First published June 22, 2022

 

Hello and welcome to Lawyer Ex Machina!

  • Lawyers are optimistic about legal technology in general, but may not like the tech tools they’ve been given to use. [Law.com | $]
  • For those of you monitoring the efforts of the California State Bar to establish a paraprofessional licensing program, as well as a regulatory sandbox for non-law firm entities to provide legal services to consumers: The Bar may be prohibited from spending funds on either program if AB2958 passes with amendments recently added to the bill. [Law.com | $]
  • Speaking of the Cal Bar, it is a defendant in a proposed class action arising from a data breach of disciplinary records, where the website JudyRecords was able to access and publish over 250,000 confidential records. [Bloomberg | $]
  • Lots going on with data, mobile apps and reproductive issues as we wait on the Dobbs opinion:
    • “Facebook and Anti-Abortion Clinics Are Collecting Highly Sensitive Info on Would-Be Patients” [The Markup]
    • “Period-tracking apps store users’ most private data. What will that mean in a post-Roe world?” [Protocol]
    • “Sweeping Legislation Aims to Ban the Sale of Location Data” [Motherboard | Congress.Gov page | Bill text (PDF) ]
  • Beyond the location data bill, there is also a discussion draft of a general data privacy bill released by the House Committee on Energy and Commence. The Sub-Committee on Consumer Protection and Commerce held a hearing on the subject on June 14th. Commentary on the provisions of the bill and likelihood of passage include:

Thank you for reading.