International Legal Ethics Conference 2024

Legal Professionals in a Digitalising World

The overarching theme of ILEC 2024 will focus on legal professionals in a digitalising world. Digitalisation within the justice sector has primarily consisted of the use of relatively simple assisting technologies, such as automated case management, digital filing, and search engines. More recently, more complex applications have been deployed by law firms, courts, and law enforcement agencies, such as the use of expert systems, predictive analytics, machine learning, and natural language processing technologies. Also, the market for legal self-help apps has been growing rapidly. In addition, several jurisdictions are now experimenting with online courts, whose primary function is to adjudicate high-volume, low-value claims.

ILEC 2024 aims to contribute to the scholarly, professional, and public debate on the use of new technologies within the justice sector and on the regulatory responses so far, both in Europe and abroad, from the perspective of legal ethics and the rule of law.
By means of keynote lectures, roundtable sessions, and a special stream on the topic of Digitalisation, Innovation and Access to Justice, several fundamental themes and questions will be addressed.

Streams

Proposals for presenting a paper or for organising a workshop are invited from scholars from all disciplines as well as from legal professionals. Presenters are encouraged to submit papers within one of the following eight streams:

1. Digitalisation, Innovation and Access to Justice
2. Empirical and Interdisciplinary Approaches to Legal Ethics and the Legal Profession
3. Philosophy and Legal Ethics
4. Globalisation and the Legal Profession
5. Regulation of the Legal Profession
6. Ethics and Governmental Lawyers
7. Ethics and Legal Education
8. Ethics and the Rule of Law

The conference will be organised into panel sessions. Normally, three to four papers will be presented in each session. Applicants may submit individual papers, which will be assigned to appropriate panels by the organisers. Proposals for special workshops on other themes that fall within the domain of this conference are also encouraged.

The ILEC 2024 will be organised in cooperation with the Netherlands Bar.