Osgoode forum keeps practitioners up to speed on AI and the law

Max Jarvie likes to say that he came by his interest in AI and the law honestly.

Long before he had even considered entering law school, Jarvie was exposed to some rudimentary machine learning technology around the turn of the 21^st Century, during his PhD studies in philosophy looking at models of human cognition.

“It was very useful for helping to unpack cognitive processes and how we experience the external world,” explains Jarvie, who is now a partner in the Montreal office of Davies Ward Phillips and Vineberg LLP.

After completing his doctoral studies, Jarvie spent some time in the IT industry – an experience that helped influence the distinctly technological flavour of his current legal practice, where he assists clients with privacy and data protection issues.

In recent years, his entire professional history seems to have converged, thanks to the explosive growth of AI and other advanced technologies.

“To my great surprise and delight, one of the things that bubbled up in privacy was the role of algorithms, AI and automated processing in decision-making processes that use personal information,” Jarvie says. “It gave me a chance to go back to my earlier studies in a totally different way, because some of the technologies that I worked with all that time ago are now central to the functions of what we call AI today.”

At Osgoode’s third Annual Forum on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Law, Jarvie and his program co-chair Brent Arnold will guide attendees through the very latest developments in the field.

Held online across two full days of sessions on Oct. 23 and 24, the conference will feature a variety of industry and legal experts decoding need-to-know technology and terminology for attendees, while offering practical insights and strategies for compliance with the constantly evolving AI regulatory framework. An online replay will follow in late November for those who were unable to make the live version.

Arnold recently founded Capstan Legal in Toronto after almost two decades at a national Bay Street law firm, where he established a name for himself as the office “tech guy,” handling civil litigation and cybersecurity matters for a wide variety of commercial clients.  

“Years ago, I was asked to put together a project to help lawyers run paperless trials, which meant that I spent a lot of time talking with lawyers and judges and anyone else in that space dealing with technology and the law,” Arnold says. “Pretty soon, any case with a technology angle ends up at your desk.”

In his own session at the forum, Arnold plans to address the impact of AI on cyber risk, something he has witnessed up close in his role as a breach coach for victims of cybersecurity incidents.

“It’s what we call a force-multiplier in terms of its ability to facilitate cybercrime, but also to fight it,” he says.

Legal practitioners and industry professionals who want to dive deeper into the subject may also be interested in some of Osgoode’s related programs, including the Osgoode Certificate in Privacy and Cybersecurity Law or the part-time Professional LLM in Privacy and Cybersecurity Law.

The breakneck pace of progress in the field of AI and the law meant there was no shortage of issues for the forum faculty to choose from when setting their agenda.    

“We cover a wide span of topics and we do try to modify the program each year, so we’re not just refreshing the existing ones,” Jarvie says.

This year he says he’s looking forward to a practical discussion on AI prompt engineering skills for legal professionals, as well as a new session on AI and the law of competition, which will feature a breakdown of the Competition Bureau’s recent consultation on the subject.

“This is something that policymakers and practitioners have been thinking about for a while, but there will be more to do as AI continues to penetrate into new spaces and commercial use, creating potential competition issues,” Jarvie says. “I’m expecting a very illuminating and lively panel discussion.”

According to Arnold, the course should be attractive to an extremely broad range of lawyers working in private practice, government or in-house roles.

“Not to be alarming, but lawyers need to get onboard with this right away. It’s not like other technologies that are all-hype-and-no-substance. These tools are being used right now and they are not only going to change the way we practice, they are going to restructure the whole legal market,” Arnold says. “For any lawyer who is planning on practicing in the next 20 years, this is a very practical program that will help them figure out where they fit in the picture. Otherwise, they could be left out of the picture altogether.”

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