, Weeks still had gaps. “I didn’t know much outside of law podcasts that talk about business,” he admitted.

Stephanie Vertongen ’18 said the class gave her empathy for the travails of startup life. “I saw how life-changing and all-consuming starting a business is,” she said. It also helped her think about bridging the cross-cultural divide between business and law, and “communicate in a clear way to a business-oriented person the legal particulars of starting a venture.” For her final project, Vertongen pitched You Need a Will, a legal tech startup that would offer affordable online estate planning.

In addition to the coursework, this March, LexLab held its first event, on autonomous vehicles. The legal tech company Casetext hosted. Ratner said the meet-up brought together all kinds of people, “lawyers, entrepreneurs, coders, students, law faculty, and government officials interested in the topic, … and sparked an important conversation that leaned on all of the participants’ unique experiences and vantage points. That’s community-building at its best.”

The second LexLab meet-up, which took place in mid-May, looked at the rise of surveillance tech in light of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

This summer, LexLab launched its advisory board comprised of alumni in tech. “They’ll help us keep LexLab on the cutting edge and see the trends and opportunities coming,” Armitage said. “They’ll also help us pick the startups to help, courses to teach, and events to do.”

Armitage hopes to have LexLab’s incubator up and running next fall. The plan is to invite three to five legal tech startups to work with students and alumni on campus for a semester. “The students will help the startups with whatever they need, which will help them learn how startups work, and the alumni can provide insight into how to refine legal tech products to fit the real-world needs of the practice of law,” Armitage said.

But for now, LexLab is still crystallizing, which is fitting, considering its name. Lex means “law” in Latin. Lab comes next because, as Faigman said, “We’re innovating in experimental ways.”

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