Neurotechnology (NT) comprises various invasive and non-invasive methods, systems and devices to connect directly to and monitor and/or modulate the human brain and nervous system. These technologies have far-reaching implications across society, and are particularly poised to define, change, predict and control human abilities and impact individual rights. This interdisciplinary course explores the convergence of neurotechnology, human rights, and legal frameworks through various neurotechnological interventions. Students will examine theoretical frameworks, practical applications, ethical implications, and legal considerations of neurotechnology. The course integrates neuroscience and neuroethics concepts, signal processing techniques, machine learning applications, comprehensive human rights analysis, evolving legal framework developments, and comparative domestic regulation and existing international frameworks..
Course or Seminar Category: Technology and the Law
Legal Values: Artificial Intelligence (Discrmination & Surveillance)
This seminar will explore in depth the many ways in which modern computing systems — including the data they ingest, the decisions made by the folks who develop them, and their myriad and nearly ubiquitous applications — may enable, encourage, or prevent societal discrimination and surveillance capitalism of various types. Students will learn how algorithms and artificial intelligence (“AI”) systems work, how such algorithms and systems may provide differential treatment and/or outcomes for different populations, and how they may invade privacy and cause other harms to people. Students will also consider the potential legal/regulatory, technical, and social/policy interventions that could ameliorate the harms caused by such algorithms and systems and will weigh the advantages and disadvantaged of each.
At the end of the seminar, students should be able to (i) discuss with colleagues and others the positive and negative consequences of various current AI innovations, and (ii) suggest different approaches to address systemic bias and surveillance capitalism — including legal/regulatory or social/policy changes, as well as technical solutions — and explain why certain of these approaches might or might not work in specific circumstances.
Legal Values: Copyright Policy in the Making
The development of digital and network technologies has posed both opportunities and challenges for creators, publishers, and users of intellectual works. For the most part, copyright law has evolved to address these challenges by extending to embrace new media. But how well do traditional copyright principles and doctrine, developed in the heyday of the printing press, apply in the digital era when works can be created, shared, and transformed more easily than ever before? What considerations should be brought to bear by policymakers as they respond to urgent calls for copyright to “catch up.”
The objective of this seminar is to examine some of the key copyright policy questions currently before Canada’s Federal Government Departments of Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED) and Canadian Heritage. The seminar exposes students to the complicated process of crafting public policy and proposing law reform, and is uniquely designed to build on (and perhaps even feed into) ongoing public consultations on amendments to Canada’s Copyright Act. Students will tackle issues such as Technological Neutrality and the Copyright Balance; Authorship and Artificial Intelligence; Reproduction for Informational Analysis (Text & Data Mining); Digital Locks and the Right of Repair; Intermediary Liability and Website-blocking; the Regulation of Digital News Intermediaries; Non-Fungible-Tokens and Digital Art; User-Generated Content and Fair Dealing; Controlled Digital Lending and e-Books; Crown Copyright; and Copyright Term Extension. We will critically examine recent policy reports, bills, statutory amendments, treaties, and case law, as well as emerging industry and consumer practices, stakeholder demands, and the political dynamics of the copyright lawmaking scene. Copyright policy implicates, in addition to the letter and spirit of Canada’s Copyright Act, issues of constitutional law and fundamental rights, international and comparative law, and socio-legal theory.
Directed Reading: IP Innovation Clinic
The IP Innovation Program was established in 2019, to support the work of the IP Innovation Clinic, founded in 2010 by Prof Pina D’Agostino. The IP Innovation Clinic is a year-round, needs-based innovation-to-society intellectual property (IP) legal clinic operated in collaboration with Innovation York and supervising law firms Norton Rose Fulbright Canada LLP, Smart & Biggar LLP, and Own Innovation. Under the guidance and mentorship of the Clinic Director, Clinic Associate Director, and supervising lawyers, law students provide one-to-one legal information services (not legal advice) to inventors, entrepreneurs, and start-up companies to assist with the commercialization processes. Through this hands-on practical experience, law students learn about common early-stage IP and business issues facing actors in the innovation ecosystem.
Under the IP Innovation Program rubric, students can work in the clinic for the academic year for course credit, under the supervision of the clinic director, clinic associate director, supervising lawyers, and the clinic coordinators. Enrolled students can continue their clinic work for the summer term on a volunteer basis.
Enrolled students spend approximately 6 hours/week throughout the year on client file-related work and clinical projects. The clinical work includes managing at least 2 client files, conducting intake meetings, which lead to specific work that can include: performing patent searches, reviewing patent specifications, performing freedom-to-operate and clearance searches, reviewing IP licensing transactions, assisting with preparing and filing provisional patent applications, drafting memos, conducting legal research, and other tasks as assigned and approved by the supervising lawyer(s). In addition to client file-related work, enrolled students also work on clinical projects, such as providing IP awareness and education to the clinic clients and the community, including presentations and/or workshops about the basics of IP law, commercialization, licensing, IP strategy, etc.
In addition to working approximately 78 hours per semester on client file-related work and clinic projects, enrolled students attend pre-scheduled, mandatory 2-hour monthly seminars with the clinic director and/or associate director (and clinic coordinators and sometimes guests and/or participating supervising lawyers) and attend other informal meetings as necessary. The purpose of the seminars is to deepen the students’ understanding of IP in a practical context, the role of IP in commercialization, and IP skills and strategies. Students can also rotate on presenting and discussing assigned reading materials on select topics to enhance their collective learning and reflect on their clinical work in a wider community legal IP context.
Directed Reading: Venture Capital Project
This Directed Reading Course builds upon the Osgoode Venture Capital Clinical Project (OVC), which has for over eight years provided legal services to early stage entrepreneurial ventures in the financing and equity structuring stages of growth.
Osgoode students will work as Caseworkers directly with lawyers from Wildeboer Dellelce LLP, and the entrepreneurs or executives associated with the early-stage business ventures supported by the OCV. Students will gain valuable experience in drafting a retainer and scope of work agreement, client communications, client consultations, drafting legal agreements, corporate finance, employment matters, technology, and operational matters.
There will also be two training sessions conducted by Wildeboer lawyers at their offices downtown, one on best practices in client representation and communication; and the other on the substantive elements of typical representation of early stage companies. Osgoode students will not be providing legal advice.
Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal
The Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal publishes peer reviewed scholarly works, book reviews, and recent development dispatches, focusing on comparative and international labour law issues. Students enrolled in this seminar may receive credit to the value of four credit hours each academic year and not more than eight credit hours in total. Students must enroll in the Journal for at least two semesters in order to earn credit. Meetings are generally held every other week throughout the fall and winter semesters.
A.I. and Technology in Legal Practice
This micro-course provides an in-depth look into the evolving role of technology and artificial intelligence (AI) in the legal field. It explores how these advancements are transforming legal practices, from automating routine tasks to providing sophisticated analysis and decision-making support. Students will gain hands-on experience with key platforms
available on the market, enhancing their technical proficiency. The curriculum covers machine learning, data systems, legal workflow automation, and a high-level overview of AI technology, preparing students for a modern legal
environment, focusing on technical skills and knowledge to address today’s challenging issues around AI.
Learning Objectives:
• Develop a comprehensive understanding of legal tech tools.
• Apply legal technology effectively in various legal contexts.
• Recognize the ethical implications of technology in legal practice.
• Enhance efficiency and accuracy in legal tasks through tech solutions.
Securities Regulation
This is a four hour course that attempts foundational and detailed coverage of the Ontario Securities Act, with the goals of both ensuring good understanding of the most important requirements of securities law, as well as the underlying policy objectives that those rules are intended to achieve. There will be reference to other provincial or international regulation where appropriate for comparison. Included in the detailed coverage are the definitions of key securities regulatory concepts such as “security”, “trade”, and “distribution”; requirements for primary and secondary distribution of securities; prospectus disclosure; exemptions and resale rules as well as recent changes here; continuous and timely disclosure obligations with particular reference to prohibitions on insider trading; mergers and acquisitions with particular reference to takeover bid legislation; primary and secondary market civil liability; enforcement law and policy.
Legal Information Technology: Data Analysis & Coding for Access to Justice
In this course, students will engage with law as data, using new legal technologies that promise to shift how lawyers practice in coming years, with a particular emphasis on exploring implications for access to justice. The aim is to examine not how the law regulates new legal technologies, but rather how these technologies can or should be used by legal professionals to advance the rights and interests of marginalized groups.
The course will use a hands-on experiential pedagogy. That is, students will engage directly with new legal technologies – including by completing several small coding projects involving legal data analysis. In addition to exploring these technologies, students will critically reflect on their ethical, professional, social, and economic impacts, focusing on implications for low-income and otherwise marginalized groups.
No prior coding experience is required. The course recognizes that students may bring a range of prior skills and knowledge. Both learning and evaluation have been designed to allow students who are beginners to coding and legal data analysis opportunities to successfully explore a new area, while also allowing students who already have relevant technical skills – as well as students who want to push their skillsets further – to take on more advanced projects. As such, participation is weighted heavily and final projects can be completed with limited coding.
The course involves both synchronous and asynchronous components. After an initial synchronous introductory class, the first half of the course will be delivered asynchronously, through online modules and small coding projects. The instructor will be available for online troubleshooting sessions and for other support during the hours notionally set aside for classes in the weeks when modules and small coding projects are completed. Once the initial modules are completed, a synchronous discussion class will be held to explore ethical, professional, social and economic impacts, with some critical readings provided. The second half of the course will involve students working on a final project either individually or in groups (with the course instructor available for troubleshooting), presenting a draft of that project to colleagues for feedback, and finalizing the project.
Synchronous sessions will be delivered in a hybrid (hyflex) format, meaning that students can elect to attend any given synchronous session either in person or remotely via Zoom. Classes will be scheduled in 3-hour blocks.
Topics:
(1) Introduction to Coding & Access to Justice (Module 1: Automating the boring stuff)
(2) Data Gathering & Cleaning (Module 2: Finding legal datasets and creating new ones)
(3) Data Analysis (Module 3: I have some legal data, now what?)
(4) Artificial Intelligence (Module 4: Using generative AI to advance access to justice)
(5) Student Presentations of Draft Projects
Law & Social Change: Documentary Film and Law
Images form an increasingly important vehicle of communication in the digital era, and the legal field is not exempt from these developments. This course will provide students with tools for critically engaging with the expanding landscape of visual media in public culture, courtrooms and other legal advocacy settings. Through the close consideration of a diverse selection of documentary films, the course will invite students to assess, analyze and seek to understand the visual and cultural contexts through which the meanings and institutions of law are understood, interpreted and constantly re-negotiated in Canada and in the world. Among other questions, the course will consider how documentary films function as forms of visual legal advocacy, and students will receive instruction in how to produce their own short videos. Students will be educated in a variety of styles and techniques of visual legal advocacy. Overall, the course will consider the role that nonfiction film might play in the quest for a more responsive and inclusive legal order, within Canada as well as internationally.
Students will be guided towards the development of critical and generative attitudes to the role and value of the visual in legal advocacy through the assigned films and readings, reflective writing exercises, focused seminar discussion and the planning, shooting and editing of a short documentary. This course will satisfy Osgoode’s Praxicum requirement.