A post on Legal Futurology discusses a recent judicial reform report issued in Finland that includes the following recommendation:

In some types of cases the preparation process could be more strongly computer-supported. For example, when the elements of certain crimes are met, the system could automatically offer relevant phrasings as motivations, which could ease up the burden of processing simple high-volume cases, such as drunk driving. This could reduce routine work while at the same time safeguarding the high quality of the decisions.

The overall thrust of this part of the report is that by computerizing the decision-making process, maybe they won’t need as many judges as they have today. Perhaps it is not just practicing lawyers who should get up to speed on the law+tech movement!