New and Emerging Legal Infrastructure Conference

coach — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 18:26:51 +0000

Tim Hwang, over at Robot and Hwang, is convening a fascinating conference called NELIC: New and Emerging Legal Infrastructure Conference on April 15, 2011 in Berkeley CA. From the conference page:

The aim of the conference is to provide a meeting point for a deep and substantive discussion about the long-term impact of these technologies, and how they might come to be broadly adapted in the industry as a whole. This year’s conference will tackle quantitative legal prediction, legal automation, legal finance, and the design of user-facing interfaces that make it possible for laypeople to manage the law.

The schedule alone should compel your interest, with sessions: 1) Quantitative Legal Prediction, 2) Legal Automation, 3) Legal User Experience and Interface Design, 4) Legal Finance, and 5) Legal Start-ups. Here’s a link to register. If you’re in the San Francisco/Bay Area, I encourage you to come see how the entire legal and judicial branch of our society will be disrupted.

Coaching moment: If you’ve ever served on a jury, or been in a legal tangle for any reason, or if you’ve ever needed to deal with an attorney, you know that this field is generally costly and rather uncertain. There are a lot of historic reasons for it, and those reasons won’t hold the profession against future change. What if we could ensure that our judges were appropriately informed about the laws they were ruling on, rather than relying on their personal prejudices and connections to make decisions? What if law were, well, more fair?

We are who we hang with

coach — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 06:00:40 +0000

There are a lot of ways that we identify ourselves, as explained on the Identities page. One way that we define ourselves is by our groups. That is, we are a member of a group, and the group has its own identity (reputation, mission, purpose, common interest, etc.). We call our groups by various names: our team, our tribe, our peeps, our friends, our colleagues, our congregation, our neighbors…

One example of group membership is when people identify themselves as part of a neighborhood and it’s broad reputation. For example, Berkeley California is noted (by Wikipedia) as “one of the most politically liberal in the nation, with one study placing it as the third most liberal city in the United States.[1]“ Here is a 98-slide parade in Berkeley (thanks ChristopherA) of people that identify with their city, its reputation, their neighbors, et al.

A common identity may emerge from a group of people with a like interest. Here’s a picture of the early Greenpeace organizers, who identified themselves as part of a movement that was (is) needed to protect the earth.

I love this picture of a funeral procession (thanks JKwest, whom I don’t know). The picture speaks of people that identify themselves as knowing and wishing to pay respects to a particular person. We are members of groups in life as well as in death.

Coaching moment: You are part of a group because it gives you strength and as a collective voice. Can you think of one example in your life? Write down a few thoughts on what it means to be a member of that group. Put your thoughts away for a month or two. Pull it out and review it to see if the group is still serving its purpose for you.

You may also be a member of a group that you would not wish to be a part of. What is it about this group that you do not identify with, or that doesn’t feel like it’s a part of you?

Does this tell you anything about yourself?

Mining the new Gold

Digital ID Coach » Berkeley

New and Emerging Legal Infrastructure Conference

We are who we hang with