Oct 19, 2021 in News Legal News

Legal News: Daniel Michaelson Talks Tech with Canadian Lawyer Magazine

The legal industry is notoriously slow to adopt and adapt to new technologies. Think of the system-wide gridlock in Ontario’s justice system at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic: while some businesses transitioned seamlessly to remote work, a lack of technological infrastructure in Ontario’s courts caused civil and criminal cases to grind to a halt.

For some legal professionals, including Neinstein personal injury lawyer Daniel Michaelson, this failure likely came as no surprise. In an October 5 Canadian Lawyer article, Michaelson spoke about the legal industry’s need to better predict and embrace technological advances.

“People don’t appreciate we’re in a tidal wave of new tech, and it’s coming whether we like it or not,’ he said.

Michaelson identified three areas where technological change could have a direct impact on personal injury law: medical malpractice, motor vehicle accidents, and product liability. In both medical malpractice and motor vehicle claims, Michaelson expects product liability to become a prominent issue. For example: robotic tools are becoming more common in operating theatres; when a medical injury is caused by an instrument malfunction rather than a physician’s error, that’s really a product liability issue. 

In the case of motor vehicle accident claims, sophisticated navigation and self-driving systems are slowly becoming ubiquitous. What happens when such a system causes an accident, despite the best efforts or intentions of the driver? Once again, this may be a product liability matter.

As Michaelson tells Canadian Lawyer, Ontario law may adopt something resembling the province’s current no-fault accident benefits system for accident and injuries related to complex technology.

“We may see more movement in that direction because it becomes too difficult to determine fault when we’re talking about software updates happening at the speed of light – or not – that the driver would have no idea was even happening in their vehicle,” he explained.

And these changes may be happening sooner than the common personal injury lawyer would expect. Tech companies and other big businesses, including Uber and some transportation companies, are aggressively pursuing self-driving technology to reduce costs. A reality where most of the vehicles on the road are autonomous may be no more than a couple of decades away. 

“People forget that 100 years ago there were more horses on our roads than cars, and nobody could have perceived that soon after there’d be no horses, only vehicles,” Michaelson said. “And that was prior to computers, modern math and modern science. This will happen way faster than people think.”

As Neinstein Personal Injury Lawyers, we aspire to be on the pulse of technological shifts in our society. We understand that the way people interact with the world will affect how and why they are injured, and that technology is becoming an ever more present part of our lives. If you’ve been injured in an accident, contact us today to schedule a free, no-obligation consultation with Daniel Michaelson or another personal injury lawyer on our team.