Solo and Small Firms Face Many Challenges, Survey Shows, But Few Have Made Changes to Address Them | Robert Ambrogi’s LawSites

… when you combine the numbers for firms that have either implemented changes or that have plans in place, the numbers of firms that are addressing their challenges range from roughly half to two-thirds:

  • Challenges acquiring new client business, 63%.
  • Getting paid by clients, 65%.
  • Demonstrating the firm’s value to potential clients, 65%.
  • Keeping up with competition from other firms in your practice areas, 54%.
  • Lack of internal efficiency, 55%.
  • Spending too much time on administrative tasks, 47%.
  • Cost control and expense growth, 54%.
  • Managing staff, 68%.
  • Clients demanding more for less, 42%.
  • Increasing complexity of technology, 52%.
  • Retaining client business, 67%.
  • Increasing pace of legal and regulatory change, 46%.

Source: Solo and Small Firms Face Many Challenges, Survey Shows, But Few Have Made Changes to Address Them – Robert Ambrogi’s LawSites, November 30, 2017, Robert Ambrogi

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The Legal AI ‘Barbarians’ Have Already Taken the Gates |Artificial Lawyer

Strangely, it’s not the legal IT people in law firms who seem to have most grasped just how important AI and automation is, it’s the managing partners. This is because it’s their job to look at the bigger picture, the economic and strategic picture, not just how the machine functions day to day.

Great list of legal Artificial Intelligence providers. Looking forward to “AI and blockchain fusion initiatives.”

Source: The Legal AI ‘Barbarians’ Have Already Taken the Gates – Artificial Lawyer, December 01, 2017, Richard Tromans

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IBM + Integra Ledger Launch World NDA Project in Global First | Artificial Lawyer

The project will take NDAs and place key identifier information onto the Integra permissioned blockchain; for example, the names of the parties, companies involved and other information that may need to be shared according to the non-disclosure document. This will provide a secure, single version of truth for the NDA. IBM Watson’s AI technology will then be applied to deliver insight into that data, covering legal and business intelligence issues.

Source: IBM + Integra Ledger Launch World NDA Project in Global First, 27th November 2017

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ICO Structures: Overlooking Governance and Corporate-like Consensus Mechanisms Can have Harsh…

For the great majority of the next generation of more complex blockchain and token based projects (BTP), a form of human-based and fiduciary consensus must be envisioned and segmented at the entity level as well, i.e., at the level of the entity that oversees the development and adoption of the technology, its ecosystem, and the interactions amongst its participants.

Source: ICO Structures: Overlooking Governance and Corporate-like Consensus Mechanisms Can have Harsh…, Fred Dionne, November 18, 2017

Thanks, Fred!

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Japan Teaches Western Governments a Lesson in Cryptocurrency Regulation | Bitcoin News

Japan is a tech-savvy nation whose elected officials have a better appreciation of the transformative power of emerging technologies than most. It follows that the more digitally-inclined countries should be among the first to embrace cryptocurrency. In Europe, Estonia, with its e-Residency digital passports, is another country that’s been positive towards cryptocurrency.

Source: Japan Teaches Western Governments a Lesson in Cryptocurrency Regulation – Bitcoin News, Kai Sedgwick, November 13, 2017

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How retailers can use Blockchain to get granular | TNW

Giving users a stake in their own data does much to ensure that the data itself is more pertinent, and more organized for those who need it. This notion is integral in retail, which is increasingly reliant on the ability to find users who are spread over many different applications, physical locales, and rungs on the financial ladder. While a few companies can already comprehend the degree of change that their industry is about to experience, like so many asset trading brokers, shoppers too will be caught be caught by surprise when blockchain-based retail services take over their phones, but it will undoubtedly be a delightful one.

Source: How retailers can use Blockchain to get granular | TNW, Andrei Tiburca, November 08, 2017

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Someone Figured Out How to Put Tomatoes on a Blockchain – Bloomberg

“It’s a tool, and you have to apply it to the right set of problems,” he said. “What it tends to be very good for is knowing who owns what and when,” Cascarilla added. “It’s not a magic bullet.”

“There’s a lot of fraud in food origins, especially now that it’s hot,” Myran said. “People say ‘this is local,’ or ‘this is organic,’ or ‘this is grown using certain practices.’ With this system, you can prove it.”

Source: Someone Figured Out How to Put Tomatoes on a Blockchain – Bloomberg, Annie Massa
November 9, 2017

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Deloitte Report: Over 26,000 Blockchain Projects Began in 2016 | CoinDesk

“The stark reality of open-source projects is that most are abandoned or do not achieve meaningful scale. Unfortunately, blockchain is not immune to this reality. Our analysis found that only 8 percent of projects are active, which we define as being updated at least once in the last six months.”

The authors add that organizations are a “positive differentiator” in the data, saying “while 7 percent of projects developed by users are active, 15 percent of projects developed by organizations are active.”

Source: Deloitte Report: Over 26,000 Blockchain Projects Began in 2016 – CoinDesk, Stan Higgins, November 8, 2017 at 13:30 UTC

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