Tomorrow's Lawyers: An Introduction to Your Future 37461st Edition

Tomorrow's legal world bears little resemblance to that of the past, according to Richard Susskind in this book. The next two decades will bring more changes to legal institutions and lawyers than have the last two centuries. While traditional job opportunities for young lawyers are diminishing, a whole range of exciting new legal occupations will soon be created.First, the bad news. The changes in the legal profession coinciding with the global recession are here to stay. Even if and when the global economy recovers, the three main drivers of change will not be going away:* The "more for less" challenge, in which companies have been putting pressure on their general counsel to cut legal budgets by 30 to 50 percent* Liberalisation, which is allowing people who are not qualified as lawyers to provide particular types of legal services* Information technology, which is becoming increasingly sophisticated so that computers can perform tasks that previously required skilled lawyersTo cope with the "more for less" challenge, law firms have tried charging less and alternative fee arrangements, but these efforts fail to achieve the cost reductions demanded by clients. The only two viable strategies, according to the author, are the efficiency strategy (which finds ways of cutting the costs of legal service) and the collaboration strategy (which involves clients sharing the costs of particular legal services). These strategies will require the breaking down of legal services into standard parts and custom parts, with the standard parts being commoditised and outsourced, in-sourced or computerised.Courts will also experience radical changes, as access-to-justice issues are resolved not through higher levels of funding but through greater use of information technology. We can expect to see a whole range of online legal services including virtual courts and online dispute resolution. There will be new types of legal jobs, such as legal knowledge engineers, legal technologists, legal project managers, and online dispute resolution practitioners.As with any predictions of the future, those relating to the immediate future based on currently observable trends are more likely to be accurate than those relating to the more distant future. Nonetheless, I found this to be a fascinating and easy-to-read book, which should be of great interest to anyone involved in law firm management.

Richard Susskind's book is comprehensive, and futuristic. He posits a future, or several scenarios, where the work of alawyer is more dependent on technology, artificial intelligence; and computer-assisted legal drafting.Susskind is critical of the present model in which associates and partners work on a client's file, with the associate's workbeing supervised and signed off by a partner. He calls it too expensive for one thing.I think that Susskind is too critical of partners, and does not give them enough credit to vision the future. The averagepartner in a law firm is like a shark, and can smell prey twenty miles away (metaphorically speaking).Without giving away too many secrets, the present system of law work has evolved for a reason; and technology is a minor part of it. No one minds paying fat legal fees, since they get out-sized benefits.In most cases, it is win-win, with bad firms being driven out by market forces.A buy.*

This book is about innovation, full stop, as much as it is about innovation in the legal procession. Substitute any profession in for lawyers, and it every argument will still apply.The first and last chapters encapsulate the conflict between the old and new guard, the "benevolent custodians" who are truly interested in leaving society better than they found it, and the "jealous guardians" driven only by self-interest. Susskind also provides a stimulating vision and roadmap about how to drive the necessary and inevitable transformation facing the legal profession.

I had hoped there would be more discussion of alternative revenue streams, like how to capitalize on attorney-created intellectual property. But overall, a nice read.

A book for tomorrow's lawyers, educators of tommorrow's lawyers, and today's lawyers concerned about the future of the legal profession. Susskind is well positioned to track trends and project their trajectory. While clearly informed by contemporary developments in the United Kingdom, the analysis is global in its reach. Besides which the United Kingdom at the moment may well be the R & D lab of the profession.

I am using this book as a text for a Future of Law Practice class. It is written by noted commentator Richard Susskind who frequently speaks and writes on the topic as he has done for many years. It is a great way to get thinking about how the delivery of legal services is changing or will need to change. The book is focused on the large civil lawyer firms, so those interested in legal aid and criminal law will need to supplement this book with other sources. Overall, a worthwhile read from a long term expert on the topic.

I thought this book was insightful and prophetic. It is chilling to think about the changes taking place in the practice of law and the impact they will have on the current structures for delivering those services. I am still reading the book, but the piece that seems to be missing is how traditional law firms transition to accomodate these changes.

Not particularly insightful or creative, although a very interesting topic. The author over promises, and then never quite explains how and why the future will trend in the direction he predicts. Technology has already changed the profession. That it will continue to do so in the future is not a revelation.