The Legal Innovation & Technology Lab is a consultancy and R&D shop focusing on legal tech & data science, housed in the clinics at Suffolk University Law School. Boosts & Favs ≠ 👍
For a sense of what we do (mostly #a2j w/ some #nlp, #ml, et al. mixed in):
Document assembly/guided interviews: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3911381 (SSRN paper)
ML/AI issue spotting API (free for non-profits): https://spot.suffolklitlab.org/
When I hear folks talking about #LLMs like the one that powers #ChatGPT, two questions come up again & again:
1) What counts as authorship?
2) What about accuracy?
To help students (and others) navigate these question, @SuffolkLITLab built:
It aims to help folks write for trust in the age of generative AI. Check it out, let us know what you think, and tell a friend.
Continuing to build on the RateMyPDF.com look and feel. That was the main feedback we got from some of our expert beta testers, that the table layout was confusing and hard to read.
New stats show where your form is compared to benchmark forms (soon to reflect 47 states, 24,000 forms). Red/yellow/green indicates above/within/below one standard deviation of the mean. The progress bar spans 2 standard deviations from mean
If you missed #LITCon2023 — @SuffolkLITLab's annual #LegalTech conference — you can now catch all of the sessions online. Here's a video playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLy6i9GFGw5GwuczR7PkFoaKDk2ic78loP
And if you want more context, here's the agenda with speaker bios, slide decks, and the like: https://suffolklitlab.org/LITCon/2023/agenda/
#LITCon2023 (4/3),¹ Meet the Speakers:
Quinten Steenhuis² (@qsteenhuis) is a Practitioner-in-Residence @SuffolkLITLab. Quinten has practiced housing and eviction defense law since 2008, and has been a professional programmer and web application developer since 2001. He works on projects addressing social justice and access to justice with technology focusing on the topic of housing and evictions...
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¹ Register https://suffolklitlab.org/LITCon/2023/about/
² Bio https://suffolklitlab.org/LITCon/2023/speakers/#steenhuis
You may now about @SuffolkLITLab's #LegalTech conference #LITCon2023 on April 3rd, but did you know the conference site has a chat interface with an endless supply of cat GIFs?
You can register and see the GIFs here: https://suffolklitlab.org/LITCon/2023/ (registration not required for GIFs)
Please boost and tell all your friends. The Lab isn't promoting on Twitter, for you know... reasons, and we want to make sure folks know about the event.
#LITCon2023 (4/3),¹ Meet the Speakers:
Amanda Brown² is the founder & executive director of Lagniappe Law Lab, a legal aid technology nonprofit serving Louisiana’s justice community. She co-chairs the Louisiana's Access to Justice Commission's technology subcommittee & is a member of the Legal Service Corporation's Emerging Leaders Council. Additionally, she serves as the Vice Director of the YLD's Disaster Legal Services Team.
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¹ RSVP https://suffolklitlab.org/LITCon/2023/about/
² Bio https://suffolklitlab.org/LITCon/2023/speakers/#brown
Registration is now open for #LITCon2023 and #Docacon on April 3rd and 4th! Learn more about this great legal innovation event which is FREE for students nonprofit attendees: https://suffolklitlab.org/LITCon/2023/
And register here: https://forms.gle/gVP6Xq1C63ZK2cDC9
We are live in #Boston at beautiful Suffolk University Law School, but there is also a remote attendance option
Hey, @SuffolkLITLab was featured as part of Bloomberg Law's Law School Innovation program. 🎉 And I'm quoted.
“We learn by doing, recognizing that to build something is to better understand it,” said David Colarusso, director of the Legal Innovation & Technology Lab. With the Lab, Colarusso said, the school is “expanding our students’ understanding of what’s possible, and just as importantly, what is not,” which “inspires them to find new solutions.”
🚨 Announcing the #LITCon2023 ¹ keynote speaker... 🥁
Daniel Yi (Senior Counsel for Special Projects and Innovation @ the US DOJ)²
Daniel leads the Civil Rights Division’s effort to use the design process & entrepreneurial principles to test solutions for sticky challenges in legal practice & civil rights. He also runs Concept Lab, the Division’s idea incubator.
Get updates: https://forms.gle/WwG2H6DeZn4e1oah6
Be sure to tell your friends/boost!
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¹ https://suffolklitlab.org/LITCon/2023/
² https://suffolklitlab.org/LITCon/2023/speakers/#yi
Witnessing the chatter around a #ChatGPT fueled death of scholarship & truth, @SuffolkLITLab decided to see if it could get #AI to "switch teams," enlisting an #LLM in the service of both.
The result is a new suite of tools at https://findmycite.org (come play)
Their output is tied to a @zotero library of the user's choice. Find propositions, ask questions, & get support for arguments all based on your library of trusted texts. Plus, its citations point to actual papers. ;)
Came up with a word #GrowBono to describe improving #probono legal efforts at scale.
#Bloomberg News just published my opinion piece about the concept, which is a cool first for me!
I discuss the work we're doing @SuffolkLITLab, tools built with the former Community.Lawyer to automate record sealing, and my work at GBLS
Need an excuse to come to Boston in April? Join us for two days of content: #LITCon and #Docacon on April 3rd and April 4th. Both are back live and in-person for the first time since 2019.
Sign up to get updates here: https://suffolklitlab.org/LITCon/2023/about/
$25 gets you breakfast, lunch + a chance to see and network with innovators from around the country. Waivers for public interest and students.
Interesting results from our first analysis of 15,000 US court forms: average reading grade level of about 10th grade! Experts suggest targeting 4th grade for self-represented litigants. With @brycew and @SuffolkLITLab
Curious what #LITCon2023 means by "collaboration at scale?" Frankly, we think this is a pretty large umbrella, but to help make it concrete, here's an example from our own work to give you a flavor.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7Bwk9g8H7g (less than 3 min)
Paper: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3911381 (Digital Curb Cuts: Towards an Inclusive Open Forms Ecosystem)
Help! Moving our lab (@SuffolkLITLab) to Mastodon was a bet on #LawFedi. Now I need to show the university that it wasn't a mistake.
If you're into #LegalTech or know folks who are, please boost!!! Our annual conference is back: #LITCon2023 (4/3/23)
Focus: Collaboration at Scale
Conference site: https://suffolklitlab.org/LITCon/2023
Get notification when registration opens: https://forms.gle/WwG2H6DeZn4e1oah6
Pitch an idea for a rapid-fire talk: https://forms.gle/A2Hhq4rjpVHqcWb57
I just had a student meeting, and I can't believe that my homework for them was to compile a list of attorneys on TikTok doing stuff they like, pick one of their videos to share with the group that does a good job of communicating legal information, and create a draft set of rules for good legal videos based on what they saw. I should have seen this coming when we named it the LIT 🔥 Lab. 😂
h/t @SuffolkLITLab
Off to #lscitc 2023 with @brycew where I'll be on 3 different panels: sharing madeuptocode.org, soon to come product "ratemypdf" and talking about our @SuffolkLITLab Assembly Line project (https://suffolklitlab.org/docassemble-AssemblyLine-documentation/docs/)
The Legal Services Corporation has funded 3 technology grants, in #Vermont, #Illinois and #Maine that use #docassemble -- all in states partnering with @SuffolkLITLab and using our https://suffolklitlab.org/docassemble-AssemblyLine-documentation/docs/ framework
Another must-follow, the Suffolk Legal Innovation & Technology Lab (@SuffolkLITLab).
They do a lot of cool stuff, not the least of which is the Spot issue-spotting API: https://spot.suffolklitlab.org
