Five great industry news stories from this week you may have missed.
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500 million LinkedIn users' data is for sale on a hacker site
Information scraped from around 500 million LinkedIn user profiles is part of a database posted for sale on a website popular with hackers. According to CNN, user IDS, names, email addresses, phone numbers, genders, professional titles and links to other social media profiles were auctioned off on a forum for a four-figure sum. According to LinkedIn, the database for sale "is actually an aggregation of data from a number of websites and companies." The data includes only information that people listed publicly in their profiles.
Recreating the legal ecosystem in a time of hardship
This is the year when legal service providers with moxie will take huge steps to advance their market position by investing in clients and themselves. Those who are timid will sit on their hands and lose ground to the competition. A recent article written by Heather Suttie for Canadian Lawyer explains that last year U.S. law firms cut marketing and business development spending by 44 per cent, recruiting expenses fell 40 per cent and office expenses dropped 22.5 per cent. Find out why she believes "investing in client experience — not raising rates — will strengthen the legal marketplace", here.
The Robots are Coming for Your Office
Automation: it's not just replacing factory workers and truck drivers. It's affecting accountants, lawyers and even journalists. If you have the kind of job that involves sitting in front of a computer using the same software the same way every day, a recent The Verge article claims that automation could be coming for you. It won’t be cool or innovative or even work all that well — it’ll just be cheaper, faster and less likely to complain. Read the full article here to learn more.
Legal Tech in a Reopened World
While some countries are facing a third wave of Covid-19, others such as the UK, are realistically preparing for some level of ‘re-normalisation’ in the coming months, in short: a reopening. But what will this look like in the legal sector, and what does it mean for legal tech? Learn how the reopened world is predicted to change the office, the market, conferences and funding in Artificial Lawyer's new article.
Edmonton lawyer admitted to the bar — 40 years after her death
Barry Yake was in her third year of law school when she was diagnosed with final-stage skin cancer. She purchased her black robes for her bar admission ceremony but she would never wear them in court. Last week, Yake was posthumously admitted to the bar in a ceremony at an Edmonton courtroom. It is the second time ever in Alberta courts for someone to be recognized posthumously. Before Friday, that honour had been given once before in 2018 to 37 aspiring lawyers who died in the First World War. Read the full story on CBC.
