Science4Parliament Podcast – Episode 4 - Law-tech with Dr Ronan Kennedy
SPEAKERS
Denis Naughten, Dr Ronan Kennedy
Denis 00:00
Welcome to the Science for Parliament podcast. This is the first podcast that aims to foster the relationship between science and decision makers and show how research and innovation are vital to the equitable and sustainable functioning of our societies and economies. My name is Dennis Naughten, and I'm a directly elected member of parliament in Ireland for the last 26 years, and I served as an Irish cabinet minister, and on the Council of the European Union ministers. I'm chairperson of the Inter-Parliamentary Union Working Group on science and technology which is based in Geneva, which aims to inspire global parliamentary action through legislative work in the field of science and technology. This podcast aims to highlight the work of innovative scientists and to get their perspective of what needs to be done to bring the world of science and policy closer together. And to add something different to the conversation. My guests are being asked to pick two numbers, each of which is related to one out of 10 random questions, some of which will be asked during the interview. On the show today, I'll be talking about the economic, social, and ethical implications of law-tech in the legal services market with Dr. Ronan Kennedy, Dr. Kennedy spent three months as a researcher in residence in the Irish parliament in 2021, as part of the Science Foundation Ireland Public Service Fellowship programme, and produced a report on the effects of algorithms, big data, and AI on legal services. So thank you for joining me, Dr. Kennedy. First of all, can I ask you to pick two numbers between one and 10?
Ronan 01:45
I'll pick five and seven, five and seven.
Denis 01:49
And thanks a million for coming on the podcast with me. Can you maybe please explain to me in simple terms, what your research area is all about? What is law tech? And what are the effects of algorithms on law.
Ronan 02:04
So I research how the use of information technology is changing the way the law operates, legal practice and the courts. It's quite a wide area. But it would include things like technology assisting lawyers in their day to day work, the public getting legal advice online, and virtual court hearings. And this is important because it provides new opportunities for people to access better or more convenient, or perhaps cheaper services, or for the courts to work more efficiently. But it also raises some concerns about how the courts might operate if, for example, we hand over more decision making to software programmes, and particularly artificial intelligence.
Denis 02:44
And on that, I suppose one of the things is of the judges making decisions based on on AI advice that's given to them, and the potential bias that's built into that. And secondly, I suppose, you know, would you ever see a situation where AI will be involved in determining the sentence?
Ronan 03:05
I think if something like that were ever to happen, it's quite a long way away in the future. I think if we are going to see artificial intelligence, replacing human decision making human judges particularly, we're more likely to see that in commercial cases, in civil cases, and perhaps in small claims The Master of the Roles, the second most senior judge in England and Wales, Sir Geoffrey Vos, he, recently gave a speech in which he talked about the idea of using artificial intelligence to decide some minor, or less emotionally involved commercial cases. So things like small claims through artificial intelligence. Now, how far away we are from that kind of experimentation in England, Wales. I don't know when far away we might be from that kind of experimentation in Ireland. I don't know. I'd say it is quite a number of years away. But that's where I see it happening first. I obviously wouldn't be the one making the decision. But I would have a lot of concerns about the use of AI to decide criminal cases. Although we do see that in the US to a limited extent in that there are AI systems that are used to advise, not to decide, but to advise, judges on decisions like bail and sentencing. And but those technologies have been criticised by some activists on the grounds that they're their biased, that they essentially repeat historical patterns of prejudice because they rely on data from the past. And if that data from the past is basically determined by by human prejudice and that human prejudice carries forward
Denis 04:45
and why did you take an interest in this particular field or area in the first place?
Ronan 04:50
So I have a background in information technology. I actually worked as a computer programmer and systems analyst for most of the 1990s when I was studying law, that's how I put my myself through that part of my education. So when I then went on to study law and to become a lawyer, I observed with a lot of interest how technology was becoming increasingly important in the daily work of lawyers. And I also worked as a researcher and assistant to the Chief Justice of Ireland was Justice Ronan Kina, at the time in the early 2000s. And he would not have been someone who was very familiar with technology, but he could absolutely see the potential for the time and money that could be saved by its adoption, by judges and by courts. And many of the other senior judges could also so I worked on IT projects there. And that was really quite influential, in terms of me seeing it as important. And then more recently, more recently, 2017. Now to the years fly by, but it feels to me like it's not that long ago, I was on sabbatical in the University of California at Berkeley. And was, I suppose, just taking stock of what was going on in the field of technology in the field of law. And everyone was talking about artificial intelligence. Now artificial intelligence was going to transform this that on the other. So I said, Well, if it's going to transform all these other things, and where you see now a lot of discussion, for example, around chat, GPT and generative AI and whether or not artists and music musicians are going to be out of out of business, either, I should look and see what this might actually do, to the work of lawyers and what it means also for my, the other side of what I do, I'm a researcher, but I'm also a teacher, I'm a lecturer in the School of Law at the University of Galway. And I want to be sure that the students that we graduate have the skills and knowledge that they need in order to flourish in what is an increasingly digitised workplace.
Denis 06:42
So look, you spent three months in the Irish parliament back in 2021. So can you tell me something that you learned about politics or the operation of Parliament from your fellowship?
Ronan 06:55
And I think the main thing that I learned that that surprised me, perhaps was the increasing importance of pre legislative scrutiny in the legislative process. I, one of the advantages of the fellowship was that I got a very comprehensive series of induction and training events to bring me up to speed on how the Llibrary and Research Service did its work, and how it supported the members of the Oireachtas. And it became clear to me that that input could be quite valuable to lawmakers when they were taking it up. And what I thought was particularly interesting was the opportunity that the pre legislative scrutiny process gave for a more open and maybe creative discussion around the parameters of a piece of legislation before the text had become that bit more solidified as it turns to, I think when it goes into the then the the formal stages of adoption.
Denis 07:57
So what exactly did you work on, on your research fellowship when you were in Parliament.
Ronan 08:03
So as you mentioned at the beginning, I was seconded essentially, to the Library and Research Service to write what's called a spotlight paper on algorithms, big data and artificial intelligence in the Irish legal services market. The idea was that I would be based in Leinster House and I was very much looking forward to the opportunity to observe the Parliament in operation, but unfortunately, it was during the pandemic. So I was I was stuck in Galway, but I essentially researched a range of different aspects of that topic, which is, as I said, at the outset, quite a wide ranging, and tried to synthesise, I suppose the state of the art in terms of research on the different aspects of the ways in which these technologies can be and are being used in both the legal services market and in the courts itself. So, you know, can this reduce legal costs? Could it improve access to justice, at the time the pandemic was underway, so it actually gave an opportunity to dig into the idea of remote hearings, which was something that many people have been pushing for, for years, and the courts have been very reluctant to experiment with. But we were essentially forced into five years maybe. of change happening in the course of a couple of weeks around that particular topic. And then looking at the issues around bias and the concerns around artificial intelligence, and how and why and whether artificial intelligence should be more integrated into the courts.
Denis 09:30
And just as an aside, look at, you know, justice delayed is justice denied. And one of the things also as members of Parliament would find on an ongoing basis is the delays in getting access to justice. And in the context of COVID, do you think, you know, COVID has changed the judicial system to such an extent now that we're going to see technology speeding up access, and has that happened to date and can you give us an example of where that's happening within the current system?
Ronan 10:03
So as I said, COVID provided an opportunity for experimentation. And some of those experiments are going to continue. And one of the things that seemed to have worked quite well is the use of remote hearings for the more sort of routine administrative matters. So there, for example, it would be for things like what is called a list of fixed dates, or call overs, where just a case is just, the judge checks in with the status of the case or tries to agree when it might actually, the full hearing might actually take place. And those were done in a very inefficient way before COVID, where you'd have hundreds of lawyers crowded around in a courtroom waiting for their opportunity to speak for five minutes. When that moved to online convenience, everybody agreed to because they could look at where they were in the queue. They could sit in their office carrying on doing what they were doing, and then pop in for the five minutes that they needed to address the judge and move on. So that has continued. And I think everybody's been quite happy with that. There have been other aspects that have been good in terms of things like wardship hearings a priority, these would involve people from around the country, and they will be reluctant to travel to Dublin. Now, if there was a remote hearing, they can do that. And they can get a sense of what's actually happening in the court, which is important, I think, for people to sense that they are getting justice, and they're getting a full hearing where the remote hearings have not worked so well is with live witnesses, and particularly with criminal cases. And the judges who spoke to me about it. And what's borne out in the research as well. Were very unhappy with that aspect. They, yourself, we've all been in so many of these online meetings and you see this little postage stamp of somebody's face, you can't really see their face properly, you can't see the rest of their body, you can't read the body language. So if you have a doubt as to whether or not someone is telling the truth or not, you want to see them there in front of you. So there's been a move away from that in those kinds of contexts. And in civil cases also where you might have live witnesses. So some of these things have continued and others just didn't were adopted as was as emergency measures that didn't work that well. And the courts have moved back to the way things were
Denis 12:07
The research has shown that maybe it might be a little bit easier to lie online than to lie in person in court.
Ronan 12:16
There are a number of instances in fact, where it was clear that witnesses were being intimidated when they were appearing remote. Where either from the demeanour of the person, or sometimes actually from interruptions when the person who was conducting the intimidation, lost the run of themselves and spoke over the the witness that you actually couldn't really rely on a lot of that evidence because you weren't sure who else was in the room. And now out of the eyesight of the camera. And that raised a lot of concerns. There were issues instances in the Irish courts. And there were a lot of instances in the US, including instances in which the judge became so concerned that he sent a police officer to the location where the remote witness was. So it does raise a lot of issues in the criminal side. And I suppose that's a theme through this research is that to the extent that technology can assist, it's maybe more in the less fraught areas not to say that civil or commercial cases aren't important, but there isn't as much emotion wrapped up with them. And there wasn't as much risk maybe for the participants. But when you're dealing with criminal cases, you really have to do it very carefully, and in a way that everybody can see is being done aboveboard,
Denis 13:29
on a lighter note, in relation to your the numbers that you picked out earlier. So I have a question for you here. Have you ever lost your car in a car park,
Ronan 13:40
I think I have maybe had a couple of moments of confusion once or twice. But those moments of confusion taught me to always note a landmark when I when I parked my car. So I try and see if there's a number on the wall or some sort of pattern to the lighting or something like that, that I can use to orientate myself when I get back to it. And I'm finding now with you know, in keeping with the theme of of this interview, generally, the more modern cars will actually remember where they are. So even if you lose them, they'll they'll guide you back to them.
Denis 14:13
They'll find you rather than the other way around. Yes, that's how I look. The final question I have for you, then look, the political cycle works on five year periods. So what would you like to see to happen with the work that you did in parliament in that five year period over the next five years?
Ronan 14:31
Well, what I was trying to do in that report was to highlight the advantages and disadvantages of this technology. There aren't any right or wrong answers, I think, in terms of the adoption of technology by lawyers or by judges or by the courts, other than maybe to say that a lot of the way that things are done, as is are not good. You know, the legal services can be quite costly, the courts can be quite slow, can be quite inefficient. There are a lot of work practices and habits that centuries old, underdeveloped for a very different context. So it's clear that there is a need for change. But I also was trying to highlight that, you know, jumping in with both feet thinking that digital technology is going to solve all of the problems is not necessarily a really good idea either. Just literally this morning, I see your report from the UK about how a very extensive digital reform process in the courts there is running late running over budget, and not necessarily not only not delivering the results that it's intended to, but in fact, is leading to problems, particularly for particular, minority groups in certain types of business. So the choices that are there can be quite costly, can actually be quite risky, and might not actually work all that out all that well, in the long term. So what I was trying to do was to provide a background to debate. And I think that if we are going to move on, I think we should move and change and adopt some of these technologies. What I'd like to see over the next three to five years is an engagement with the questions that I raised. And I would hope that the report would provide a basis for then a more informed conversation where legislators policymakers, and the public can make decisions about what sorts of changes they want to bring about. At the end of the day, the court system is there in order to serve the public and to assist them in resolving disputes and to vindicate their rights. And I think it's important that everybody has an understanding of the pros and cons of how you might go about changing that system, and can essentially then make a properly informed decision about how we should progress that
Denis 16:46
Thanks to Dr. Ronan Kennedy for taking the time to talk to me, and remember that you can find a link to his paper and all of the Science4Parliament podcasts, on denisnaughten.ie or on whatever platform you use to find your podcasts. Thanks very much, Dr. Ronan.
Ronan 17:05
Thank you
