header-logo header-logo

01 May 2024
Issue: 8069 / Categories: Legal News , Profession , Technology , Artificial intelligence
printer mail-detail

Regulators told to actively promote tech

Regulators need to ‘actively’ encourage lawtech and innovation, including artificial intelligence (AI), the Legal Services Board (LSB) has said

In a letter to technology minister Michelle Donelan and Lord Chancellor Alex Chalk this week, it set out its commitment to AI, including engaging with regulators ‘to understand their capacity and capabilities in relation to the regulation of the use of AI’ and seeking to foster collaboration on the sharing of best practice.

Its paper ‘Guidance on promoting technology and innovation to improve access to legal services’, issued last week, sets three outcomes for the legal regulators.

First, regulation should enable the use of technology and innovation to improve access and address unmet legal need. Second, it should balance the benefits and risks, opportunities and costs of technology in the interests of the public. Third, it should ‘actively’ foster an environment that is open to technology providers and innovators.

LSB chair Alan Kershaw said: ‘We now expect the regulators to embrace our ambition and move with appropriate pace.’

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Thackray Williams—Lucy Zhu

Thackray Williams—Lucy Zhu

Dual-qualified partner joins as head of commercial property department

Morgan Lewis—David A. McManus

Morgan Lewis—David A. McManus

Firm announces appointment of next chair

Burges Salmon—Rebecca Wilsker

Burges Salmon—Rebecca Wilsker

Director joins corporate team from the US

NEWS
What safeguards apply when trust corporations are appointed as deputy by the Court of Protection? 
Disputing parties are expected to take part in alternative dispute resolution (ADR), where this is suitable for their case. At what point, however, does refusing to participate cross the threshold of ‘unreasonable’ and attract adverse costs consequences?
When it comes to free legal advice, demand massively outweighs supply. 'Millions of people are excluded from access to justice as they don’t have anywhere to turn for free advice—or don’t know that they can ask for help,' Bhavini Bhatt, development director at the Access to Justice Foundation, writes in this week's NLJ
When an ex-couple is deciding who gets what in the divorce or civil partnership dissolution, when is it appropriate for a third party to intervene? David Burrows, NLJ columnist and solicitor advocate, considers this thorny issue in this week’s NLJ
NLJ's latest Charities Appeals Supplement has been published in this week’s issue
back-to-top-scroll