The Artificial intelligence revolution is happening and is going to drastically re-shape legal research in both the private sector and academia. AI research tools present several advantages over traditional research methods. They allow for the analysis and review of large datasets (‘Big Data’) and can identify patterns that are imperceptible to human researchers. However, the wonders of AI legal research are not without perils. Because of their complexity, AI systems can escape the control and understanding of their operators and programmers. Therefore, especially when run by researchers with insufficient IT background, computational AI research may skew analyses or result in flawed research. Premised thus, the main goals of this paper, written by Ronald Yu and Gabriele Spina Alì, are to analyse some of the factors that can jeopardize the reliability of AI-assisted legal research and to review some of the solutions to mitigate this situation.

James Richard Crawford was born in Adelaide in November 1948, where he went to school and eventually graduated from Adelaide University with an LLB and a BA in 1971. His political views were coloured by his country's involvement in the Vietnam War, and these were reflected in his vision of international law, which he researched under Ian Brownlie for his LLD at Oxford (1972–73). The result was his seminal text The Creation of States in International Law. After returning to Australia, James Crawford spent the next 18 years pursuing a career in academia and government legal service, culminating in his occupying the Challis chair at Sydney in 1986. Further recognition of his standing in international law came when Cambridge appointed him to the Whewell Chair in 1992, and the Directorship of the Lauterpacht Centre 1997–2003 and 2006–2009. After 23 years in Cambridge, Professor Crawford was elected to the bench of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 2015, where, in May 2018, Lesley Dingle recorded nearly 4 hours of conversation with him in his chambers at the Peace Palace. The audio and transcript records of these interviews have been presented in the Eminent Scholars Archive, along with a narrative biography. During his parallel careers, academic and juristic, James Crawford wrote extensively on international law. His works reveal a distinctive vision of the law's legacy and future prospects. In the present article, Lesley Dingle expands on some of the perspectives that underpin this Crawfordian vision of international law, inter alia: historical contingency, human enhancement, the legal polymath, personal priorities, and constraints on ICJ judges.

In this article, James Harper of LexisNexis UK outlines the company's bi-centenary, and its contribution to the ‘rule of law’. The article will describe the fascinating development of UK law during this period, focusing on key milestones in arguably the largest and most exponential increase in the quantity of English language law the world has seen. It will also outline the range of legal industry innovations which LexisNexis and its companies have spearheaded over the years.

The aim of this qualitative study is to explore new barristers’ information literacy (IL) experiences during their transition from education to the workplace. New barristers are defined as individuals currently doing pupillage or who qualified as professionals in the last two years. Although the transition into work constitutes an important period in new barristers’ legal careers during which they face many IL challenges, so far neither new barristers’ perspectives on their IL experiences nor their transition experiences have been examined in detail. The study employed semi-structured interviews to explore the IL experiences of six new barristers.* This thesis finds that new barristers face a variety of IL challenges and thus have different transition experiences. For them, legal research has emotional implications. As professionals, they have IL needs and experiences that are dissimilar from the ones they developed during their education. This impacts on the content and delivery of IL training for new barristers. The study broadens our understanding of legal IL and new legal professionals’ IL needs. It has implications for law librarians and legal educators as it throws the complexity of new barristers’ workplace IL into relief. Finally, the study offers some recommendations for IL training.

This article by Jill Henderson and Louise Young is based on their ‘Lightning Talk’ at the 2018 BIALL Conference and describes the recent current awareness project at Irwin Mitchell. It outlines each stage of the project from recognising there was a need to change and choosing the right product to enable that, through to gathering requirements, building searches and launching the new alerts. It goes through each stage in detail and outlines the lessons learnt to help others who may be considering a similar project.

In this article Kate Faulkner writes about the significant moments in the journey of women as they entered into the legal profession taking a perspective from the University of Cambridge. Her article is based around a recent exhibition that was held at the Squire Law Library as part of the Open Cambridge annual event. The aim of the exhibition was to mark the centenary of the Representation of the People Act 1918 and the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 which finally allowed women into the professions.

On the 15th February 2019, the Overall Winner for the Justis International Law & Technology Writing Competition was announced alongside three Best in Category articles for each of the three topics of this year's competition. Dr Matthew Terrell and David Hand of Justis who organise this yearly student opportunity share insights from the latest competition alongside the winning articles.

Blockchain, arguably the most discussed and promising of FinTech trends, has incredible potential to transform legal technology. Infamous as the technology behind cryptocurrencies, distributed ledger technology (DLT) has developed far beyond these origins and may prove far more valuable than the currency it supports. As a form of DLT, blockchain allows for secure decentralisation of peer-to-peer, irreversible exchanges, providing a transparent and irrevocable record as these occur. The technology is already used across the legal industry and a plethora of opportunities to extend its application bubble beneath the surface, under development, waiting to break into the current market.

For all his genius as a musician and performer, James Brown never got his head around taxes. His run-ins with the IRS were well documented, at one point leading to a jail sentence. Between recordings and countless live performances, he clearly struggled to keep abreast of his fiscal responsibilities, which begs the question: might a computational system of tax law have helped the Godfather of Soul stay in the IRS's good books?

The move towards digitisation is a growing global trend and an inescapable reality. But so too is the increasing chasm between rights in law and rights enforced. The advent of legal technology presents exciting opportunities to bridge this gap, but it would be imprudent to assume that this is a symbiotic relationship, or that digitisation necessarily improves access to justice.

Technological advancements have revolutionised the social interactions of global society and in turn influenced the means and methods of warfare; increasing the involvement of civilians in hostilities, not only as victims but also as participants. Together with the involvement of multiple state and non-state actors, civilian participation makes these modern conflicts all the more unpredictable, challenging inter alia the traditional notion of direct participation in hostilities established under international law.