{"id":1841,"date":"2024-01-17T08:41:46","date_gmt":"2024-01-17T07:41:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.baeslegalcripto.eu\/legalcripto\/?p=1841"},"modified":"2024-10-22T11:33:57","modified_gmt":"2024-10-22T09:33:57","slug":"the-double-implosion-in-the-legal-professions-and-a-new-integrated-data-regulation-space-by-pompeu-casanovas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.baeslegalcripto.eu\/legalcripto\/en\/the-double-implosion-in-the-legal-professions-and-a-new-integrated-data-regulation-space-by-pompeu-casanovas\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The double implosion in the legal professions and a new integrated data regulation space’ by Pompeu Casanovas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It is a real pleasure to contribute to the conceptualisation effort that Carmen Pastor and the BAES Group (Financial Technology and Law Laboratory) are carrying out to design the regulation of the European and Spanish financial market within the framework of Information Technologies and Artificial Intelligence. The recent 3rd International Conference on the Present and Future of the Regulation of Cryptoassets in the European Union held at the University of Alicante on 14 and 15 December offered the opportunity to share the work of researchers and professionals on this topic. A resounding success, from which we have all learned. Let me join in the many congratulations already received. I am now going to briefly summarise some of the issues that I pointed out in my presentation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the evolution of the legal landscape, two significant implosions have occurred in the last fifty years. The first is attributed to globalization and the transformation of law firms into transnational legal entities. The second is a consequence of technological advancements<\/span>1<\/a><\/sup>. However, it is crucial to clarify their implications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The economic and cultural globalization observed from the mid-1980s to the end of the last century followed the significant transformation of legal professions between 1960 and 1980 in the US and European countries, after a long period of stagnation. Law & Society researchers characterized this shift as a move from a centralized view of the state and law to a distributed normative decentralization in firms, corporations, and political and social organizations2<\/a><\/sup>. Traditional legal structures and forms imploded as service providers aimed to control not only supply but also stimulate demand in line with the rapidly expanding global economy. The primary consumers of legal services shifted from individual citizens to corporations, financial institutions, and state administrations. This legal expansion \u2014the so-called big-bang<\/em> of lawyers and increase in litigation rates\u2014 was further fuelled by changes in regulation within the financial and stock markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second implosion was triggered by (i) the collapse of large law firms that had transformed into consultancies by the end of the century, such as Arthur-Andersen, and the enactment of legislation like the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (USA 2002); (ii) and the financial crisis of 2008-2012. Both sets of events led to the expansion of a services market with characteristics beyond the strictly legal realm. This services market is gradually becoming “uberized,” welcoming professionals with specific technical expertise rather than a strict legal background. These include knowledge engineers, project managers, financial experts, customer advisors, product process experts, documentalists, risk prevention experts, data protection experts, and AI programmers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The emergence of GPT3.5, GPT.4, and ChatGPT post-pandemic has further intensified these previous trends. Since at least 2012, AI has held a prominent place on the agendas of firms. The Governance, Risk Management, and Compliance (GRC), or RegTech (encompassing LawTech and Fintech) market has experienced exponential growth. Data provided by Raymond Blijd at LegalComplex<\/a><\/em> (LegalPioneer) covering 1984 to 2020 reveals a total legal tech investment of $12.3 billion. Considering the potential market for risk, compliance, and management, the sum reaches $3 trillion. The current estimate stands at 51,654 contracts and 4.3 trillion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In summary, we can assert that: (i) the “platform-driven economy” is already widespread; (ii) there has been integration of old ICT law (e.g., intellectual property, patents, data protection) and IT for lawyers (technological advancements in e-discovery, semantic web, search, and document management tools, ODR); (iii) a polarization exists between legal corporations and ‘uberized’ individual lawyers; (iv) and in between, web-based legal services (LawTech), integrated into large law firms or offering independent online services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The development of semantics, Natural Language Processing (NLP), ontologies, information storage, and retrieval techniques, along with Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL), has led to the convergence of these approaches into a unified field of techno-regulation (LawTech, also known as Fintech, Regtech, and Suptech). Its primary functions include the supervision, monitoring, and compliance of regulatory systems, encompassing smart contracts, cryptocurrencies, and Online Dispute Resolution (ODR).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The inevitable questions that arise include: <\/p>\n\n\n\n