Law 589, "Coding the Law", is a class offered at the University of Alberta Faculty of Law in which law students learn the theory and practice of automating legal services. The major project in Law 589 is a group project in which the students build an automated legal service for a client in the access to justice space.
This client can be real world access to justice organization in Alberta, or simulated. Students are encouraged to seek out real-world clients for two main reasons:
- it enhances the realism of the experiential learning
- it allows them to consider submitting their creation for consideration in an international contest called the Iron Tech Lawyer Invitational, hosted in Washington DC
Students are encouraged to approach potential clients independently. They are not recruited by the Faculty, or the instructor, but by the students themselves. This document is intended to provide potential client organizations with clear instructions as to what they should expect from participating as a client in a Law 589 group project.
Students are asked to work with their client organizations to determine the specific project that will be built. However, there are a number of important limits on what can be done.
Students in Law 589 "Coding the Law" are taught to use a tool that is specifically designed to generate online interview-style (i.e. one question at a time) web applications that can be used to generate complicated legal documents. Unless specific permission is given by the instructor to use a different tool, or to undertake a different type of projects, the project will need to fall into that category.
Some examples of things that fall into this 'interivew and document' category might include:
- A tool for assisting people to complete an application form for an administrative tribunal
- A tool for advising people on whether a particular governmental benefit applies to them
- A tool for generating dispute-resolution letters between parties in conflict
- A tool to guide volunteers doing intake processes for new clients of your organization
- etc...
Client organizations should not expect that the major project will be possible to deploy for real-world use at the completion of the semester. That is not a realistic expectation of beginners, given less than 4 months.
The major projects are prototypes, only. There is no guarantee that the opportunity will exist to convert them into real-world tools. But that is not to say that acting as a client would not have value to an organization in the access to justice space. Paprticipating as a client and assisting with the development of a prototype is an easy and inexpensive way to explore possibilities for service automation inside your organization.
All project proposals are subject to approval and amendment by the course instructor. This is required to ensure that the project
- builds on the skills that the students have been learning in the course
- allows the students to demonstrate that they have acquired those skills
- is realistic given the limited time and resources available
Participation as a client organization is very easy, and involves no monetary cost. There are a very small number of requirements, that should not take more than a few hours of your organization's staff's time over the course of the semester. If your organization is interested in engaging with the student group more than that minimum amount, additional involvement is welcome, but not required.
The client must provide the students with the name and contact information of a contact person, and consent to have that information provided to the instructor to allow them to coordinate with the client organization over the course of the project.
The client organization must also agree that the students are entitled to include the name of the client organization in materials that might be shared publicly, in various media, and through participation in contests like the Iron Tech Lawyer Invitational.
The most important task is that someone in the client organization with the appropriate knowledge meets with the students early in the semester to discuss possible projects on which they would be able to provide advice. Essentially, the students need the organization to share what it knows about where there are legal needs that could possibly be met by automated services. The person consulting on behalf of the client need not be the contact person.
Once a project has been decided on, the student groups will require information from your organization as to what constitutes "success" in this sort of project. For example, perhaps your clients are disadvantaged in a particular way that requires that interfaces be accessible to people who are blind, or whose English language skills are lower than average.
If a particular document needs to be generated, examples of that document would need to be provided. If there are specific issues that the tool would need to address, those would be given to the students.
Again, this happens relatively early in the semester, and is not expected to take a great deal of your organization's time.
That's all that is required of a client organization. However, if you have the resources to do so, or are interested, there are additional opportunities to participate for client organizations. The client organization may choose to engage with the students on their evolving design for the project over the course of the semester, providing feedback. There will also be an opportunity for client organizations to send representatives to attend "pitch" sessions in which the students will present their project and take questions from the instructor and other judges.
Client involvement is appreciated, but client feedback is not used as a means of evaluating the students' projects.
Law589 "Coding the Law" is taught by Jason Morris. Jason is a sessional instructor withe the University of Alberta Faculty of Law, and began teaching "Coding the Law" in 2019. He holds a BA, LLB, and LLM in Computational Law, all from the University of Alberta. He is a practicing lawyer in Alberta, and is currently engaged as a Senior Researcher in Symbolic Artificial Intelligence for the Singapore Management University Centre for Computational Law.
He can be reached at [email protected], and would be happy to answer any questions you may have.
Additional details about the course, including its syllabus, can be viewed at [https://github.com/Gauntlet173/CodingTheLaw].
An organization qualifies to act as a client if they are engaged in providing legal services (broadly defined) in a non-profit environment, for the purpose of enhancing access to justice. This could include legal aid organizations, pro bono organizations, special interest groups, courts, administrative tribunals, or government departments.
Thank you for considering participating as a client organization for the students in "Coding the Law". Your support of these students is an investment in the future of the legal profession, but it is also an investment in the resources available to pro bono organizations to enhance the quality and quantity of the legal services they provide to deserving Albertans.