Finding the Right Needle in the Right Haystack
The Legal Analytics Conference with the title Finding the Right Needle in the Right Haystack took place on May 31, 2017 at Viru Conference Centre, Tallinn, Estonia.
The aim of the conference was to bring together law, IT and language experts from among practitioners, lawmakers, judiciary, scholars and students.
The metaphor of ‘Finding the right needle in the right haystack’ pictures the modern lawyer’s work process where tens, if not hundreds, of hours every year are spent digging through the ever-growing piles of legal texts – statutes, judgements, administrative decisions, preparatory materials, EU sources, guidelines, scholarly writings etc. Google Search or State Gazette search and ctrl + F are already in use, but is it a solution?
In order to answer complex legal questions, there is a need to pass the labyrinth of intertwined legal rules, check the validity of all rules, solve conflicts between rules, and not so seldom overcome gaps in law.
The first part of the conference introduced possible solutions to the problem at hand by teams participating in the Legal Analytics Competition where they had to create prototypes how to automate answering legal questions and how to make the answers highly accurate. Read more about the competition here.
The second part of the conference focused on introducing some of the solutions already available on the market. The event was summarised by a panel discussion debating on the technical, legal and commercial challenges in automated legal analytics.
The conference was organised by the IT Law Programme of the University of Tartu and the Estonian Bar Association.
- Organisers: Anette Aav-Büth (IT Law Programme) and Hannes Vallikivi (Estonian Bar Association, Derling Attorneys at law)
- FB: https://www.facebook.com/itlaw.ut.ee
- News: geenius.ee and Estonian Bar Association
- Podcasts: Raadio KUKU
- Pictures: Coming soon!
- Videos: UTTV!
Sponsors of the Legal Analytics Competition
- IT Law Pogramme, University of Tartu
- Estonian Bar Association
- Estonian Information System's Authority
- Derling Attorneys at law
- Njord Law Firm
- Nortal
Legal Analytics Competition Finalist Teams
- Team 1: Kaspar Gering, Carrie Raiend, Veiko Soomets
- Team 2: Taimo Peelo
- Team 3: Mirell Krain, Margot Maksing, Roland Pihlakas, Vahur Onton
Speakers
- Hannes Vallikivi (Estonian Bar Association, Derling Attorneys at law)
- Evert Nõlv (ExtendLaw)
- Silver Traat (TEXTA)
- Jüri Heinla (Ministry of Justice, State Gazette Division)
- Risto Hübner (Nortal)
- Andres Kütt (Estonian Information System's Authority)
- Nele Parrest (Estonian Supreme Court)
- Anna Ronkainen (TrademarkNow)
- Anne Veerpalu (University of Tartu, Njord Law Firm)
Programme and Presentations
8.30 | Morning coffee & tea |
9.00 |
Opening address
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9.10 |
Challengers' Show - Finalist Team 1 presentation
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9.35 |
Challengers' Show - Finalist Team 2 (Elegadro) presentation
The source code for the Elegadro PoC is available under the GPLv3 (GNU General Public License v3.0, distribution of any derived works must be done together with the source code of the derived work) license from GitHub platform here. The public web interface for Elegadro PoC is accessible at http://elegadro.com. |
10.00 |
Challengers' Show - Finalist Team 3 presentation
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10.25 |
Announcement of the winner of the Legal Analytics Competition Results were presented by Hannes Vallikivi and Anette Aav-Büth. The winners of the Legal analytics Competition are Finalist Team 3. They developed a prototype that performs semantic search from legal acts and judicial decisions. The winners were awarded with a prize of EUR 6000 (gross amount). Finalist Team 1 was awarded with Boost Award of EUR 2000 (gross amount) for the inclusion of non-legal information in search results. Finalist Team 2 was awarded with Encouragement Award of EUR 2000 for unconventional approach to the task and the graphic solution. |
10.35 | Coffee & tea break |
10.55 |
Defenders' show - xLaw
Link to xLaw plugin |
11.15 |
Defenders' show - TEXTA
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11.35 |
Defenders' show - State Gazette
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11.55 |
Panel Discussion - Challenges in Automated Legal Analytics
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Winners of the Legal Analytics Competition. From left: Roland Pihlakas, Margot Maksing, Mirell Krain, Vahur Onton.