The Law
Clinic offers legal advice on digitalization to built environment innovators
and experimenters and in the process helps lawmakers find the pain points in
legislation.
In April
2018 the Finnish Ministry of the Environment launched an experimental legal
service for real estate and construction professionals, municipalities, and
lawmakers.
The
cost-free service is like a helpdesk for anyone who has questions about real
estate and construction laws and regulations and their interpretation as it
applies to new digital processes. The Law Clinic is part of the national
KIRA-digi project, which includes 138 experiments, many of which need legal
advice for their execution.
A Unique Concept
The ministry chose Lexia Attorneys, a Finnish law firm, to provide the services. Lawyer Aleksi Lundén leads the project.
“Lawmakers
don’t necessarily understand the practical challenges that built environment
stakeholders face when digitalizing the industry,” Lundén explains.
“This new channel for inquiring about legislation and giving feedback to
lawmakers has proven its value already.”
Lundén has an
extensive international network, but he has not heard about a similar service being
offered elsewhere. The clinic was showcased at the World Summit on Digital
Built Environment WDBE in September in Helsinki where it prompted discussion
among local and international attendees alike.
Running the Clinic
The Law
Clinic collects and analyzes information on legal problems and identifies laws
that may slow down or impede digitalization in the built environment. It
reports back its findings to the Ministry of the Environment. The clinic runs
until the end of 2018, and Lexia will publish the results of the experiment at lakiklinikka.fi in February 2019.
The clinic
has a hotline on which anyone can share problems and ask for legal guidance.
“It has been a bit of a challenge to attract users,” Lundén admits.
“We’ve promoted the clinic at several events and contacted KIRA-digi
experimenters directly. Those who have contacted the clinic have found it
helpful.”
Lexia has
organized two roundtable discussions about the legal challenges of
digitalization. The attendees represented a cross-section of businesses,
municipalities, and governments.
The
roundtable discussions have been lively and rewarding. They have signaled a
need for legislative agility. Technology develops at an accelerating speed, but
laws live in the past.
Many Opportunities for
Improvement
When
companies develop new business models that make use of digital technologies, many
questions about legal issues naturally arise. For example, a Finnish online
self-service real estate agency did not employ traditional human agents, which
contravened the current law.
The Law
Clinic has already outlined a host of legal questions needing a solution. These
questions relate to city planning, public procurement, IPRs, open data, real
estate agencies, privacy, the GDPR, and other matters.
Digital
design processes also need new rules. Who owns the BIM data and who can use it
after project completion?
Many people
have suggested that the number of regulations should be radically reduced. Others
want more regulations that would boost digitalization. For example, making IoT
sensors mandatory in public buildings would improve the control of energy use
and indoor air quality.
A
digitalized city planning process would speed up digitalization and provide
easy access to land use information to anyone interested. Municipalities are at
different levels of digital preparedness, which makes it difficult to
accomplish this all over the country at once.
A Learning Process Leading
into the Future
The Law
Clinic has improved Lexia’s understanding of the impact of digitalization on
built environment businesses. The company also gained insight into service
design while developing the clinic, and Lexia wants to be active in the
transformation of the real estate and construction industries.
“In my
practice as a real estate and construction lawyer, I have kept an eye on the
digitalization of the industry for years. I would say that now there’s real
momentum for change,” Lundén claims. “The KIRA-digi project ends this
year, but I think we’re only at the beginning.”
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