News & Events Legal Tech Ireland: Impacts, Policies and Pathways - Call for Papers

Title: Learning from the Past to Build a Better Legal System

Date/Location:  Monday 7 April 2025, University of Galway & online

Organisers: Dr Rónán Kennedy, Alison Hough, Dr Abigail Rekas

Submission Deadline: 10 March 2025 @ 5pm to ronan.m.kennedy@universityofgalway.ie

Summary:

‘Lawtech’ or legal technology continues to develop apace on the island of Ireland. Building on the success of last year’s event hosted by the Technological University of the Shannon (the third annual Legal Tech Conference event), we have expanded the event to one co-organised by TUS Athlone Business Department and the School of Law at the University of Galway. This year the focus will be on the all-island lawtech sector, enabling and limiting policy and regulatory factors, and the influence of post-pandemic shifts. It explores key issues and themes in the regulatory and policy landscapes influencing the transformation of legal services, including areas of growth and under-exploited areas, the courts, and access to justice. It will create a space where legal academics, practitioners, students and the public can exchange experience and discuss the challenges and benefits of digital technology for lawyers and the public at large. It brings together expert speakers from industry, the judiciary and academia to discuss the driving and limiting factors in the adoption of digital technologies in the legal space such as mobile devices and apps, artificial intelligence, cloud computing and blockchain. It will particularly focus on lessons that can be learned from the sudden online pivot during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the different trajectories of legal technology in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

This conference will be of interest to academics, practitioners, law students, anyone thinking about a legal career or interested in how legal practice is changing.

The conference will also feature a hackathon for student groups.

We are seeking abstracts, workshop and panel proposals on the following topics:

1. PhD students, or those engaged in postdoctoral research, on the themes of:
   1. Technology and Justice: How digital technologies are affecting access to justice.
   2. Regulation and Technology: How technology can improve legal governance and the rule of law.
   3. Pandemic Responses: How the COVID-19 pandemic encouraged rapid unplanned adoption of technology and what lessons can be drawn from that.
   4. Ethics and Legal Technology: What ethical and moral problems do emerging technologies create for legal practitioners, their clients and the courts.
   5. Human-Computer Interaction: How people perceive the introduction of law tech
   6. Other aspects of legal technology

2. Papers from industry experts or academics on the following topics:
   1. Developments in Legal Practice: Legal practitioners’ perspectives.
   2. Technology and Justice: How digital technologies are affecting access to justice.
   3. Regulation through Technology: How technology can improve legal governance and the rule of law.
   4. Missed connections: opportunities that are lost or underutilised in modern legal practice or regulation
   5. Lawtech in Ireland/Northern Ireland: What is distinctive about the industry in the island of Ireland? What cross-border differences exist and what are the positive factors or barriers to cross-border cooperation? What can each jurisdiction learn from the other?
   6. Enabling and restricting conditions in the Irish/NI lawtech landscape for innovation and early adoption: The policy and regulatory conditions necessary for a thriving all-island lawtech sector in Ireland.
   7. Regulatory Intersections & AI for Law: Does AI advice constitute legal advice, and potentially fall foul of legal professional rules placing limitations on who can give legal advice? What liability issues arise for AI generated advice "Gray Advice"? How will this impact the legal profession? Are the boundaries clearly delineated, in Ireland, and have other jurisdictions generated better solutions?
   8. Other aspects of legal technology in practice and in the courts

Important Dates:

10 March 2025: deadline for paper and panel proposals to ronan.m.kennedy@universityofgalway.ie

18 March 2025: acceptance decisions

7 April 2025: conference