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.

Comparative Law: International Tax in a Web 3.0 World

Web3 technologies such as Blockchain, Smart Contracts and the Metaverse have created a new frontier for legal professionals. In particular, grappling with issues relating to conflict of laws and choice of jurisdiction have become a challenge for almost every area of law, including but not limited to: commercial law, securities, criminal law, anti-money laundering, estates and many others. Given the interactions and transactions between individuals and businesses facilitated by Web3 technologies in various jurisdictions worldwide, the issue of tax liability is often described as a “gray area” because of the confusion it causes with respect to income tax, excise tax and estates tax.
Knowing the landscape makes this perceived gray area disappear.
Various levels of government cooperation have resulted in attempts to ameliorate the ambiguities created by the various transactions which occur as a result of “borderless” technologies. International organizations such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, regional governmental organizations such as the European Union, as well as bilateral tax treaties and information exchange agreements have created a patchwork of legislation which causes ambiguity with respect to how, when and which tax rules are applied.
This course will explore the various rules and principles which govern the borderless world in which we now live, using various primary and secondary sources, case studies and expert guest speakers from jurisdictions outside of Canada. The students will be evaluated on group projects, discussions and a final research paper.
Group projects will be focused on particular issues, fact patterns and case scenarios, while discussions will explore hypothetical and factual international tax matters which are currently at issue or which could potentially occur in the future.

The majority of the course will be held in person on campus; however, one to two classes may be held in a Metaverse virtual environment. No irregular or complicated technologies, like headsets, will be required to attend these courses aside from a computer with internet access.

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.

Forensic Science & the Law

This course will provide students with an enriched understanding of forensic evidence as it applies to the administration of criminal and civil justice. The course will blend both novel scientific and legal issues as they apply to the modern day fact-finding mission. The course will cover the scientific and legal basics, key terminology, a summary of court decisions, and admissibility standards. The students will benefit from expert presentations given by leading professionals from both the legal and scientific community. The guest experts will provide students with a valuable insight on the capabilities and limits of their respective disciplines.

Forensic science is the application of a scientific inquiry into a criminal investigation. As the majority of court cases are decided on questions of fact, the interpretation and evaluation of scientific evidence is not taught as part of the traditional courses in law school.
This course fills this gap, by introducing students to forensic sciences and to the theories and methods that govern their interpretation in a legal setting. The interaction between science and law will be analyzed from theoretical, legal and pragmatic perspectives.

The course will examine the evolution and current position of forensic science in Canadian courts. The process of adapting scientific argument to legal argument will be explored. Expert witnesses, differing standards of legal acceptance and leading cases will be surveyed. Prominent miscarriages of justice will be examined to highlight the utility and frailties of forensic science. Course themes will include legal vs. scientific truth and science vs. junk science and legal vacuums as they relate to scientific evidence.

A.I. and Technology in Legal Practice

This 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.

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 independently 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 Final Projects

Patents

This course deals with the law of patents in Canada. Patent law is one of the main headings of intellectual property law (along with copyrights and trademarks); trade secrets arise from a combination of contracts, equity and property law. The regime of patents protects inventions by granting inventors a limited monopoly of twenty years in exchange for disclosing the invention to society. The essential justification of the patent system is that it enables and rewards innovation. Arguments may also be made that patents afford a secure means by which inventions may be put to commercial use by investors. The course will examine the statutory basis of patent law in Canada, the judicial construction and interpretation of both primary and subsidiary regulations of Canadian patent law. The course will also locate developments in Canadian patent law in the context of international and regional transformations in the field. In this context, the course will explore contemporary controversies over the expansion of patent rights in biotechnology (from patenting mousetraps to patenting mice), and the shift from copyright protection to patent protection for computer programs. It is expected that at the end course, students would have a solid understanding of Canadian patent law as well as how international developments shape and influence Canadian patent law.

Securities Regulation

A primary objective of this course is for students to obtain a solid grounding in the basic concepts of Ontario securities law, as well as an understanding of the underlying policy objectives of regulators and decision-makers in implementing and interpreting statutory provisions. Students should also develop knowledge of how securities law influences business transactions and the activities of public issuers, as well as how courts and regulators use securities law concepts and policies in resolving and hearing disputes. Students will be presented with practical knowledge of securities law doctrines and concepts, and attempt to understand the roles that securities lawyers play as advisors to issuers, registrants, investment funds, and derivatives dealers and users. For those students who do not intend to practice securities law, the expectation is that the course will provide a working knowledge of key aspects of the capital markets and the governance frameworks for these markets.

Law & Social Change: The Law Commission of Ontario Workshop – Approaches to Law Reform

The Law Commission of Ontario Workshop – Approaches to Law Reform explores “law reform” as a distinct field of legal expertise, advocacy, and strategy. Each class is led by one or more expert practitioners experienced in developing and directing different approaches to law reform. Students will work with the practitioners and course instructors from the Law Commission of Ontario (LCO) to develop their own concrete, sophisticated, and actionable law reform proposal.
Students are free to develop their own law reform proposal. For example, a proposal may address:
Politicization of Ontario’s process for appointing judges
Platform misogyny and youth safety online
Platform influencer and content creator rights and obligations
Regulating “deep fake” images, audio and video used to harass, extort, defame, etc. development of the students’ law reform proposal.

Students who complete the course will gain a practical, hands-on understanding of how:

“Law reform” engages a sophisticated mix of social, political, economic, and legal considerations, as well as community coalition building, media messaging, and others.
Lobbyists and political staff participate in law reform and are regulated.
Government ministries and the legislature develop laws, respond to test case litigation, and respond to court-ordered law reform.
Cutting-edge law reform is happening in Indigenous law and in response to artificial intelligence.
Think tanks, non-governmental organizations, single-issue proponents, and public interest advocates engage politicians with “early signals” and the need for law reform.
Coroner’s Inquests and Commissions of Inquiry contribute to law reform.

Law & Social Change: Torts and Technology

Tort law is one of the law’s oldest areas of law, where one still encounters such Latin tags as “sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas” and “volenti non fit injuria,” where some cases printed in the casebooks are a century older than printed books. Can this area of law be of any relevance to the brave new world of large language models in the metaverse? Perhaps. In 2023, Epic Games, the studio that developed the enormously popular video game “Fortnite,” was sued in both Quebec and British Columbia on the charge that their game was too addictive. Snapchat was sued in the United States after a traffic collision for allegedly encouraging its users to earn a “badge” by driving at excessive speeds. The leading Canadian case on invasion of privacy did not involve snooping into someone else’s bedroom but accessing someone’s bank account details. Social media is full of defamatory statements, with chatbots increasingly adding their voice.

The course aims to see what tort law can do to deal with these issues. It will start by considering the impact of technology on our lives; it will then turn to the question of the interrelationship between technological change and legal (especially tort) doctrine: how technological change influenced doctrine and whether doctrine can affect technological change. A large part of the course will be devoted to examining the law of defamation, harassment, and invasions of privacy. These areas of law are not new, but new technology has given them greater urgency.