23 www.lawyer-monthly.com Lawyer Monthly Legal Awards 2024 fact finder must apply the results returned by the program with discretion and balance them against other relevant factors”. Another very delicate point concerns the “equality-of-arms” principle: according to said principle, using AI in a criminal trial should imply that the defendant must be granted the same right to access to technological means as available to the Prosecutor. Right now, this is not the case. Thinking of a well-known case that I am currently dealing with concerning the collapse of an important national infrastructure, the Prosecutor has employed a costly AI system, paid with taxpayers’ money, which enables the examination of a gigantic amount of digital data. A defendant – who will never be able to rely on such resources as those in a national budget, cannot purchase the same tool; this disparity consists of a glaring breach of the equality-of-arms principle. The issue was submitted to the Court, which actually failed to address the main point. Still, it will take some time more – though not that much – before we have an extremely widespread implementation of adequately “trained” AI, but the technology is here to stay; accordingly, lawyers will need to learn how to make the most of these tools, without, at the same time, allowing these technologies to overwhelm them. Not an easy task. What is the process you follow when involved with a case? Is there such a thing as a typical case? Every case is unique. Our legal counselling is “tailored” to the needs of our client, whether he is a manager or a company, having regard to that specific trial. In order to lay out an effective strategy, one must first get acquainted with every corner of the “battlefield”. Therefore, studying and elaborating fastidiously all the information collected by the Prosecutor and provided by the client as well, represents a first and unavoidable step. During this early stage of our legal assistance, defensive investigations are of the highest importance: as a rule, the Prosecutor is inclined to assume that the investigations they conducted are thorough and complete; therefore, if a lawyer wants to spare their client a charge, they must be able to put a dent into the structure of the prosecutions’ factual hypothesis by introducing utterly new circumstances that might have got past their attention. In this respect, defensive investigations prove the most useful device in the lawyer’s toolbox. Moreover, the evidence so collected is protected by attorney-client privilege, making defensive investigations the safest means to carry out internal inquiries for companies when there is reasonable suspicion of frauds or other crimes being committed by employees. Moving to the next phases of the trial, cross-examination is a delicate and crucial passage for the final outcome; it must be prepared with painstaking attention, the team must look into every single fact the witness can be possibly questioned on, being ready to handle every possible statement, much as unforeseeable as it may be, so that the evidential goal at the heart of the defensive strategy can be attained. The conclusive stage, the closing speech, must be the distillate of all the evidence brought to the court’s attention, derived by accurate selection of those items which are more likely to persuade the factfinder. Beside all the litigation-related activities, there is also the non-judicial advisory function, meant to aid companies in assessing and managing the “criminal-law risk” that comes with entrance into the Italian market and, more generally, entailed by their own organization and by the specific type of business they conduct. This step also requires full awareness of the relevant operational background, as well as comprehension of the specific needs of the client. Once the factual and legal backdrop has been established, our team will work side by side with companies in outlining those arrangements that can prove the most effective in preserving their going concern and, at the same time, either eliminating all relevant risks altogether or, if not possible, attaining a sufficient level of reduction. Q Every case is unique. Our legal counselling is “tailored” to the needs of our client, whether he is a manager or a company, having regard to that specific trial. In order to lay out an effective strategy, one must first get acquainted with every corner of the “battlefield”. “
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