The rise of technology has had an impact on the way we work. In the legal world, it was not immediate, but the rise of legal tech has reversed the trend. Legal professionals can now equip themselves with tools adapted to their profession.
In the age of Big Data, data is a growing source of value in many areas and the legal sphere has not been spared. Data and digital technology are having an impact on the way legal professionals practice their profession. Using algorithms and understanding machine learning is becoming essential to the practice of law in the future. Mastering technology is the cornerstone of becoming a digital lawyer.
To enhance the user experience of the legal client, the ability of legal professionals to collect, process and exploit the daily flow of legal big data becomes a real competitive advantage.
The intrusion of data into the world of law constitutes a paradigm shift.
Such a change has led to the birth of the data lawyer profession.
Since new digital tools are available to lawyers, they can focus on analysing a legal situation and on tasks with real added value. Technology should be understood as a real asset. Man should leave to the machine what it does better than him, such as the processing of masses of legal data, to concentrate on its added value and analysis: we speak then of a lawyer augmented by technology.
But what is legal Big Data? What is its link with Open Data? What tools are available to the lawyer? Why should they know how to use them? What are the technical issues that the lawyer must be aware of?
1. What is Big Data?
Understanding the concept of Big Data requires define the data. According to the'decree of 22 December 1981 on the enrichment of the French language, data is "the representation of information in a conventional form intended to facilitate its processing".
There are internal company data sources but also external data sources, such as websites or open data, which can be freely reused.
Big data is an extremely voluminous set of data, due to the development of technology. In other words, the exponential number of digital legal data has enabled the emergence of legal big data, especially in the context of a widespread movement to open up public legal data in Europe.
1.1 What is Open Data?
Not all legal data is freely accessible and freely reusable. Only open data are.
In a press release dated 5 June 2012, the National Digital Council recalls that "the availability of public information is a democratic imperative".
In France, when the DILA launched the Open Law project and opened up the legislative and regulatory data of Légifrance, France went from 16th to 4th place in the international Open Data rankings.
The LEMAIRE law of 7 October 2016 clearly states that it is possible to have free access to all decisions rendered by French courts. Any person can access all decisions, including those not published in professional journals. The law was amended by a law of 23 March 2019. The open data of court decisions is extended to the publicity of debates and the pronouncement of judgments in civil matters.
Even if much remains to be done to open up the law (about 10% of French public legal data is actually in Open Data), legal open data is now a reality.
1.2 Examples of data types
- The first type of data that comes to mind for any lawyer is personal data. This is any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person, directly or indirectly. This may include one or more specific elements of his or her physical, physiological, psychological, mental, economic, cultural or social identity.
- There is also sensitive data, defined by Article 9 of the GDPR as "the processing of personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade-union membership, as well as the processing of genetic data, biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person, data concerning health, or data concerning the sex life or sexual orientation of a natural person, are prohibited".
- The data also includes legal data such as case law.
2. How can producing and formatting data be useful to the lawyer?
Lawyers face two important issues:
- The exponential volume of data
- Their fragmented location
We need to be able to use quality data and it is thanks to data extraction that we will be able to achieve this. Technology is therefore a formidable ally in the fight against the difficulties associated with Big data and Open data. The lawyer will then gain in efficiency.
With the opening of legal data already mentioned, there is more and more data available. To this extent, using technology on law is now possible.
2.1 Scraping
The exponential presence of data linked to Big Data requires knowing how to handle the data at the risk of not getting any value from it.
Scraping allows data to be collected in an automated manner. Thus, the saving of time is significant and not negligible for the lawyer who will be able to devote more time to the customer relationship and to put it at the heart of his concerns.
However, collecting data in an automated way must follow a process that respects the legal framework. Technology is giving rise to an automatic method of collecting data, via the method of scraping method, which makes it possible to obtain a large amount of information in a short period of time.
The lawyer recovers the data using a program, an algorithm that will extract the data from a website and store it for reuse.
2.1.1 Where to get legal data?
To retrieve data, the data must be open data. This is public data distributed under a free and open licence. Under open data, data.gouv.fr lists the licence associated with reusable data. The list of licences is set out in a decree and allows data to be used free of charge.
However, Article 1 of Decree No. 2017-331 of 14 March 2017 on the public service of making reference data available does not mention public legal data. However, it is possible to scrape data from DILA's FTP servers. The DILA website publishes all the laws and decrees in the Official Journal on the legifrance.gouv.fr website
Moreover, as already studied, since case law is freely accessible and freely reusable, it will be possible for the legal professional to scrape data from the Légifrance.gouv.fr website and proceed, thanks to an algorithm, to extract the necessary case law data.
Although the mass of available data can make legal research difficult for the professional, it is enough to master the technology to obtain the necessary information in record time. The lawyer will be able to respond easily to a legal problem.
2.1.2 A legal framework to be respected
Respecting the legal framework of the automated collection process is, however, essential for the subsequent use of the information.
Article L. 341-1 of the Intellectual Property Code protects the producer of a database with regard to the content of the database. The producer must nevertheless provide proof of a financial, material or human investment.
The data lawyer is also one who is aware of the limits set by the legislator. Failure to respect the protection of the producer of the database is tantamount to theft.
Open data does not exempt from respecting the rights of any individual in case of the presence of personal data. Thus, compliance with the RGPD is required. The data lawyer must therefore be aware of the limits linked to the collection and re-use of data, particularly with regard to the RGPD. It lays down obligations in terms of personal data with which the lawyer must comply.
2.2 Predictability
The increasing availability of data is also an asset for predictive justice. The availability of jurisprudence makes it possible, via algorithms, to know the outcome of the trial or the amount of damages that can be claimed.
The challenge of predictability must be understood by the lawyer. The time savings for legal professionals in taking advantage of technology are real. While statistics have been around for years, the increasing availability of legal data will allow for greater reliability.
The DataJust decree of 27 March 2020 also allows for the automated processing of personal data for the purpose of creating an algorithm to enable assessment in civil liability matters.
The issue of predictive justice will have a strong impact in the coming years. Being aware of these different issues is at the heart of the data lawyer's concerns. It will enable them to better satisfy their clients by indicating whether it is appropriate to bring a legal action. The lawyer, by taking advantage of Artificial Intelligence, will be able to quickly identify repetitions.
2.3 How can the data be used?
2.3.1 The Dataviz
Given the considerable amount of data, Big Data requires that it be enhanced through the practice of Dataviz. Thus, with the help of graphs, diagrams and tables, textual data can be translated more simply. With the help of UX and UI, this data will be all the more comprehensible, for the legal professional but also for his clients. The client experience must be a key concern for the professional.
2.3.2 The legal data lake
The legal data lake allows to centralise and store all data in a structured way. Thus, the legal data lake allows a significant saving of time for the legal professional since, thanks to an algorithm, he will not have to store his data himself. The data will be centralised in a structured way, allowing the lawyer to gain in agility and to improve his client relationships.
3. How to secure the acquired data?
D’après la CNIL, toutes les 15 secondes, un nouveau virus serait lancé. En 2017, on dénombre plus d’un milliards d’attaques informatiques. (https://www.cnil.fr/fr/securite-des-donnees-les-regles-essentielles-pour-demarrer).
The consequences can be dramatic, not to say fatal, for the company. If the company is obliged to pay a ransom to recover the data, it may also close down. The closure of a company has serious consequences for the employees.
To avoid cyber attacks, the ANSSI and the CPME present 12 rules to secure digital equipment. Thus, the choice of password is important, software must be updated regularly, wi-fi access must be secured, pseudo-mystification must be performed, etc.
The password is an authentication tool that is used to access digital equipment and to that extent its data.
For François Asselin, President of the CPME, the consequences of cybercrime should not be overlooked for any company, including very small ones.
The lawyer or in-house counsel must protect access to contracts. They are confidential and contain personal and confidential data. The data lawyer must know how to protect both email lists and sensitive legal documents.
Poor data security may lead to problems related to compliance with regulations, particularly the RGPD. The data lawyer is therefore a hybrid lawyer, capable of analysing the legal compliance of data management and discussing with IT security managers.
Thus, data governance is necessary to enable efficiency and time savings for the legal profession.
4. The data lawyer: a highly prized profile
The data lawyer produces and formats data and metadata related to legal and judicial data. They are first and foremost lawyers. He or she is aware of all the issues related to data. The data lawyer is a lawyer enhanced by technology, a hybrid lawyer who combines legal and digital skills. With the help of the new tools, lawyers will be able to devote more time to legal analysis, the employer will see a real added value.
The beneficial effects on their work are such that their profile is highly prized by legal departments and law firms. The lawyer is on the rise because of the added value that technology allows.
The transformation of the legal professional is necessary for his or her outreach.
SOURCES :
- SERAPHIN, https://seraphin.legal/droit-des-donnees-comment-scraper-des-donnees-dans-la-legalite/, mai 2019.
- TAVITIAN, https://www.village-justice.com/articles/Big-Data-evolution-metier-juriste,25018.html ,2017.
Guide des bonnes pratiques de l'informatique, 12 règles essentielles pour sécuriser vos équipements numériques : CPME.
