How Technology is Transforming the Legal Profession: Peter Guffin to Speak at Maine State Bar Association Annual Bar Conference

Peter Guffin, Pierce Atwood partner and chair of its Privacy & Data Security practice, will speak on the topic “Why Privacy Matters” in the digital age. Viewing privacy through the ages, he will explain that history is repeating itself and that technology advances once again are driving the need to renegotiate society’s relationship with privacy. In the wake of recent news about Facebook/Cambridge Analytica and law enforcement’s use of DNA data from an ancestry website to find the Garden State Killer, the important question today is not whether privacy is dead but what comes next by way of creation of new privacy norms and expectations and development of laws and regulations to protect personal data.

Peter will also participate as a panelist on the topic “Transparency and Privacy: Court Records and E-Filing in Maine.” While the Maine Judicial Branch works to develop policies and procedures to govern access to digital court records in an effort to balance the interests of transparency and privacy, state courts in Maine continue to have the discretion to protect parties’ legitimate litigation, privacy, business, and property interests. In anticipation of an e-filing system in Maine, lawyers should refamiliarize themselves with the various procedural mechanisms currently available to civil litigants and consider their utility in protecting the personal privacy (and proprietary business and financial) interests of their clients.

This year’s MSBA conference, taking place June 20-22, will examine the impact of technological advances on the legal profession, as well as artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, privacy, and ethical obligations in the practice of law. Conference participants are eligible to receive CLE credits.

Please click here for more information and registration instructions.