 "Looks forward to a new world" | 2009-07-22 |
| - Reviewed By User: AZ85B5Q1UEH5U |
Please note the question mark in the title.
Susskind, a British information-technology consultant and futurist, is not necessarily predicting the end of the legal profession in this thought-provoking but overly long and convoluted book. He is predicting that within a couple of decades, lawyering will have changed in ways that the typical law firm partner of 2009 can hardly envision.
The engine of change, as far as Susskind is concerned, is the Internet and information technology in general. Susskind points to 10 "disruptive technologies" - among them ideas as prosaic as automated document assembly and as visionary as the provision of legal advice through open-source technology - that will alter the face of the profession.
"Information technology is now part of the universe of lawyers," Susskind writes. "It is not a parallel universe. Disruptive legal technologies are too important to be left to technologists ... they are applications of technology that challenge the old ways and, in so doing, bring great cost savings and new imaginative ways of managing risk."
Susskind believes, for example, that except for the most customized, top-of-the-line engagements, legal work done by top firms in the United States and the United Kingdom will soon be largely standardized through the use of intelligent document assembly programs, the deployment of more paralegals and nonlawyers, and other innovations. Even high-end corporate work, he says, can benefit from standardization. The result will be lower costs to clients, a broader availability of legal services to the public, and possibly the end of the big law firm as we know it today.
Susskind is quite aware of the cutting edge of legal marketing. One of his "disruptive" techniques is "the electronic legal marketplace," which he sees as including online ratings of individual lawyers, online auctions, bulk purchasing, and readily available price comparisons. He foresees the multi-sourcing of legal services, increased confidence by clients that they are getting the best value for their money, greater choice, and of course lower costs.
The book can be slow going (Susskind has not learned how to write in short paragraphs), it can be repetitious, and Susskind's examples are taken almost entirely from British life, law, and experience and will be quite foreign to the American reader. For example, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, a government agency that Susskind regards as a key player in the legal Internet, sounds merely quaint to American ears.
Regardless, anyone who wishes to understand where the profession has been and where it is going should read this book. |
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| "A welcome addition to the conversation..." | 2009-07-04 |
| - Reviewed By User: A20AK01LDPH7LZ |
A provocative title which amounts to a call to arms or more accurately a call to reflect and learn from what is changing and challenging everyone else's business model. If you have read his earlier offerings the themes are familiar but more compelling. The promise/threats/opportunities presented by ICT are now capable of presenting a much more fundamental threat to the way we practice and the underlying assumptions upon which the legal 'business model' is built. Equally clearly the threat ICT represents presents just as much of an opportunity if the incumbents are prepared to embrace them and understand the other changes transforming the market for legal services.
I suggest reading this in conjunction with Christensen's 'The Innovator's Solution' Harvard Business School Press in order to appreciate how such threats have and can be utilised to advantage. |
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| "Market Forces and Innovation in the Legal Profession" | 2009-04-24 |
| - Reviewed By rhudock4 |
There is a distinct difference in the legal Market between in Europe and the United States. Unlike Europe the old guard is still in control. The prohibition on the corporate practice law discourages long term investment by law firms or corporations. Gradually activities like tax advise, employment advise are being done by non-lawyer or lawyers working for corporations but the specter of the unauthorized practice of law prevents any real innovation in the market place. Second, premium work still has a place -- bet the business litigation -- is not something people will gamble on a cheaper more efficient alternative.
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| "Brace yourself for transformational changes .... " | 2009-03-17 |
| - Reviewed By kquinley |
Author/attorney Richard Susskind offers a provocative look at technological and other trends that may be transformational to the practice of law. Though much of the book deals with law in the UK, many of the conclusions and forecasts are relevant to the legal profession in the United States. Especially interesting is his discussion of "disruptive technologies" that may impact the practice of laws.
This is a demanding book but one well worth the investment. Whether you are an attorney or a client, "The End of Lawyers" sketches not a terminal case for the profession but an eye-popping menu of ideas that may transform the delivery of legal services.
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 "Information technology is certain to change an information service like lawyering" | 2009-02-04 |
| - Reviewed By gagewyn |
In The End of Lawyers? Susskind explores and extrapolates trends in information technology and attempts to visualize and present how these trends may affect lawyers. After all, lawyers at a basic level sell access to information, and computers hugely change how information is accessed and distributed/sold.
The title, with its inclusion of "end" is meant to be provocative. Lawyers tend to be somewhat mired in the past and resistant to change. I'm a lawyer, and there is resistance to changes in the way legal services are prepared and sold. There is a view that legal services are somehow different and special.
The first four chapters (The Beginning of the End?, The Path to Commoditization, Trends in Technology, and Disruptive Legal Technologies) lay out how information technology has affected other fields which were similarly resistant to change, and how provision of legal services has already changed in responce to new developments in computers. Susskind breaks down different aspects of legal services and discusses potential for changes in the way these are provided. For example, rote drafting is easy to picture as being done by computers. Even in a system where the lawyer physically types out each standard contract or pleading, that lawyer is probably using a form book and a form book translates directly into a cut and paste computerized form. However, even complicated anaylsis can be done differently. For example, medical diagnosis by computer can be done by having the patient answer yes or no to a series of questions. This works well even for complex conditions. Susskind discusses a program designed to do the same in commodities law and the reaction of an expert in the field (the computer program did as well as he and sometimes better, which surprised him but not that much).
The next four chapters (The Future for In-house Lawyers, Resolving and Avoiding Disputes, Access to Law and to Justice, The Future of Lawyers) look indepth at different roles lawyers play and for each role try to extrapolate changes that might occur in that role. The entire book is laced with examples, and footnotes are likely to point to websites or firms which already provide the types of service which Susskind thinks we will see more of. These chapters moreso. This isn't all theoretical. I particularly liked the discussion of court systems and the ways some of them have automated different aspects of the court in order to deal with heavy case loads. Some many examples discussed here, like electronic filing and docket searches are newer changes which now feel normal. I spent my last semester in law school clerking part time at an administrative court in which judges are located a 6 hour drive from the district in which their cases are tried. This is accomplished through telephonic and video hearings. That's a huge change that came in within the last 10 years, but now it's normal. I think the extent to which the clerks of courts have adapted to new technologies and the extent to which they haven't is more obvious to lawyers in the field, since this is a system which eventually gets interacted with by everyone but is removed from most lawyers' daily lives.
I highly recommend this book to people in the legal field or knowledge management. It is well worth hunting down or ordering a copy. This was a fascinating, and because of that quick, read. The examples provide a good resource for where we've been, and the predictions are well thought and and provocative glimpses of where we might go. |
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| "Warning! Warning! The end is nigh!" | 2009-01-26 |
| - Reviewed By User: A20DHMP2YXRGLC |
I'm reminded of Blair's treacherous mission for Frank Field - "think the unthinkable". He did and got sacked! Susskind is made of different stuff (I hope) with this rethink on the nature of our legal services.
Academic Susskind has been thinking the unthinkable here, too. It's worth it after inconclusive attempts by Labour to introduce new packages on legal services, a commission, far too much regulation, and a "push me, pull you" policy on conditional fee agreements so we don't really know where we are or what direction we are going in- and whether we are even allowed to question the future because it is not the `done thing' and we should just take what is meted out from the government.
However, the next decade should be the decade of change for us as IT takes over and those carbon copies find their final resting place in the `V & A'. The author used a novel method to test his theories after his forerunner "The Future of Law", and was clearly delighted with the responses contained in his selected quotes from nine eminent people on the dust jacket: comments which are both sensible and constructive.
This book does present a scary future, but it's one we can manage, without Shakespeare's remedy - `first, let's kill all the lawyers' - which is what some of Susskind's imagery may conjure up for less secure lawyers. The thesis is about our continuing structure, how we deliver our services to the client and the state, and it should also be about what rights we have as lawyers fulfilling our functions as a career under continuous professional development policies- and about democracy within the legal profession which, for some, seems missing with our professional bodies.
So where does Susskind take us in his 8 chapters? The answer is along a road driven by 2 forces:
* by a market pull towards the commoditization of legal services;
* by the pervasive development and uptake of new and disruptive legal technologies; and
* our jobs.
The problem is that everyone else has the same problems just now so there's a need for a constructive approach by all (in other words, the government). Mixed with this will be the modern needs of lawyers, their physical and psychological profiles and wants, and the way in which business and society has adapted to new conditions so far.
I feel Susskind has made an excellent start by opening up this debate but we have a long way to go as the digital era takes effect. But what happens then? I would suggest that whilst the basics of representation and advice remain even with IT, the prognosis and implications in his conclusion should be read and re-read.
The author talks finally about motive- this is actually the beginning of a new structure for legal services which will always be needed in a civilized society. His parting aspiration that these services should be quicker, better, cheaper and more widely available is right (of course they should), but it hasn't worked in the past so why should it work in the future just because of IT! Susskind's rethink must be positive because as a newly famous American has just said "yes, we can". I think we can, so there is no end of lawyers, just a new beginning so the end is nigh has been postponed...indefinitely.
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