In the context of the anniversary event of the German EDV-Gerichtstag - I reported - a judge had raised the postulate of scalability, but at the same time human control, in connection with the machine anonymization of court decisions. An exceptionally educated, highly esteemed colleague spoke privately of an "oxymoron" in connection with this. Is he right and are oxymora perhaps even generic characteristics of legaltech?
If one follows the various dictionaries of terms, oxymora are combinations of contradictory words or terms to or within a statement. This probably applies to the example cited at the beginning, because automation and human control run counter to each other. But are there other examples?
In a recently published survey by a major professional information provider, there were quite a some clues: For example, the respondents rated collaboration with clients highly, but at the same time considered communication by phone and e-mail to be indispensable. Or the cost-effective automation of office processes is desired, while at the same time the continued use of the law firm's own forms and formats is postulated.
I don't know if these are oxymora in the strictest sense of the word. Most importantly, I wonder if those who express these contrary desires are even aware of this fact. If the answer was no, it shouldn't be surprising. The buzzword bingo in legaltech in its monthly variations of terms is not to be outdone. What non-specialist is supposed to keep track of it all? And the feeble query "What importance do you attach to AI. in the future?" is already confusing in its generality. The appeal to legaltech providers can therefore only be to present clearly defined products in equally clear language and not to keep changing the vocabulary.
Otherwise, the legaltech providers themselves are the oxymoron.
