Building Resilient Professionals in an Age of Automation Tania Leiman Associate Dean Teaching & Learning Flinders Law School tania.leiman@flinders.edu.au
This is the beginning of a conversation not the end This is the start of a journey not the destination These are only some of the questions not all the answers
Disruptive innovation describes a process by which a product or service takes root initially in simple applications at the bottom of a market and then relentlessly moves up market, eventually displacing established competitors. Clayton Christensen Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School http://www.claytonchristensen.com/key-concepts/
https://blogs.thomsonreuters.com/answerson/artificial-intelligence-legal-practice/
http://www.kempitlaw.com/wp- content/uploads/2016/11/legal-aspects-of-ai- Kemp-IT-Law-v2.0-Nov-2016-.pdf
https://www.cartlandlaw.c om/ailira-passes-uni-taxlaw-exam/
https://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/audit/articles/developing-legal-talent.html
http://www.pcmag.com/article/350088/blockchain-in-2017-the-year-of-smart-contracts http://gillianbeaumont.com.au/news-andevents/news/article/?id=blockchain-smart-contracts-and-the-changinglandscape-of-transactions
The most conservative people we talk to about the book are young professionals. They are people who have just spent five, seven or 10 years training to be a particular type of professional and spent a fortune doing so. And then they hear us say, many of the things you have trained for are just not going to be important to being a 21 st century professional, and they are furious. Daniel Susskind, The Australian Financial Review Thursday 19 May 2016 p.52
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http://www.legalfutures.co.uk/latest-news/diy-legal-site-experiments-with-robot-lawyer
https://www.lawbot.info/
http://www.legalcheek.com/2017/01/exclusive-richard-susskind-tells-lawschools-to-future-proof-students-with-tech-modules/
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/we-dont-need-teach-our-kids-code-them-how-dream-tom-goodwin?trk=eml-email_feed_ecosystem_digest_01-hero-0- null&midtoken=aqfggrjaqjykiq&fromemail=fromemail&ut=3xhvdpa5yujda1
Dr Bob Murray and Dr Alicia Fortinberry Leading the Future: The Human Science of Law Firm Strategy and Leadership p 4 Probably neither now nor in the foreseeable future will law corporations or firms be in the business of selling housing, clothing, food or beverages or sex. The business that lawyers are, and have always been in, is the same one that psychologists, doctors, priests, parents, tarot-card readers, accountants, and insurance salespeople (among many others) are in. They are catering to the strongest of all human needs: the need for relational safety.
Dr Bob Murray and Dr Alicia Fortinberry Leading the Future: The Human Science of Law Firm Strategy and Leadership p 5 All those pieces of the legal business which are not germane to establishing supportive relationships are the ones that are being, and are increasingly in danger of being, disaggregated. What will be left is the factor which is most saleable: the relationship between the partner or whatever they might be called in 10-15 years and the client. While that relationship provides safety and support, it is a valuable service.
Dr Bob Murray and Dr Alicia Fortinberry Leading the Future: The Human Science of Law Firm Strategy and Leadership p 6 Very few lawyers presently in law firms have the right traits and skills for the future. There are too many specialists, too many black-letter lawyers and too many legal technicians. Few of these will be needed in the firm of the future. What will be needed will be men and women who understand the art of listening, questioning and giving advice in a way that gives clients a sense of safety. These people will understand business and, more importantly, the psychology of running and operating a business. They will be more like advisory partners in the Big 4.
Sarah McCormick Kain Lawyers 2016 Innovation intern
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What can human lawyers do better than machines? that is valued by clients/society? that can provide a sense of purpose, meaning, vocation, generative energy? What does resilience mean in this context? Is this where we need to be focusing our efforts? What would it mean if we did?
p.3-4 Some things benefit from shocks; they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors and love adventure, risk, and uncertainty. Yet, in spite of the ubiquity of the phenomenon, there is no word for the exact opposite of fragile. Let us call it antifragile. Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better Antifragility has a singular property of allowing us to deal with the unknown, to do things without understanding them and do them well.
What does it mean to be a law student / legal educator / legal professional now? and what might/should/could that identity look like in future? What is legal education / legal practice / legal work now? and what might/should/could it be in future? What does thriving and flourishing while studying or working or seeking work look like now? and what might/should/could it look like in future? What does it means to be resilient in this changing world now? and what might/should/could it mean in future?
Optimism Opportunity Possibility Purposeful Creativity Innovation Connected Collaboration Uncertainty Flexibility Unpredictability Transience Entrepreneurship Challenge Social responsibility Sustainable Pessimism Threat Obstacle Process-driven Confinement Tradition Disconnected Isolation Certainty Rigidity Security Permanence Employee Control Profit Unsustainable
We re all part of this conversation We re all on the journey Let s ask big questions and share the answers we find
Tania Leiman tania.leiman@flinders.edu.au
Abstract This presentation seeks to explore what it means to be human and a lawyer in an age of increasing automation and legal technology. Recent innovations in the legal services sector have brought rapid changes including automated document production and review, e-discovery, predictive analysis, artificial intelligence and legal chatbots. These are taking place in a broader context of societal change - use of robotics in manufacturing; fully automated, driverless vehicles predicted to be widely in use by 2030; and blockchain technology enabling secure real time tracking of financial and other transactions. Authors and futurists such as Richard and Daniel Susskind, Martin Ford, Alec Ross, George Beaton and Imme Kaschner, point to big changes in the professional services industry, including the legal sector. The American Bar Association s Commission on the Future of Legal Services released its Report on the Future of Legal services in the United States in August 2016. Together these forecast an experience for professionals very different to their current participation in the workplace. These changes are set against a backdrop of a bigger conversation about the future of work itself. This level of disruption is mirrored in legal education, although arguably may yet to be fully appreciated by Law Schools. Five factors identified as disrupting legal education in the US (disruption in legal services, nonconsumption of legal services, policy/licensure changes, disruption in higher education, and nonconsumption of legal education) apply equally in Australia. So what does this mean for the future of legal education? What knowledge, skills and competencies will law graduates need to meet this new and dynamically changing environment? In this challenging context, characterising the essence of the role of lawyers as catering to the strongest of all human needs: the need for relational safety may provide key insights as to how law students can be effectively equipped with the capacity to be resilient, flourish and thrive as legal professionals in the twenty first century.
References Richard Susskind, Tomorrow s Lawyers (Oxford University Press, 2013); Richard and Daniel Susskind, The Future of the Professions (Oxford University Press, 2015); Martin Ford, Rise of the Robots (Basic Books, 2015) Alec Ross, Industries of the future (Simon & Schuster,2016) George Beaton and Imme Kaschner, Remaking Law Firms: Why & how? (ABA Book Publishing, 2016) Tim Dunlop, Why the future is WORKLESS (NewSouth2016); David H Autor, Why are there still so many jobs? The history and future of workplace automation, (2015) 29(3) Journal of Economic Perspectives 3; Eric Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, The Second machine Age: Work, progress and prosperity in a time of brilliant technologies ( Norton & Company, 2014) Michele R Pistone and Michael B Horn, Disrupting Law School: How disruptive innovation will revolutionise the legal world, Clayton Christensen Institute (March 2016) http://www.christenseninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/disrupting-lawschool.pdf Bob Murray and Alicia Fortinberry, Leading the Future: The Human Science of Law Firm Strategy and Leadership (ARK Group, 2016)