Technology's impact and future challenges for the legal profession

¶ … copying the quote or paraphrase and the quote and outline how you will structure the essay, and add the thesis statement.

"IT and the Internet have provided stiff competition for the phone, the ledger, the library, and the filing cabinet, but the substantive work of lawyers has yet to be reconfigured" (R Susskind, the End of Lawyers? (OUP 2010, p 21).

Although technology has been immensely positive to the legal profession, as this essay, will show, it also presents grave challenges to the extent that critics question whether legal profession as we know it will be enabled to survive.

This essay reviews both benefits and threats of technology to the legal profession and concludes that, ominous though some of these disruptive innovative features may seem to the future of the Law, they may be beneficial in that they will force the traditional lawyer to shape himself and thus grow in a dialectical twist of fate, to a new and more progressive future.

Paragraph 2: Introduce how technology has impacted massively in the legal world.

In order to discuss the enormous impact that technology has had on the legal world we need to divide technology into two categories: data processing and knowledge processing. Data processing refers to the use of technology to capture, use, disseminate, replicate and distribute information. Susskind gives the example, of his earlier years when he produced his thesis. One can be in constant communication with the most professional and renowned lawyers via online, e-mail, chat groups and forums and, research is less costly and more instantaneous via the various high-speed and extraordinarily efficient virtual search tools (Christensen, 1997)..

Printing is immediate (no need to go to a printer or have the book photocopied) -- printing tools (such s pdf exist online); you can have the material scanned, or e-mailed directly to you inbox, or faxed to you from a different location. The manuscript can be replicated an exponential amount of time simply with some keys on the computer board. It can be deleted at will without taking up too much time to do so, and e-mail bulk messaging enables transmission of one or more documents to be sent simultaneously to a group of people whilst ensuring data privacy and security and speedy transmission.

Response too may be instant with the lawyer having the possibility of spontaneous and reciprocal online communication with respondents or other communicants'. The lawyer can also use social media to build his networking He can establish a blog would he so wish to augment his practice. The online web enables him to contact whichever professional or resource he may so require at any specific moment of his choosing (Christensen, 1997).

There is also no need for lengthy trips down to the courthouse and the harassing and long waits there for documents or procedures. A great diversity of legal documents (such as those involved with divorce or protection of an individual) can be downloaded from the security of one's office, and previous law cases and precedents can be consulted online too.

Knowledge processing is the other technological marvel that helps us sift through, catalogue and arrange the mound of information that we have collated. Online search tools are one way of doing this, but other tools are certainly all of those that did not exist a half a decade or even thirty years ago, such as the computer tools ranging from file cabinet to the same replicated in the e-mail system.

Susskind sees knowledge processing lagging behind data processing but thinks the gap will soon close. Paragraph 3: How technology impacts the workload.

Technology allows inter-departmental collaboration -- by sharing the knowledge amongst experts, whilst reducing the amount of time spend on boring, repetitive, and mundane tasks. This liberates lawyers to focus the brunt of their attention on the more important tasks and allows them to do much more with their time and to take up many more cases would they so wish.

Programs disseminated, for instance, by Legal OnRamp help the lawyer accomplish his work more effectively and responsibly. OnRamp Exchange, for instance, serves as the cataloguing or general filing system where all legal briefs are stored and can be downloaded for consultation. Negotiated guidance can be stored within that same program, too, as wikis. Knowledge can be shared and exchanged. Template contracts and clauses as well as contract language can be stored there as well and members can interact through that gateway asking questions and receiving response.

Time zones may have posed a challenge at one time, but nowadays virtual programs such as OnRamp Exchange allow users to bypass that, enabling lawyers from one country to pose a question to their peers in another and receive the response via email or browser. The question can be sent via browser and e-mail simultaneously, and the person can also respond via his/her Blackberry. All of this enables instantiates, timely dealing with case and case can move along far faster and be, theoretically, resolved in a far faster amount of time than cases used to take. (LegalOnRamp Interview: The Impact of Technology on Legal Services http://legalonramp.com/index.php/LegalOnRamp-Interview-the-Impact-of-Technology-on-Legal-Services.html)

The activist lawyer can also recruit a massive following and a far greater amount of attention to his appeal than he could at one time and through an afar shorter amount of time reaching all over the globe and attracting thousands if not millions of individuals to his agenda via social media.

Para 4-6: Briefly introduce new disruptive legal technologies

Just as other services and goods are procured online, so too legal services are increasingly becoming an online commodity where clients can research reputation and qualifications of lawyers online and procure their services. Clients or providers can, in short, build an online electronic legal marketplace where clients can find providers and procure, as well as leave, information and opinions regarding these providers. There does seem to be tendencies such as these already germinating. Having this resource may be beneficial since clients will be far easier and better be able to find their match instead of the traditional tortuous and often misleading system where clients find their lawyers through trail-and-error.

The online hub will allow clients to find lawyers in a more informed way where availability, price, and performance will all be clearly catalogued and clients will be better satisfied.

Online auctions could be another resource where clients can secure legal services at competitive prices. E-LawForum is already an institution that manifests something of this pattern.

Another form of online service can be legal matchmaking services; TakelegalAdvice.com seems to be a pioneer of just this kind of idea. These are just some of the many innovative legal disruptive technologies that have begun to emerge in an online environment.

-Online dispute resolution? Online dispute resolution (ODR) can be helped by technology in various ways. This includes the use of telephone conferencing rather than the arduous step of arranging meetings where one may be tired and which have to be arranged at a time convenient to all. Telephone conferencing arranges that these meetings can be made from the security and ease of one's home. Telephone conferencing can also help people prepare for pre-court trials and can also be used as video conferencing where witnesses or parties can appear before a judge.

An illustrative example of ODR is Squaretrade where cyber squabbles that occur amongst online traders are premised and resolved firstly via free negation process, secondly via a charged mediation process. The entire process usually takes approximately 10 days and if no decision is reached by that time, the mediator turns into an arbitrator and recommends a solution.

Online mediation is another possibility that can be accomplished when offline mediation becomes too costly or too complex due to logistical difficulties. Parties can then schedule a time to meet and discuss their difficulties via online chat, telephone conferencing, e-mail, or some other technological tool. ADR offered such service in alternative dispute resolution staring in 2002 and now train their practitioners in managing online ADR sessions

ODR has been extended to a variety of cases even those as vulnerable and fraught with complexity as family law. Other services are the Possessions Claim Online and the iCourthouse initiative which is an online hearing room where internet users can present their claims.

Those whom Susskind calls the Net generation may well prefer ODR to conventional and more traditional ways of resolving disputes. Yet the system has some disadvantages for lawyers and may be for users too. These will be addressed in the next section.

Para 7-11: Evaluation mainly focus on two of the disruptive technologies

Introduction

As seen some of these disruptive technologies can be and are extremely beneficial to facilitating the lawyer's work schedule and making it more efficient as well as less prone to error. These technological innovations are also of extreme help to clients in more than one way, particularly in that it provides them with better and more convenient legal service, sometimes at a reduced price. On the other hand, they have their disadvantages too.

The previous section discussed the advantages of ODR. This section will list some of its disadvantages and, likewise, analyze the advantages and disadvantages of online legal guidance in general

Positive sides

ODR

The merits of ODR, as stated, include the fact that users can save time and expense by scheduling their meetings online at the comfort and convenience of all parties. Disputes, too, such as those by virtual traders can be resolved in a timelier applicable manner to the greater satisfaction and contentment of all parties. Telephone conferencing can be a long and arduous process shorter. These are merely some of the benefits that the ADR has noticed emerge from ODR to the point that they train their practitioners in the system.

Online legal guidance

A plethora of websites exist where clients can access so called experts of law who will provide legal guidance at competitive prices and for a range of issues. These online legal services, virtual lawyers, or legal advice systems -- amongst some of the terms used -- are services where clients do not need to turn to a human body. Instead these services might provide any number of a range of legal services ranging from providing expert legal diagnoses, generating legal documents, assisting in legal audits, or providing legal updates.

The merits of the system can be evidenced with the example of Linklaters' where the pioneering system enables clients to retrieve legal documents without going to the expense and trial and error lengthy process of time of hiring a conventional lawyer. This type of legal DIY has been replicated in various other similar and dissimilar online legal institutions. Users find it beneficial, and lawyers may find it a feasible route to promoting their services and attracting clients albeit in an online rather than offline environment.

Negative sides

Improvement

The problems are evident. It seems as though "the party is over" for the legal professions. And yet Susskind points outs that far from over, the legal profession will always continue but may just have to change in reaction to the changing times. The law profession, in other words, in order to continue succeeding will have to modify itself and be prepared to make changes. New methods, systems, and processes will emerge and lawyers will have to adapt to cater to them. Multi-sourcing may also become the rule.

Susskind sees a new cadre of lawyers appearing and actually sees lawyers being divided it not 5 categories. These are:

1. The expert trusted advisor -- This will be the lawyer who will provide streamlined and tailored innovative guidance to clients who need it in addition to their online voyeurism

2. The enhanced practitioner -- who will supplement the standardized services and provide unique professional services that clients will be unable to attain in the regular / online way

3. The legal knowledge engineer -- Those who will be needed (in droves) to organize, catalogue and distill the large body of law in the computerized online legal systems

4. The legal risk manager -- Those who will be offering a wide range of proactive and preemptive legal services that will predict and prevent legal problems from occurring.

5. The legal hybrid -- the lawyer who is superbly schooled and multi-disciplinary in a cross-cutting section of law.

In short, whilst critics see certain technology as being disruptive and problematic to the legal profession, Susskind sees it as potentially generating an evolutionary paradigm that twill causes it to modify itself to the changing times and simply change direction becoming stronger in the process.

Conclusion

Technology is both helpful and disadvantageous to the legal profession. A purview of some of the legal online systems such as ODR and online legal institutions shows us that whist they may be helpful to clients they are potentially disrupting to the traditional legal system possibly spelling its doom and downfall in that lawyers will be forced to relinquish their base of business to non-conventional and virtual legal systems potentially displacing and disrupting traditional legal system.

Optimism can however be found in the thought that rather than being displaced, the legal profession will be forced to revise, reform, and modify itself in accordance to changing times. This will make it not only inculpate technology in its profession for its advantage, but also use technology to give it a new face helping it not only become more customer friendly but also acclimatize and shaped itself to new realities.

Conclusion: -Did it and Internet provide stiff competition for phone... - Did substantive work of lawyers change

According to Susskind "IT and the Internet have provided stiff competition for the phone, the ledger, the library, and the filing cabinet, but the substantive work of lawyers has yet to be reconfigured" (Susskind, the End of Lawyers? (OUP 2010 p 21).

Fifteen years ago, enthusiasts of AI said the same thing: that AI would overturn the legal profession. It has yet to do so (Mountain, 2002, 1065). This essay has however demonstrated that it and the Internet has posed as much competition for lawyers as it has for everything else. Certainly, the substantive work of lawyers has to be reconfigured, but it is in process of becoming so and is compelled to do so due to the phenomena of virtual reality that has attacked it in multiple manners. Dealing with the competing influence of online technology will cause lawyers to transform their profile and mode of working as well as almost everything else of the legal field.

Sources

Christensen C. The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2000).

Mountain, Daryl R. 'Could new technologies cause great law firms to fail' [2002]

52 Syracuse L. Rev. 1065

Jassanoff, Sheila. Science at the bar: law, science, and technology in America (Harvard University Press, 1997)

LegalOnRamp Interview, 'The Impact of Technology on Legal Services'

Susskind Richard, the End of Lawyers? (OUP 2010 )

Susskind RE the Future of Law: Facing the Challenges of Information Technology (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996).

Voorhees M 'Faraway Pay Day: When will firms' investment in technology produce dividends?' [2000] the American Lawyer, 1 . < http://www.lawnewsnetwork.com/stories/A18095-2000Mar7.html>