Legaltech in Public Administration: Prospects and Challenges
10 Pages Posted: 13 Jun 2021
Date Written: June 8, 2021
Abstract
The information revolution affects every aspect of our life, such as communication, banking, learning and teaching, entertainment, socializing, and even government and the administration. In some fields the potential of such revolution is already apparent, as new kinds of value is created - suffice it to mention the new forms of communication and marketing, the emergence of new business models in the financial industry, the so-called fintechs, and the spread of social networks. Likewise, information technology creates opportunities and disrupts even the legal industry, with the emergence of legaltech or lawtech.
Despite such growing attention, in the field of public administration, the potential uses of new technologies have been for a long time only discussed in theory, and limited implementation has been recorded (in most of the cases, in an experimental or pilot phase). As Part 2 will show, such technologies in the best-case scenario were tested at an experimental level, and only in a few countries some small steps were taken to implement them. A rapid shift, nonetheless, took place with the imposed lockdowns due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Such pandemic will possibly leave its mark not only in history books and medicine textbooks, but also in the field of administration and public law, as it spurred the implementation of the technologies of the information revolution era.
Keywords: legaltech, publictech. rule of law, transparency, due process
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