Goyal on Legal Technology Innovation and lawTechCamp

Monica Goyal, J.D., M.Sc., of MyLegalBriefcase has published Why Tech Innovation Comes Slow in Legal Profession, on itbusiness.ca.

The post describes the panel discussion on “Legal Techs in a Brave New World” at lawTechCamp 2011, held 18 June 2011 in Toronto.
In this post, Ms. Goyal identifies several factors that inhibit legal technology innovation, including lawyers’ general lack of education in science and engineering, unduly strict regulation of the legal services market, and a lack of funding. Ms. Goyal highlights the current process in the UK of deregulating the legal services market, as a model for reform in other jurisdictions.
In addition, Connie Crosby recently wrote a post summarizing lawTechCamp 2011 at Slaw.ca, the Canadian legal blog. Discussions begun during lawTechCamp 2011 are being continued ina LinkedIn group.

New AfricLaw Blog for African Rule of Law Issues

AfricLaw, launched in April 2012, is a blog which provides a platform for discussion for those interested in the rule and role of law in Africa. The AfricLaw blog is a joint venture of the Institute for International and Comparative Law in Africa (ICLA) and the Centre for Human Rights (CHR) of the Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria.

All areas of law applicable to Africa are covered, both international (global and continental) and national. Legal academics and students, researchers, international and national civil servants, legislators and politicians, legal practitioners and judges, as well as those who are not lawyers but have an interest in law are among those who are welcome to participate in the discussions. 

AfricLaw provides a space for the discussion of issues of substance, forming of opinions and information sharing among people living on the continent, those from Africa who are in the diaspora, and anyone else who is interested in participating. AfricLaw will also serve as a vehicle for comments from Africa on legal developments in the rest of the world. 

Berkman Series: Unexpected Development: Decolonial Media Aesthetics and Women’s ICT4D Video

Tuesday, April 17, 12:30pm ET, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett St, Cambridge, MA. This event will be webcast live.

ICT4D (Information Communication Technology for Development) powerfully frames women's grassroots video production in the Global South, much of which is distributed widely through YouTube. Often, these videos reproduce racialized and gendered discourses - legacies of colonialism - in their narratives of economic, social, and technological progress. However, there are also videos by women's groups that defy both the historical linearity and spatial fragmentation of the ICT4D framework. These videos instead remix, reclassify, and globally reconnect women's experiences in the contemporary moment. Culled from hundreds of online videos produced by ICT4D programs, including those in countries classified as having "Low Human Development" according to the Gender Inequality Index of the United Nations Development Program, these media represent powerful instances of a decolonial aesthetics, an altogether unexpected development. These ICT4D videos make compelling claims for other historical narratives and visions for women's future lives, identities, and uses of information communication technologies.

Dalida MarĂ­a Benfield's research addresses artists' and activists' creative uses of video and other networked digital media towards social justice projects. Her work is focused on the transformational capacities of media art across different scales. As an artist and activist, she has developed production, education, exhibition, and distribution initiatives focused on youth, women, people of color in the U.S., and local and transnational social movements, including co-founding the media collective Video Machete. She received her Ph.D. in 2011 from the University of California-Berkeley in Comparative Ethnic Studies with Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. RSVP Requiredmore information on Berkman's website>