Recent News.

Why Bill Gates’​ Robot Tax is either Bad or ScaryBill Gates has suggested that in response to robots taking the jobs of humans, there should be a robot tax. As a tax lawyer who builds artificial intelligence (and known as the Taxinator), of course I am going to have...

How to Design Better COVID RulesAt a recent wedding the attendees picked up their glasses of champagne and began to stand to toast the new bride and groom.  “Stop” shouted the COVID Marshalls supervising the event.  Under the COVID rules a person is not allowed to...

There Are No “Robot Lawyers” And There Never Will Be (Except in One Country)It was a trend a few years back for every other legal tech company to declare that it had created the “world’s first robot lawyer”.  I think there was more claims of first than Kim Jong-un at...

To Support Innovation We Need To Accept Government FailureThe most insightful idea that I have heard on how best to support and encourage new companies to create innovative products is this: companies don’t need a grant, or advice, they need a customer.  Therefore,...

Can Machines Have Ura And Omote Understanding?In Japan there is twin concepts of Ura and Omote.  Most commonly it is used in a societal sense to describe the private or hidden aspect of a person (Ura) and their public persona (Omote).  For a highly conformist and...

Why We Need Fewer "Experts" An interesting view that I have seen appear across many differing topics in the past few years is that only experts should opine on any given area.  This has been used across the political spectrum:  only economists should opine on the...

Dangers Of Law Clerks With Checklists The discussion surrounding the dangers of automation typically centre on novel and futuristic application of Artificial Intelligence.  Even if we are not worried about Skynet terminating humans, we worry about application of data,...

Why We Should Abolish The Income - Capital DistinctionMuch of the present tax system was designed in an era of physical industry and service and is not well suited to the modern intellectual property based environment. The past 20 years of “tax reform” has mostly been...

Only one person I can think of from my graduating class of 2005 is a Partner at a law firm. Of course, there might be more that I haven't kept in touch with, but it is an interesting anecdote. A number of them became Partners at a firm for a couple of years, but they...