Digital White Papers

48 WWW.ILTANET.ORG | ILTA WHITE PAPER KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT Revolutionizing the Practice of Law through Data Science other forms of technology. We are the most documented members of our species in the history of our planet; we understand more about human conduct than ever before. This is bringing immense benefits to the development and distribution of public and private goods and services, which is increasingly conducted by algorithms. But algorithms are built on models, all of which are simplifications and reflections of the real world. While these simplifications are necessary to build models, sometimes they skew our understanding of the world, like the shadows on the wall of Plato's cave. These reflected realities can leave people out or impact vulnerable populations from whom we have less data to build our models. We lawyer/data scientists have a unique ability to advise on the ethics of algorithms in the world of big data winners and losers. We can also do things that have never been done before. My graduate degree in data science included applied research into predicting corporate misconduct. We used a type of sentiment analysis with predictive algorithms that highlighted workplace situations most likely to lead to misconduct so as to enable an institution to prevent it from happening. This sounds like "Minority Report" come to life and raises ethical issues that should be discussed as part of any real-world application. Do we act to prevent misconduct that has not yet happened or wait for someone to commit the harm that we predicted? Which of these options is most fair and to whom? These are the kinds of questions with which we must now wrestle. As lawyer/data scientists, we can assist a client to understand the legal and ethical implications of using analytics as well as both good and bad potential consequences of using data in different ways. BENNETT B. BORDEN Bennett B. Borden is a partner at Drinker Biddle & Reath and its Chief Data Scientist. Bennett is a globally recognized authority on the legal, technology and policy implications of information. Bennett also builds machine-based learning models to transform and improve legal outcomes in key corporate events including mergers and acquisitions, information governance program development and enforcement, litigation and investigations and business intelligence. Not every lawyer at a firm can or should aspire to be a data scientist, but lawyers today who are not good at geing at information in all its varied formats are like the dinosaurs the day before the meteor hit: they are extinct, they just do not know it yet. The old ways of practicing law are simply no longer relevant in the information age. Companies are increasingly good at understanding how analytics affect their businesses, and they respond to aorneys who share that awareness and apply it in their own work. The need for the combined lawyer/data scientist has never been greater. ILTA

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