Conference Programme

The timetable for the conference is available here for download as an Adobe Acrobat PDF. (last updated 27th March)

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The keynote speakers for this year's conference will be

29/3/2012: Professor Richard Susskind OBE, President, Society for Computers and Law  (http://www.susskind.com/):

What are we training young lawyers to become?

The world of law is changing rapidly and radically. In the future, legal services will be delivered in new ways, and often (and in a variety of ways) across the Internet. The role of the traditional, consultative, face-to-face adviser will diminish and new jobs for lawyers will emerge. Accordingly, tomorrow’s lawyers will need to work, and be trained, quite differently if the legal profession is to remain relevant.

Professor Richard Susskind OBE is an author, speaker, and independent adviser to major legal firms and to national governments. His main area of expertise is the future of legal service, with particular reference to information technology. He has worked on legal technology for over 30 years. He lectures internationally, has been invited to speak in over 40 countries, and has addressed legal audiences (in person and electronically), numbering more than 200,000. He has written and edited numerous books, including Expert Systems in Law (OUP, 1987), The Future of Law (OUP, 1996), Transforming the Law (OUP, 2000), and The End of Lawyers? Rethinking the Nature of Legal Services (OUP, 2008) and has written over 100 columns for The Times. His work has been translated into 10 languages. He holds professorships at Oxford University, UCL, Gresham College, and Strathclyde University. He is a Fellow of the British Computer Society and of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

30/3/2012: Prof Chris Reed, Professor of Electronic Commerce Law, Queen Mary, University of London (http://www.law.qmul.ac.uk/staff/reed.html)

Why does lawmaking fail in cyberspace?

Why don't cyberspace actors obey the laws which apply to them? The
answer is that lawmakers claim excessive authority to regulate, and also
impose meaningless obligations. Fixing these defects requires a focus on
individuals and communities, rather than on technologies and behaviours.

Chris Reed is a member of the Centre for Commercial Law Studies (CCLS). Chris has published widely on many aspects of computer law and research in which he was involved led to the EU directives on electronic signatures and on electronic commerce. From 1997-2000, Chris was Joint Chairman of the Society for Computers and Law, and in 1997-8 he acted as Specialist Adviser to the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology. Chris participated as an Expert at the European Commission/Danish Government Copenhagen Hearing on Digital Signatures, represented the UK Government at the Hague Conference on Private International Law and has been an invited speaker at OECD and G8 international conferences. He is a former Director of CCLS, and from 2004 to 2009 was Academic Dean of the Faculty of Law & Social Sciences.

ABSTRACTS

The conference abstracts are available on the BILETA network site.