Boost firm productivity with legal AI
Today, cyber attacks are on the rise in all businesses. And law firms are far from being spared from these protean attacks. Targets of choice for hackers because of the sensitive, confidential or strategic data they handle, lawyers must anticipate to protect themselves effectively. So, what are the best practices to adopt to combat growing cyber threats?
If innovation and LegalTech are considered essential by everyone, many people do not have a concrete answer on the “how”. We have therefore prepared a unique event for you during which we will present a summary of the white paper on dedicated management solutions for law firms. We will also come back to the key steps to succeed in your digital transformation project.
Finally, you will be able to concretely immerse yourself in the office of the future during this exceptional event: equipment, not forgetting professional printing solutions.
As the number of places is limited, don't wait to reserve yours 👉I'm registering
June 20, 2019 from 8:30 a.m.
Hamelin space
17 rue de l'Amiral Hamelin, 75116 Paris
Alexandre Yérémian, Régis Pomade, Pierre Devos,
CEO of Jarvis Legal Commercial Director of XEFI Agency Director XEFI Paris 15
Maxime Gouin
Sales Director Jarvis Legal
8:30 a.m. – 9 a.m.: Welcome of participants
9 a.m. – 9:15 a.m.: Broadcast of the short film “The Wolf” on computer security
9:15 a.m. – 10 a.m.: The key steps to successfully digital transformation of your firm
10 a.m. – 11 a.m.: Simulation and practical cases in the firm of the future created by Xefi and Jarvis Legal
Malian justice has been faced for several years with a simple problem but with serious consequences: clerks are poorly trained and must put up with working conditions made difficult by a low level of equipment. The notes and hearing reports prove practically unusable in the vast majority of cases. Therefore, dispensing justice on the basis of substantiated and documented cases becomes a challenge for judges.
The country's police stations and gendarmes encounter the same difficulties; the reports of hearings and interrogations are not usable and make the investigation of cases very complicated.
The concepts of storage and archiving are also a major concern. The time for justice is sometimes, often, a long time. The long-term preservation of files and the documents that constitute them is a necessity to guarantee fair justice. Here too, the challenges are major and the conditions difficult: the premises and equipment are not or only poorly suited to the conservation of such documents.
Under the leadership of the Keeper of the Seals and Minister of Justice of Mali, Mr. Mamadou Konate, a digital transformation project for justice has seen the light of day. This project was structured around a management solution which had to respond to three major challenges: offering a document digitization solution in order to centralize all information relating to a processed file, offering a digital recording and automatic transcription solution, offer a strong capacity for customization to adapt to the practices specific to each equipped entity.
The ministry then launched a consultation with several publishers, mainly European, to develop an innovative solution that meets local constraints, both technical and financial. Jarvis Legal has established itself as the fully hosted management solution open to the ecosystem through its powerful API, and which met all the criteria set out in the call for tenders.
We spent many hours building the offer that won over the Mali Ministry of Justice. This was a real challenge, both technical (we had to integrate functions that we did not have at the time) and financial (the project was financed by the Netherlands through its Embassy in Mali). However, we were the only publisher capable of responding to all of the requests made.
Our offer of course included the management solution for lawyers and legal professionals, ranked 1st for the third consecutive year by the Décideurs magazine, but also digital dictaphones and high-performance scanners. These devices have been specially selected for their ability to connect to Jarvis Legal via their API.
The work was only just beginning for our R&D team. Many challenges had to be overcome to perfectly integrate these different services and make them easy to use for users.
Once the contract was won, a first mission was carried out in the summer of 2017. It aimed to meet the people involved in the project and to audit the places which would be equipped with Jarvis Legal. Although easy to deploy because it is fully hosted, Jarvis Legal still requires two essential elements to operate: an Internet connection (a simple ADSL connection is sufficient) and a computer. However, the sites visited were not or very poorly equipped. The local authorities showed great responsiveness by ordering the materials and Internet connections necessary for the deployment of Jarvis Legal.
At the same time, our R&D teams worked on the integration of the APIs for the scanners and digital dictaphones provided as part of the call for tenders. They also worked on the integration of the voice recognition service, capable of continuous improvement thanks to autonomous neural-type learning.
In particular, the challenge of simplifying operations had to be met to ensure that a user could easily scan a document by placing it directly in the right folder. Or he can record a hearing, pleading or deposition and simply drop the file into Jarvis Drive to then start transcribing it, automatically transforming it into a ready-made Word document, all in seconds.
The deployment mission was carried out in January 2019. It took place over a week, in Bamako and the surrounding towns. The Secretary General of the Ministry of Justice of Mali and the Ambassador of the Netherlands to Mali inaugurated the official launch of Jarvis Legal on this occasion.
Beyond the deployment of the management solution, we took care of the training of future users as well as local administrators. We also supported them in the configuration and personalization of their spaces, each site having its own environment. The equipment has also been deployed on each site.
We were particularly impressed by the concentration and involvement of the speakers on site. It is thanks to them that the project was a success and could be implemented in the best conditions.
With Jarvis Legal, courts, gendarmes and police stations can now digitize the documents in the files investigated, save them in a single and secure database and thus share common information which will be consultable by authorized people. The latter will therefore be able to rely on reliable and lasting information to make their decisions.
Court reports and depositions are automatically written and saved in the correct file. This is a considerable time saver for all those involved. The quality of information reaches a previously unmatched level of quality and reliability.
The judges finally have complete, detailed and quality information, whose chronology of facts and decisions are indisputable. The information is centralized, so that any authorized person can consult the documents that are always up to date. Registrars save precious time for a result of unequivocal quality.
This project is only the first brick in the digital transformation undertaken by the Malian government. Other needs can be covered by new innovative solutions such as civil status and census but also land registry management. These two examples are formidable levers for the Malian state which can thus better understand the choices which will engage it in the coming decades.
Innovation, interoperability, openness: here are some of the themes covered by the 2018 Legaltech Village which took place on November 27 and 28 at the Cité des Sciences, in Paris.
After two editions in partnership with the Paris Open Source Summit, the 2018 Legaltech Village was designed by the organizers, Open Law and Village de la Justice, as an event in its own right. A successful bet in terms of attendance, the diversity of the ecosystem and the variety of conferences!
The choice of location was there to recall the profoundly scientific nature of the transformation underway. Both in terms of law and IT, the term Legaltech advances the law thanks to technology.
3.000 visitors attended the conferences dozens of start-ups of Legaltech. 60 exhibitors, more than 30 workshops and conferences, numerous university players, the entire ecosystem was represented.
It was therefore a mature event that took place, in terms of attendance and quality of debates.
Innovation was of course one of the important themes of this edition, like the previous ones. We can cite artificial intelligence solutions (with HyperLex, Juri'Predis ou Doctrine), cloud solutions in API (like Jarvis Legal), blockchain (with DeepBlock) or platforms with high legal added value (eJust in arbitration, DataLegalDrive in Regtech). Innovative value propositions, both in terms of law and technology, are now there. It is no longer a question of the future but of productivity gains and transformation for the present.
Then, interoperability is another essential theme. Indeed, the diversity of solutions and business practices naturally lead users to wish to interconnect their different tools. For example, a lawyer accesses his legal search engine directly from his business software and has the finalized contract electronically signed. This centralizing interface allows for productivity gains and unparalleled ease of use.
Finally, the notion of openness is decisive. Between legal professionals – legal departments, lawyers, bailiffs, notaries. Openness between professions (computer scientists, accountants, the State, etc.) in order to design truly adapted solutions. A group like ELS (Dalloz, Francis Lefebvre, Editions Legislatives), strategic partner of Jarvis Legal since 2014, has been part of this tradition for a long time. Another of our partners, Seraphin Legal, develop and spread throughout the profession of technology and innovation.
Above all, openness is a state of mind, a cultural value. This means sharing its value, its technology with others and in return benefiting from the contributions of others. Where some are still in a lock-in logic (I work exclusively only with people I control), the tendency is resolutely to work ecumenically within the ecosystem. This is indeed the logic carried by openlaw or eJustice Consortium with the notion of “commons”.
The user must be in the center. He wants to decentralize tools, work with each specialized solution, and at the same time centralize access to information and all its tools in a simple way.
For this, a transversal solution coupled with standardized connectors addresses the problem. It is Jarvis Legal's approach to offer a cloud and API-based law firm management solution. L'API consists of a connector allowing information to flow from one software to another automatically.
So, you synchronize your emails and calendars, you connect your contact database with a communication solution like Mailchimp. The electronic signature, the RPVA, dynamic models are all functional benefits made possible by this approach.
La conférence organized by Jarvis Legal, “For an open Legaltech” highlighted this notion of ecosystem and sharing, for the benefit of the user.
Our speakers all shared their desire to work together within the ecosystem. Thus, the Great Witness of the conference, Me Mamadou Konaté, lawyer, arbitrator, former Minister of Justice of Mali, delivered a vibrant plea to promote access to law and justice thanks to technologies.
Find a summary of this event very soon on our blog.
The 2018 Legaltech Village was therefore a real success. The term Legaltech has established itself as the symbol of an intelligent, rational, controlled digital transformation. The time is no longer for evangelization and conquest. The time is now to deploy and reap the benefits promised by these new technologies.
So, a big congratulations to the organizers and participants for these 2 quality days. A modest proposal for the next edition: foreign players, notably German, American or Dutch, to position French Legaltech in relation to global trends. Openness and interoperability also apply internationally!
In the United States, nearly 60% of lawyers already using Mac in 2013. In France, only 40% of lawyers converted to the famous Apple brand computer. Why this difference and what are the advantages of using an Apple computer for your practice? Here are 3 arguments that will convince you to put your old PC in the closet!
The argument often put forward by detractors of the Macintosh is its price, which is often much higher than its direct Windows competitors in the same range.
However, over time, the Apple computer turns out to be much more profitable than a Windows computer. In fact, the average lifespan of a PC is a maximum of 5 years!
Macs are a lot more resistant as time passes. They finally reveal themselves less expensive to maintain than Windows PCs: fewer bugs, crashes, viruses too and therefore risk of data loss. With them, you can forget the number of your computer repairer.
Macs are known for their increased security. Even if today, with the increase in cyber-attacks and the regular discovery of security vulnerabilities, we must not delude ourselves that all computers are vulnerable.
In reality, it's not that a Mac computer is more secure, but it is less targeted by attacks due to its low number of users which makes planning an attack less “profitable” for hackers.
In addition, well known also for its closed system and integrated, the Mac is much more difficult to access for fraud.
Add to that technological performance often advanced compared to other manufacturers, you get a safe and reliable machine.
Don't forget to add a anti-virus for greater caution and you will be assured that your data is well guarded and secure. If it is estimated that around 90% of businesses use Mac, it is not for nothing!
Last contentious point, software compatibility problems, and in particular, legal software. Indeed, many software programs are not compatible with Mac and simply do not exist on Mac or are sold at prohibitive prices.
Here you have 3 options. First, you can install a Windows machine on your Mac, sacrilege for some, fallback solution for others. Second possibility, you can use the software present on your Mac, that is to say look for ersatz which will replace, perhaps in a less complete way, your favorite software under Windows.
Finally, last and probably best option, you can turn to a platform like Jarvis Legal.
In this case, no more problems with incompatible software: all your daily work tools are on the cloud.
In addition, this type of hosted solution is simple, complete and easily accessible wherever you are. Thanks to them, you have the advantage of mobile solutions and powerful with the high performance of a Mac.
Be careful, however, of certain hosted solutions which are not completely compatible with your Mac and prevent you from taking advantage of all its possibilities.
Today the best option on the market is to turn to Jarvis Who is here only 100% Mac compatible solution.
Switching to Mac requires above all changing your habits: different keyboard, new environment, etc. Don't worry, however, the Mac environment is sufficiently intuitive and ergonomic for you to quickly get used to these changes.
And above all, it is verified and proven: many users who switched to Mac never returned to Windows!
If you are looking for powerful and intuitive law firm management software on Mac, don't hesitate any longer and contact us!
This article was written thanks to investigative work with LegalTech in many countries carried out by the village of justice.
Thanks to the development of the possibilities offered by digital technology, law and technology have achieved a successful marriage by LegalTechs around the world. However, each country has given birth to very different LegalTechs. What are the inspiring innovations that could arrive in France? Embarking on a world tour of the most innovative practices.
LegalTechs have a different face depending on the countries where they are established. More or less mature, they depend closely on the legal environment in which they operate. Thus, in China, the opportunities for the legal market are very significant thanks to a large and connected population. Also, LegalTech benefits from a government financial support which invests in artificial intelligence which encourages the development of the sector.
The impetus given by the State may also be crucial in terms ofopen data. For example, in Russia where the opening of data is favored by power. This support has enabled the emergence of a dynamic incubator of more than 150 specialized companies.
Seen as a real financial opportunity but also as the possibility of modernizing the world of law, the most mature LegalTech is undoubtedly that of the United States. She is around 20 years ahead of France! However, the growth of the sector is mainly driven by the American legal system, centered on litigation and very different from ours.
It is therefore difficult to compare with European countries like Belgium where the market is still in its infancy. The Belgian market is 6 times smaller than in France!
Generally speaking, in Europe, LegalTech is unevenly developed: certain sectors such as information and legal knowledge are overinvested while others are struggling, such as predictive justice.
To USA, LegalTech focuses on the idea to save time and simplify the lives of professionals. It aims in particular at 3 things:
– Facilitate the search for documents and access to legal information with a view to litigation
– Work on compatibility between software and technologies
– Host (via the cloud) and store data securely
One of the challenges of LegalTech in France as elsewhere is to make the use of technologies easier, more ergonomic and more intuitive. Allowing dialogue between man and machine in a way!
For example, these technologies could become even easier to access if they were available through one and the same interface. Solutions already exist such as Jarvis Legal.
They allow centralized access to all digital tools from a single portal. The user only has to go through law firm management software that brings together all the technologies in one place. This makes it easier to use and manage.
Often several years ahead of us, the United States is now looking into major challenges of LegalTech for tomorrow. For example, data protection faced with the increase in cybercrime but also the training of future professionals at university or through the bars (with incubators, etc.).
In European countries, in Spain for example, this lack of information among professionals on the possibilities offered by these start-ups is pointed out as an obstacle to the development of LegalTech.
Show the offices the benefits what they could obtain by using a LegalTech is a key issue for the future.
In the absence of information, LegalTech is sometimes perceived with suspicion, for example working on a freelance basis in Germany or in Belgium. In reality, its image suffers mainly from a lack of communication on the subject. Looking at the American example, we also see that it was exactly the same thing in the beginning in the United States!
Far from being unfair competition for lawyers, it provides daily assistance by allowing lawyers to concentrate on their core business.
It will never replace the lawyer because pure legal matters are not its profession. On the other hand, it brings him a real additional daily skills. For example, saving time on tasks by delegating the most boring and time-consuming tasks to technology. Automation can be good if it is limited to simple, repetitive tasks.
As to public, he welcomes this new legal ecosystem as the possibility of a better service offering. The expectations of the population on the issues of accessibility to the law and the dissemination of information can be significant, particularly in the countries ofAfrica.
In conclusion, in France as elsewhere, the prospects for LegalTech are certain even if certain sectors will develop while others will gradually be neglected.
France, often cited as an example abroad, benefits from a favorable and attractive environment. Inspiring, this world Tour organized by the Village de la Justice was an opportunity to look at the practices of our neighbors but also to see our own from a different perspective. So, when will there be other countries for the next world tour?
Little known, the Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa is nevertheless one of the major players working for African economic development.
The Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa (OHADA) is an intergovernmental organization established to establish a common legal framework for business law in African countries.
It was created on October 17 1993 by the Treaty of Port-Louis relating to the harmonization of business law in Africa. This treaty was revised on the same date in 2008 in Quebec.
The organization currently includes 17 Member States : Benin, Burkina-Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Ivory Coast, Congo, Comoros, Gabon, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Mali, Niger, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Senegal, Chad and Togo.
OHADA is based on 5 organs.
• The Conference of Heads of State and Government: it is the political body. Operating on a rotating presidency system (in 2018, Gabon), its role is to define the general orientations of the policy to be pursued within the organization.
• The Council of Ministers of Justice and Finance: it is the legislative body. The Council of Ministers has decision-making power, control of institutions and authorization of the budget. It also deliberates and adopts common standards called “uniform acts”, regulations and decisions.
• The Permanent Secretariat: this is the executive body. Directed by a secretary general elected for 4 years, the secretariat prepares draft uniform acts, regulations and decisions. He represents the organization in its relations with third parties.
• The Common Court of Justice and Arbitration (CCJA): it is the common jurisdictional body. It takes precedence over national courts of justice. Made up of 13 judges elected for 7 years, it hears appeals against court decisions rendered on OHADA law by the courts of member states. It also has a leading role in arbitration matters. Above all, it ensures the interpretation of decisions taken on the basis of the treaty in order to promote harmonious application of the law resulting from the treaty. Equipped with the power of evocation, the Court can rule directly on the merits of a dispute if it considers it necessary.
• The Higher Regional School of Magistracy (ERSUMA): the School is responsible for the training of future magistrates and magistrates already in office.
Created to control legal insecurity, this organization aims to achieve a stable climate that gives confidence to economic investments.
How to obtain more legal certainty? The most important of OHADA's projects is the unification and harmonization of the standards in force.
Thus, the desire of the organization is to succeed in enacting common rules. The key is better readability of standards necessary for simplification of business relations.
These common and stable rules have the enormous advantage of making the right predictable. A cardinal value for foreign and African investors alike, predictability is reassuring. Secure, business can continue under good auspices without fear of sudden and random legislative variations.
A real plus for its members, OHADA gives them a competitive advantage over other countries. For example, in 2018 in Madagascar, 70% of private sector actors were in favor of the country's entry into OHADA.
Finally, another major project of the African organization: Training personnel. Always with the aim of legal security, the image given by the justice system must be impeccable and it must demonstrate unfailing independence.
Concretely, in 20 years, 10 uniform legal acts have been adopted covering a broad spectrum of business law: general commercial law, mediation, transport of goods by road, cooperative societies, commercial companies, arbitration, accounting and financial information, collective procedures, means of execution and securities. Of immediate application if adopted unanimously by the Council of Ministers, these uniform acts are therefore distinguished by their speed.
For example, OHADA wanted to highlight arbitration. In 2017, a uniform act allowed better execution of arbitral awards, thus making them more effective. In the same vein, amicable remedies such as mediation are valued. In 2017, a uniform act even brings mandatory value to mediation, filling the legal void existing in certain States.
In 2010, OHADA agreed on common definitions to certain pivotal notions of commercial law: the status of merchant, goodwill, etc. Not to mention the abundant case law of the Court.
From a strictly point of view economic, the fallout from OHADA was not long in coming. In 2016, the World Bank estimated the GDP of the OHADA geographic area at $275 billion. Since then, this GDP has increased regularly and significantly.
For the future, the organization's projects for the harmonization of African law are still numerous. One of the current challenges is to make OHADA law more focused on digital technologies notably thanks to Legaltech. For example, Legaltech could work to make legal services more accessible to small African businesses.
Since May 25, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has come into force. It concerns all public or private organizations which are required to process personal data of residents of the European Union.
De facto, your law firm is subject to this new regulation and you must to comply if it's not already the case.
Among your obligations linked to the GDPR, you must in particular carry out a map of your data processing, carry out an audit of your internal systems and ensure that your subcontractors are in compliance with the European Regulation. The latter, also affected by the GDPR, are subject to the same obligations and must carry out the same checks internally as with their subcontractors.
That's what we call the chain of responsibility: each organization subject to the Regulation ensures the compliance of its subcontractor who itself ensures that of its subcontractor and so on.
Your obligations differ if you are a Data Controller or a Data Processor.
According to the GDPR, you are Responsible for treatment (ie Data Controller) when you collect personal data directly or indirectly for a given purpose. In this case, you are required to inform the person of the precise purpose of this collection, of their applicable rights and you must limit this collection to a minimum of data.
On the contrary, you are Subcontracting (ie Data Processor) if you only process data on behalf of and under the authority of the Data Controller. In this case, you must implement technical and organizational measures guaranteeing the security and confidentiality of the data processed on behalf and under the authority of this Data Controller.
In practice, the majority of organizations carry out processing both as a Data Controller (ie for their own account such as processing related to HR or customer management) and as a Subcontractor on behalf of of their customers.
Within the GDPR framework, you must take all necessary technical and organizational measures to guarantee the integrity, security and confidentiality of the data that you collect or process.
So, if you store the data you collect yourself (on your computer, USB stick, external hard drive, local server, etc.) you are considered both a Data Controller and a Data Processor. In this case, you must guarantee the security and confidentiality of your data yourself by setting up, for example, backup, redundancy and encryption of your data, securing access to your computer terminals, etc.
In the event of non-compliance with the GDPR, you risk a fine of up to 20 million euros or 4% of your global turnover (see. Article 83 of the GDPR).
If you are equipped with a locally installed practice management software (ie on your computer or your local server) you are therefore 100% responsible managing the security and confidentiality of your data.
Securing your data can be a long, complex and expensive process but above all very far from your area of expertise. Many lawyers who use locally installed software have suffered data loss following theft, hacking, voluntary (malicious) or involuntary (water damage, fire) deterioration or obsolescence of their computer equipment.
On the contrary, if you are equipped with 100% hosted software (ie in the Cloud), like Jarvis, you delegate this role of Data Processor and no longer have to worry about directly managing the security and confidentiality of your data. In fact, it is your subcontractor who will assume this role for you but always under your authority.
Working with hosted software brings you many other advantages and all at a lower cost. First of all, it gives you access to professional level equipment and cutting-edge technologies. At Jarvis, your data is stored in data centers equipped with high-performance storage bays meeting the Very High Availability (THD) standard and operating on equipment and technologies developed by the biggest players on the market: Hewlett-Packard, Cisco, CheckPoint, VMWare.
Second, it gives you access to a near-military level of security. Your data is hosted in data centers (NB: at OVH in France if you are a Jarvis user) which are equipped with inverters and generators, video surveillance and movement detection systems as well as monitoring personnel. security. Their access is strictly controlled and limited to authorized personnel equipped with RFID badges and/or identified by biometric recognition.
In addition, your data is automatically backed up several times a day and replicated in geographically distant data centers (NB: the OVH data centers in Roubaix, Strasbourg and Gravelines if you are a Jarvis user). Your data is similarly encrypted using a bank-grade encryption protocol with a 4096-bit encryption key.
Finally, hosted software gives you the mobility that is so important today in the legal profession. At the office, at your home, at your client's, at the Court, in the street or in a taxi, you have access to all your firm's data from any terminal and at any time.
Although hosted software brings many advantages, it remains your responsibility to check the country in which your data is processed. According to the Regulation, your data must be processed in a so-called adequate country, that is to say a member of the EU or the EEA or any other country benefiting from a data protection mechanism deemed equivalent to the GDPR by the EU. At Jarvis, we have always hosted your data at OVH in France or in your country of practice when possible.
Be careful withux hosted software that processes your data in the USA within the framework of the EU-US Privacy Shield. This agreement, which replaced the Safe Harbour, was recently deemed still insufficient by the computer freedom control authorities of the member states (including the CNIL and grouped within the Article 29 or G29 Working Group). Indeed, under the pressure of this G29, on June 14, the European Parliament requested the removal of the Privacy Shield if the American government does not provide more guarantees on the protection of data transferred to the US by September 1, 2018.
Hosted software like Jarvis provides you with all the guarantees in terms of security and confidentiality of your data in compliance with the GDPR. Plus, they give you access to the ultimate in equipment, security and mobility. You can concentrate on managing your files and interacting with your clients with peace of mind. Jarvis takes care of the rest.
Everyone knows bitcoin, the most famous cryptocurrency. However, few people know that bitcoin is actually one of the first concrete applications of blockchain. Difficult to define, this technology will nevertheless constitute, according to specialists, one of the greatest legal innovations to come in the coming years. So, what exactly is blockchain and how can it be useful to legal professionals?
To summarize simply, blockchain can be defined as a technology for storing and transmitting information. Its main advantage lies in the fact that it does not use no middleman. In this respect, it is much more secure than most current systems which use “trusted third parties”, i.e. banks, insurers, etc.
Security is therefore the main asset of the blockchain.
It is therefore deemed to be unfalsifiable because it is based on a transparent system. Everyone can observe and know their neighbor's transactions. So, to be breached, the system would have to be hacked by more than half of the users coming together to decide to cheat. Based on the premise that all users are honest, the blockchain shows one of its weak points even if the risks of intrusion into the system are minimal.
To limit the disadvantages that may be linked to this idea of transparency, there are private blockchains. Thus, theuja called for the creation of a private blockchain reserved for lawyers to “combine technology with the ethics of the profession” and “move towards a new generation of acts countersigned by lawyers”.
Second advantage of this innovation is its low cost. Fully digital and accessible anywhere in the world.
Finally, the last asset, the blockchain can interact with APIs, that is to say with a technological platform allowing different software to connect to each other and exchange information.
It is therefore possible to easily integrate it into the daily management of your practice thanks to software offering API integration like Jarvis Legal.
Jarvis plans to include file timestamping technology DeepBlock, a Legal Tech which offers to associate blockchain functionalities without knowledge and quickly to its digital environment.
So, thanks to this new functionality integrated into the Jarvis Legal platform, it will be possible to accurately certify the date of creation of a document.
This is a major step forward which will make one of the major advantages of blockchain concrete: the creation of proof in advance. One example among hundreds of possibilities: certifying the anteriority of a creation subject to copyright.
Document Authentication
One of the possible applications for legal professionals is the pre-constitution of evidence. Blockchain is already used by the US government for this purpose.
Concretely, the blockchain works by assigning to each document or transaction a unique encryption translated into a “hash”, that is to say an alphanumeric sequence. A single change of even a comma causes the entire string to change.
So let's imagine that a malicious individual decides to modify a page. For the fraud to be successful, he would have to modify all the pages of the chain so that it remains coherent and logical! It then becomes much easier to spot fraud and discourage attempts to unduly modify documents.
Furthermore, this encryption or digital fingerprint remains the same for millions of years, once "mined", it no longer moves and cannot be modified.
The fingerprint is secured by proof of the identity of its holder using a password or a blockchain address. This last security links the document to its holder.
Automation of certain contracts
Is the code the new law? The controversial “smart contracts” are also based on the idea of blockchain.
These “smart contracts” are automatic contracts scheduled to execute when one or more contractual obligations clearly defined in advance are fulfilled.
For example, a smart contract could offer compensation planned in advance and automatically in the event of a flight or train delay or could be applied to a car rental contract.
The advantages of smart contracts for lawyers are numerous: reduced risk of loss or modification of the contract, better legal security contracts, but also facilitation of execution sometimes problematic for some of them.
Obviously, smart contracts must be under the control of a legal professional. They are only possible in simple cases and without particular difficulties and are in no way intended to replace the lawyer and traditional contracts!
Finally, it should be noted that an order facilitating the transmission via the blockchain of certain unlisted financial securities was adopted on December 8, 2017. This is a first in Europe which gives the beginnings of legitimacy to the system and paves the way for good prospects for the future.
An emerging discipline in recent years, Legal Design offers particularly interesting perspectives for legal professionals.
