Blockchain and law: Incompatible codes?

Blockchain has recently joined a long line of technological innovations that have been characterised as disruptive to, and possibly even subversive of, fundamental legal principles. This article looks behind the hype to examine how blockchain might – or might not – be compatible with established legal and regulatory models. Data protection is discussed as an example of an area of law that some have claimed cannot be reconciled with blockchain. Various other conflicts are also identified and concerns about blockchain are placed in the context of wider historical debates about new technologies vs law.     

The world at their fingertips? The mental wellbeing of online distance-based law students

In recent years there has been an increased interest in student mental wellbeing within higher education. In terms of legal education, much of this has been focused upon the United States (US) and Australia, with a lack of United Kingdom (UK)-based empirical data available. Although there is now extensive provision of online distance learning options available to UK (and other) law students, there is a notable lack of research into the possible challenges which are specific to this form of tertiary offering. This paper seeks to contribute to the development of research in this area by reporting upon, and analysing, preliminary data gathered from an empirical study of the mental wellbeing of online distance learning law students.     

Rediscovering artificial intelligence and law: an inadequate jurisprudence?

Headlines suggesting that Google scientists had developed the first computer programme capable of learning a wide variety of tasks independently, in what has been hailed as a significant step towards ‘true artificial intelligence’¹1 Accessed February 26, 2015. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/25/google-develops-computer-program-capable-of-learning-tasks-independently. may or may not presage a new era of artificial intelligence (AI) research. Nevertheless, they suggest a need to reconsider the story of AI in law. While significant changes have taken place in the application of information technology to law-work, these have resulted mainly from ordinary information technology processes such as data processing, data storage, retrieval and management in combination with the information rich, rapid and global communication and networking capabilities of the Internet. However, when information technology has been applied to deeper legal processes, which involve the very nature of law, the result has not been very successful. This is especially so in relation to the application of AI systems to law. Philip Leith blamed the meagre and unsatisfactory results of costly AI and law research on faulty jurisprudence and especially on almost exclusive reliance on analytical positivism and ignorance of user needs and requirements. Many involved with AI and law still refuse to acknowledge that there are underlying problems with the way they conceptualise the nature of legal reasoning. Does AI in law have a future then? This article explores recent nuanced approaches to AI and law research and suggests the need for rethinking the jurisprudence that underpins AI and law and in particular to consider the realist social economic and political context in which AI and law works.     

Psychiatric injury law in England and Australia--drawing closer together?

Major differences developed between English and Australian psychiatric injury law from about 1990 onwards, particularly in "secondary victim" cases. The House of Lords endorsed the traditional restrictions of aftermath, direct perception and sudden shock, whereas the High Court of Australia adopted a more enlightened approach which relied chiefly on foreseeability of psychiatric injury. In the last five years, there are indications that the gap has narrowed a little. The English courts, first in medical negligence cases but then more generally, have shown that they are now prepared to interpret the aftermath requirement more creatively. In Australia, by contrast, the codification of the law on "mental harm" has narrowed the law in certain respects, and there is scope for further restriction in the process of statutory interpretation. This analysis assesses the significance of these developments and attempts to sum up the present position.