Alex Allen-Franks

The Reading List 10 high-impact reads and watches. Some old, some new. Delivered with no fluff or frills, and in no particular order.

The second edition of LensenMcGavin AI's The Reading List is out now.

Some really fantastic reads, including New Zealand's own (via Australia) Joshua Yuvaraj.

See below:

open.substack.com/pub/lensenmc...

Alexandra Allen-Franks 2025: Dr Alexandra Allen-Franks from Waipapa Taumata Rau – the University of Auckland will investigate how courts treat evidence that has been improperly obtained

www.royalsociety.org.nz/what-we-do/f...

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My babies have started laughing with each other. It is precious

There’s so much lost by not reading the source material, whether you’re reading someone else’s summary (eg a case head note) or a summary created without human input

Even more annoying is that the original poster is using the LLM to “wade through a mountain of papers for a systemic review”. Which means feeding a lot of academic material into the plagiarism machine that always lies, without the consent of the authors.

It’s their response to Tamiefuna v R

a man in a striped shirt is laying on his back on the floor holding a piece of paper ALT: a man in a striped shirt is laying on his back on the floor holding a piece of paper

nap time and one baby wakes so you pick that baby up to rock back to sleep, but then the other baby wakes up. So you try to get first baby back into cot without waking to deal with second baby and end up with two awake babies who should really be asleep for another hour

They are 6 months old today and I am still trying to finish this 🫠

Can rec knitting patterns but not crochet unfortunately! Congrats and good luck.

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What’s the justification? Foreign judges are “better”?

It really bothers me how the skill of summarising is devalued. It is a hard thing to do well and it is important to learning. Ughhhhhhhhhhhh

What is sepsis? Sepsis arises when a person has an infection, and the body's reaction to it injures tissues and organs

It’s World #Sepsis Day
Sepsis kills 11 million people each year.

Symptoms incl.:
🔸Fever or shivering
🔸Confusion
🔸Shortness of breath
🔸Rash that does not fade when pressed
🔸Extreme discomfort
🔸Sweaty skin

Seek medical care as soon as possible when an infection is not getting better.

Conor Gearty Conor Gearty

Sad to hear of the passing of Conor Gearty.

www.lse.ac.uk/law/news/202...

“The 'do minimum' option would cover work to improve the electrical system and maintenance technology, and deal with asbestos a bit.”

I think it’s time for me to finally write up my complaint about the state of facilities and care. Not sure how I will find the time but JFC.

This is despicable. I spent 3 weeks in Auckland City Hospital & the state of the facilities was appalling. My broken window was propped up by a [clean] piss pot in a room that had no other ventilation and was 26°. In another room the bathroom door didn’t shut and screws were hanging from the lock.

It’s really something trying to finish a revise and resubmit with infant twins. I do like 5 mins a day, every couple of days. At this rate I’ll be finished by the time they start school 🙃

You see, the great thing about law is that it comes down to what the law says, regardless of how “distinguished” or “leading” or “expert” a lawyer may be.

It is a curiously egalitarian subject, where a cat can speak to a king, or at least to the king’s counsel.

Why the United Kingdom government cannot leave the ECHR without either breaching or re-negotiating the Good Friday Agreement 1st July 2023 * The overlooked obstacle to the United Kingdom withdrawing from the ECHR * From time to time the demand comes from a government minister, or from one of their political and media sup…

Apparently “leading” lawyers and “experts” say that the Good Friday Agreement is no obstacle to UK leaving ECHR.

Me, being neither, merely sets out what the Good Friday Agreement expressly says.

davidallengreen.com/2023/07/why-...

Government promises to give police more information-collecting powers, details scant But details on the upcoming law change are still scant.

www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

Ongoing impact of Tamiefuna v R:

"In the Quarter 3 plan the government has signalled its clear intent to change the law, so that police have the lawful ability to collect, use and retain information about individuals in public places for lawful policing purposes"

Government promises to give police more information-collecting powers, details scant But details on the upcoming law change are still scant.

www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

Ongoing impact of Tamiefuna v R:

"In the Quarter 3 plan the government has signalled its clear intent to change the law, so that police have the lawful ability to collect, use and retain information about individuals in public places for lawful policing purposes"

From this, we realized we could generate large portions of some books with certain models, like a near-pristine copy of Harry Potter using Llama 3.1 70B.

This work is ongoing; preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2505.12546

More to come (hopefully soon)!

I’m excited to share that my paper with @jtlg.bsky.social , "The Files are in the Computer: On Copyright, Memorization, and Generative AI" (April 2024), is out in the AI Disrupting Law symposium issue of the Chicago-Kent Law Review!

The full issue is here: scholarship.kentlaw.iit.edu/cklawreview/

This should be a major disciplinary matter EVERY SINGLE TIME. No excuses. You are misleading the court.

As far as I am concerned there are NO legitimate use cases for genAI is law.

Transformative work of the day, footlong edition

I’m inspired!

This article is irresponsible reporting. As Eddie states below, when relevant evidence is not put before a jury because a judge has ordered that it shouldn’t be, there are good reasons for it. We are all to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, and we all have the right to a fair trial.

Graduated with my PhD a year ago. And 5 years before that, my LLM. Now I’m about to wake my twins up.

People always ask me : “Cristi, how do you manage parenting a baby while going up for tenure?”

It’s easy. The secret is *flow-based-scheduling*. Here are its three core strategies for new academic parents:

Sleep when the baby sleeps
Cry when the baby cries
Publish when the baby publishes

It is a fantastic jacket despite what some might say