Knake: Syllabus and Slides: Twenty-First Century Law Practice

Professor Renee Newman Knake of Michigan State University College of Law and the ReInventLaw Lab has posted the syllabus and slides of her course entitled 21st Century Law Practice: New Models and Markets, being offered during the MSU Law – Westminster Law 21st Century Law Practice Summer Program 2013 in London.

Here is the course description:

This course will provide students with an overview of the practice challenges facing lawyers in the 21st century, including economic pressures, technological advancements, increased globalization, international deregulation, and access to justice concerns. Building upon this background, the course will then explore a set of case studies to examine a variety of innovative new legal services delivery mechanisms and businesses in the US and the UK, such as Axiom, LegalZoom, QualitySolicitors, and others that have been created in anticipation of (or in some cases in response to) these challenges. Students will critically assess these legal service providers, and will reflect upon how lawyers and regulators should respond. Credit for this course is one hour.

HT @reneeknake

Tweets from LexThink.1 2013

Twitter tweets from LexThink.1 2013 lightning talks about innovation in legal technology and law practice, held 3 April 2013 in Chicago, Illinois, are now archived in .csv format.

The Twitter hashtag for the event was #lexthink

Click here for the event’s program.

Click here for the event’s Website.

New book by Richard Susskind: Tomorrow’s Lawyers

Professor Dr. Richard Susskind has published a new book entitled Tomorrow’s Lawyers: An Introduction to Your Future (Oxford University Press, 2013).

The book is available now in the UK, and will be available next month in the U.S.

Here is the publisher’s description:

In his newest provocative and forward-looking volume on the legal profession, Richard Susskind — the best-selling author of The End of Lawyers? and The Future of Law –predicts fundamental and irreversible changes in the world of law. What Susskind sees is eye-opening-a legal world of virtual courts, Internet-based global legal businesses, online document production, commoditized service, legal process outsourcing, and web-based simulated practice. Legal markets will be liberalized, with new jobs for lawyers and new employers too.

Tomorrow’s Lawyers is a definitive guide to this future–for young and aspiring lawyers, and for all who want to modernize our legal and justice systems. It introduces the new legal landscape and offers practical guidance for those who intend to build careers and businesses in law. Susskind identifies the key drivers of change, such as the economic downturn, and considers how these will shape the legal marketplace. He then sketches out the new legal landscape as he envisions it, highlighting the changing role of law firms-and in-house lawyers-and the coming of virtual hearings and online dispute resolution. He also suggests solutions to major concerns within the legal profession, such as diminishing public funding, and explores alternative roles for future lawyers in a world increasingly dominated by IT. And what are the prospects for aspiring lawyers? Susskind predicts what new jobs and new employers there will be, equipping prospective lawyers with penetrating questions to put to their current and future bosses.

Tomorrow’s Lawyers is an essential roadmap to the future of law for those who want to survive the rapidly changing legal landscape.

Features

• The first introduction for young and aspiring lawyers to the new legal landscape and how to succeed in it
• A revised and updated vision of the future, by one of the world’s leading experts whose past predictions for the law have generally come to pass
• Provides solutions to major concerns within the legal profession, such as diminishing public funding, and explores alternative roles for future lawyers in a world increasingly dominated by IT
• Identifies new employers for lawyers of the future and equips young lawyers with questions to ask prospective employers

Neil Rose has a new summary of the book at Legal Futures: Susskind: no future for high street firms, but window of opportunity for mid-sized practices.

HT @charonqc

Archived Tweets for COLPM 2012: College of Law Practice Management Futures Conference

Archived Twitter tweets in .csv format are available from COLPM 2012: College of Law Practice Management Futures Conference, held 26-27 October 2012 at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, DC, USA.

The archived tweets cover both days of the conference.

The Twitter hashtag for the conference was #colpm

Click here for the conference Website.

Click here for the conference program (pdf).

Kimbro on Regulatory Barriers to the Growth of Multijurisdictional Virtual Law Firms

Stephanie L. Kimbro, J.D., M.A., of Kimbro Legal Services and VLOTech has published Regulatory Barriers to the Growth of Multijurisdictional Virtual Law Firms and Potential First Steps to Their Removal, North Carolina Journal of Law and Technology, 13, 165-225 (2012).

Here is the abstract:

The spread of disruptive technologies to the legal profession is changing the dynamic of how law firms are structured as well as the value propositions associated with the delivery of legal services. The number of law firms with a national presence has grown due to the cost benefits and efficiency of using cloud computing. New models for expansion across jurisdictional boundaries are increasing. However, the regulatory barriers to create these new firm structures are numerous and costly. This paper reviews the evolution of technology in multijurisdictional firms and examines the primary regulatory barriers to their further development. A starting point for standardization of regulations is proposed as well as potential first-steps to removing barriers to the growth of multijurisdictional virtual law firms.

Granat on Unbundled Legal Services Online

Richard Granat, Esq., of the American Bar Association eLawyering Task Force has posted video and slides of his free Webinar entitled Unbundled Legal Services.

The Webinar is part of CALI‘s free course entitled Topics in Digital Law Practice.

Goodenough and Lauritsen, eds.: Educating the Digital Lawyer

Professor Oliver Goodenough of Vermont Law School and Harvard’s Berkman Center Law Lab, and Marc Lauritsen, Esq., of Capstone Practice Systems have edited a new book entitled Educating the Digital Lawyer (New Providence, NJ: Matthew Bender, 2012).

Click here to access an EPUB ebook version of the book free of charge. (If you need an EPUB reader, try the Firefox EPUB Reader extension.)

According to the introduction, the book chapters are based on papers presented at “a pair of conferences — one in October 2010 at Harvard Law School and one in April 2011 at Columbia Law School — that brought together several dozen academics and practitioners who are deeply interested in the technology of law and how law schools and other institutions should educate students and lawyers about it.”

Here is the table of contents:

• Brian Donnelly, What Does “Digital Lawyer” Mean?
• Marc Lauritsen, Lawyering in an Age of Intelligent Machines
• David M. Blaszkowsky and Matthew Reed, Meta-What? Lawyers, Legal Training, and the Rise of Meta-Data for Digital Securities and Other Financial Contracts
• Harry Lewis, Under the Hood of the Internet
• Jeanne Eicks, Educating Superior Legal Professionals: Successful Modern Curricula Join Law and Technology
• Brock Rutter, Survey of Existing Courses in Lawyer Use of Technology
• Fred Galves, Teaching Litigation Technology
• Ronald W. Staudt, Cyberclinics: Law Schools, Technology, and Justice
• Paul Maharg, Simulation: A Pedagogy Emerging from the Shadows
• Stephanie Kimbro, What Should Be in a Digital Curriculum: A Practitioner’s Must Have List
• Barbara L. Bernier and F. Dennis Green, Law School Reset — Pedagogy, Andragogy, and Second Life
• Michael G. Bennett, A Critical Embracing of the Digital Lawyer
• Gregg Gordon, The Digital Lawyer’s Evolving Education in Scholarly Research

HT @stephkimbro.

Legal Technology Programs at ABA 2010

A number of legal technology programs will be presented at ABA 2010: The American Bar Association Annual Meeting, being held 5-10 August 2010 in San Francisco, California, USA.

Click here for the conference program.

Here is one of the technology programs being presented at ABA 2010:

Marc Lauritsen, William Hornsby, Richard Granat, Stephanie Kimbro: The Virtual Law Firm: How to Build Your Practice in An Online World, 6 August 2010 (2:00-3:30 PM). Abstract:

This program will discuss, in a panel format, the concept of practicing law virtually and how it can enhance an existing traditional law practice, or exist as a totally virtual law firm. The program will discuss the benefits of delivering legal services online and how it can help a law firm acquire clients who are members of the connected Facebook generation, as well as provide more effective services to existing clients. Topics covered will include: what is a virtual law practice; the web architecture for a virtual law practice; online legal service applications, such as web enabled document automation: ethical issues in the delivery of online legal services, such as confidentiality, security, unauthorized practice of law, client identification and authentication procedures, conflict of interest checking; criteria of vendor selection; the costs associated with setting up a virtual law practice; and marketing your brand and virtual law practice online. This program is brought to you on behalf of the LPM eLawyering Task Force.