Laure Lavorel, Introduction to Panel 1: Algorithmic Law

Presented at the Legal Challenges of the Data Economy conference, March 22, 2019.

Transcript

LAURE LAVOREL: Good morning, everyone. So we're going to turn now into the interesting topic about personalization of the law. Let me start introducing the speaker now. So we are very happy to get Florence G'Sell in this table round. So Florence is a professor of law. She's a professor at the Lorraine University. And in addition to that, she's also, I would like to have the right title. So she's a co-director of the Chair of Technology Governance and International Innovation at Sciences Po.

Florence is a very well-known professor. She's one of the best experts in American law in France, and we don't have so many, so we're very excited to hear your comment on what is going to talk today. You are also a specialist on the comparative law. You are associate researcher at Institut des Hautes Etudes sur la Justice. And I must say that you are the last six, seven years, you become already known in the any topic related to digital. So you're certain you're the best speaker to therefore, what we're going to talk about.

Ariel Porat, you are also very, very known professor. So Ariel is a professor of law as well. Is teaching in Tel Aviv University and Chicago University as well. Ariel has a very famous career. He is a member of the Israeli, sorry, Israel Academy of Science and American Law Institute.

You used to be the dean of Tel Aviv University between 2002 and 2006. So quite a long time ago. I think you then you were also president of Israel Law and Economic Association. I could speak half an hour about everything you did in your life, so I tried to be short. This is such an impressive career. You work back like Colombia, Stanford, Toronto, Virginia University, so many places where students had the chance to listen and learn from you.

And the great news of today, I've learned that three days ago, you were elected the new president of the Tel Aviv University. So this is just incredible. We are so happy to have you today. And we're certainly going to learn a lot about what you're going to say. So the topic today is about personalization of default rules, and in general, how as it was well said by Omri in the introduction purpose, how algorithms are going to influence law.

And specifically on this topic, you are going to change what I was very interesting in when I was preparing this round table, I was thinking about how is it possible that we talk only talking about personalization of law makes, you know, this is really something strange to me. So I don't know, and I'm sure half of the audience minimum would be with me on that. It looks like an oxymoron. Because our natural thinking of law is to believe that law is something equal for everybody.

Law should be totally unpersonal. And the way we think about legal rules that on the democratic area, law should apply the same way for everybody. So how could we in one hand talk about personalization of law, and on the other hand, believe that those two guys, who looks very democratic, could have a different approach? So I was very surprised by the topic of this conference. And then I become very annoyed, because I was like, oh my god, it's me, I should present it. So how do I face this contradictory idea of having something that should be personalized talking about rules?

Then I did a sort of a deep dive into my own consideration, trying to understand why I was so uncomfortable with this topic of personalization of law. And probably my view was like, maybe it's because I'm a civil court lawyer. And then maybe I was teached that we do have rules, and then we apply principle, and that's how it works in our continental law arena.

And then it's everything except personalization. And then maybe my friends from the Anglo-Saxon system are much more comfortable this idea of being different, because they learn the study, the case to study approach, which is not the way we are applying law in the continental area. So I look at different type of regulation and the way judges were managing the cases.

And in Australia, in the UK, in Singapore, all those big places where Anglo-Saxon law is really dictating judges' approach, and yes of course, they are working more by analogy than we are in France, talking in Paris today. So I was thinking so probably this is why Ariel is able to talk about personalisation of law, because he's an Anglo-Saxon lawyer. But then I decided that probably it was too short as a conclusion. And I decided to reset my first approach. Like I must be a good lawyer. I have no idea about personalisation of law means.

And I thought twice. And then I realized that in our system, could be in France, in Germany, in Netherlands, wherever we are applying continental law, we are in a certain way, we are also using a sort of personalisation approach. Not talking about algorithm. Really talking about the traditional way we are handling cases in our countries. And there are many example, if you think about the way we are dictating that in criminal law. The personalization is something key. This is an interesting approach to start with.

Also, if you look at liabilities and responsibilities, just specifically when you have some body damages, everybody know that there are some compensation table and the leg, your leg, my leg, doesn't have the same price of the leg of a tennis player. So somewhere I think we already are personalizing the way we are approaching some cases. So I think finally, after this double check with my own conscience, I was like, maybe I'm closer that I thought about the concept of personalization of law. And I know it's nothing related to algorithms. It's more our tradition.

But finally, if our tradition as civil code lawyers is to be closer to the concept of personalization of law, maybe I'm naturally a little more comfortable with this panel now, because I'm not that far away that I thought from this topic, and I hope the audience will be close as well as I am now. With those of you on the stage with a different culture, but so many in common, I am sure we're going to have a very interesting debate now on this topic, and I'm very excited to hear you.