LSC's Innovations in Technology Conference

Human decision making is flawed. The promise of machines making data-driven decisions might seem like a welcome innovation. However, such systems are themselves subject to bias. Created by people and trained on historical data, algorithms can bake in existing prejudices behind a gloss of mathematics. You can prevent the Law’s Robopocalypse by helping to shape our digital future. Lawyers must echo the words of Justice Warren and insist on an answer to the question “is it fair?” while learning to partner with technology to augment, not replace, the practice of lawyering. To do this, they will need an understanding of the justice system informed by randomized control trials and rigorous evaluation, and powerful open source tools that work to address market failures in legal tech. Such a future, however, depends in large part on access to accurate, standardized court data and an understanding of its importance. In this session, participants will learn specific steps to help create such a future while gaining an introductory understanding of algorithmic bias, data standards, open source software, and randomized control trials.