DESH 3: Smart Legal Tech on your Wrist
Awhile ago I wrote that I did not belief in legal technology on your wrist. I changed my mind shortly thereafter but I was haunted by my waverings because: how would it work?
DESH
DESH debuted on June 17, 2013 in “DESH: Your Personal Legal Assistant with Sense”. The idea: a robot that ‘reads’ your legal matter and assists in making intelligent decisions. It was inspired by the rise of personal assistants such as Google Now and Mynd. Google Now tells me if I would encounter traffic wherever I am. Mynd calculates my travel time and notifies me when I should leave for my next appointment. Both need little configuration and run invisibly in the background. I envisioned DESH to do the same for your legal activity.
Loupe (prequel)
DESH actually originated from an earlier concept called Loupe. While DESH is a front-end, Loupe would be the backend. Loupe is a concept whereby the (search) engine would convert any information into a query in legal context. For example, if Loupe recognized an amount or a date it would check the meaning within a specific legal domain. Similar to how Wolfram Alpha calculates data within a certain domain. Loupe rules would be like:
“ 10 million” in Competition Law → Cartels = fine
“ 10 million” in Competition Law → Merger = Acquisition Price
DESH (sequel)
In “Seymour: Maybe I Was Wrong About Legal Wearables” I realised why wearables would be especially significant for legal professionals: mobility. I belief legal counsels, like physicians, would travel from client to client with little or no time to pause and do stationary PC work. However, pride prevented me from reducing DESH to a mundane calendar app. I needed it to be this intelligent decision making machine.
DESH (today)
Compromise: its both. Rational: if it were a smartphone app with more screen real estate it would make sense to have it do a lot of fancy #Robolaw. But on your wrist is a different story. While mobile is the starting point, providing simple straight forward data is the max on a ‘watch’. Apple encourages “light interaction” and describes these as “glances”.
How it works
- Launch the app to ‘glance’ your legal activity progress*;
- Turn the dial or swipe up to reveal your legal activity in calendar.
*News is approx 75% read, Cases read at 30%, Contract drafting is at 15%. That’s it. Does this make any sense?
