While law school graduates out-earn those with just a high school or bachelor’s degree on average, the legal profession is not immune to the same technological trends that have touched essentially every industry.
Advances in technology such as artificial intelligence allow modern software to scan legal documents, streamline communications and find relevant casework for lawyers. McKinsey estimates that 23% of work done by lawyers can be automated by existing technology.
…
Another way law schools are working to increase their value proposition is by offering more lifelong learning resources.
Greif argues that to a significant extent, law schools have always been centers of lifelong learning, through conferences and collaboration with local bar associations, but says that some schools have been ramping up their offerings.
From DSC: I wonder if this patent — or these types of technologies — might enable remote learners to select/control more of their preferred viewing angles?!
If you’ve watched YouTube streams of conventional 2D videos — such as commentaries on games, TV shows, movies, or trailers — you know that the streams are visually flat: video of the content, sometimes with a person’s face superimposed in the corner for added discussion. But Apple appears set to change that paradigm for augmented and virtual reality streaming. A just-published patent application reveals that it’s been working on compositing multiple streams in a way that could let AR and VR viewers watch streamed content from their choice of angles.
The Internet of Things enables a device to have more intelligence than it would as a stand-alone system.
Internet connectivity provides devices the capacity to share data, in order to power commands and processes that can help improve consumers’ lives.
…
And as this technology becomes more commonplace, the parts comprising such devices will become more financially accessible, algorithms will become more detailed and capable, and the internet of things will become even more powerful. This means the data from social media platforms, as well as from consumers’ daily lives, will be connected, and our devices will continue to make our world more streamlined. And that has significant implications for all sectors.
For a broader overview of the internet of things, and its growing impacts on how we live, check out this infographic from the team at Salesforce.
From DSC: This type of thing will be constantly running on a next-generation learning platform — i.e., scanning open job descriptions and presenting the top/”hottest” occupations/skills/employers — but then offering the relevant courses, modules, webinars, local learning hubs, discussion forums, etc. that will teach you the necessary skills (similar to what justwatch.com or suppose.tv provides for the entertainment industry).
When designing a new program, some institutions turn to Online Program Management (OPM) companies for help. These companies launch programs from scratch and manage many of the administrative aspects required to make the offering a success. But using an OPM can come with a significant price tag. For some colleges and universities, it’s still worth finding ways to launch unique online programs on their own. With the right research and expertise, online programs can be created without the help of an OPM. In this interview, Leslie Oster discusses how Northwestern’s Pritzker School of Law launched a new online offering without an OPM and reflects on how the school plans to expand its online presence.
Law isn’t a subject commonly taught in an online format, but pretty early on, we came to believe it was possible to create a high-quality online law program that included the essential aspects of the residential program.
How Blockchain’s ‘paradigm shift’ puts more pressure on legal’s tech evolution — from law.com by Rhys Dipshan As part of the Legalweek 2020 Q&A series, Legaltech News speaks with blockchain researcher and entrepreneur Bettina Warburg on blockchain’s potential disruption in the legal space, what attorneys most misunderstand about the technology, and more.
Excerpt:
Artificial intelligence may still take up much of spotlight these days, but it’s far from the only technology that can fundamentally alter how the legal industry, and the broader economy, operates.
Blockchain technology, for instance, has wide-reaching consequences for record keeping, contracting, data governance and identity management. And beyond that, it may even change how the digital economy functions and work as underlying driver for integrated, autonomously running machines. What all this means for attorneys is that specialization, technical skills, and more technology knowledge will likely become even more important than it is today.
We are not just in the days of Bitcoin, where one user transfers bitcoin to another user’s account. Instead, blockchain should be understood as part of an evolution toward a third generation Web (called Web3) that provides us with virtual machines that are stateful.
Web3 will be the basis of our transition from a digital economy to a decentralized economy. The economic opportunities of the decentralized economy can include wholly new business models: everything from fractionalized ownership and rights to assets that are secured digitally, to new kinds of verifiable and unique assets (such as virtual world avatars), to the ability for machines to transact with one another autonomously. A stateful virtual machine essentially allows us to have a shared verified reality upon which to transact digitally.
While it may sound futuristic, it is also the most obvious use for a digital infrastructure that can verify the transaction of value.
Most Influential Trends
Six trends are influential at 61% or more of colleges and universities (listed below from highest to lowest level of influence):
Year after year, I tried to fight this trend and raise awareness of it…only to see the majority of institutions of traditional higher education do absolutely nothing. Then, as the backlash started to build, the boards and the administrations across the country began priding themselves on how their percentage increases were amongst the smallest in the area/state/nation. They should have found ways to decrease their tuition, but they didn’t. Instead, they resorted to playing games with discounts while their “retail values” kept going up and up.
The time’s coming when they will pay the piper for having done this. Just like what happened to the oil companies and to the car/truck manufactures who made megabucks (for the time being) when their vehicles kept getting bigger and bigger and when the price of oil was high. What happened? The end result was that they shot themselves in the foot. These days, Tesla — with their electriccars — is now the most valuable car company in America.
Within the realm of education…when effective, cheaper alternatives come along that still get people hired, you better look out traditional institutions of higher education. You didn’t listen. It happened on your watch. And speaking of watches, the next major one could be you watching more of your institutions close while watching your students walk out the door to pursue other, far less expensive alternatives.
Follow up comments:
I realize this is a broad swath and isn’t true for several institutions who have been fighting the fight. For example, my current employer — the WMU-Cooley Law School is reducing their tuition by 21% this fall and other institutions have reduced their tuition as well or found ways to honor “Promise” types of programs. Other institutions have done the market research and are offering more relevant, up-to-date curricula. (Don’t worry those of you who work within the liberal arts, I still support and believe in you. But we didn’t do a good enough balancing act between offering liberal arts programs and developing the needed skillsets to help students pay off those ever-growing gorillas of debt.)
The fact was that too often, those invisible gorillas of debt went unnoticed by many within higher education. And it wasn’t just the boards, administrators, presidents, and provosts out there. In fact, the full-time, tenured faculty members taught what they wanted to teach and were furious at those who dared assert that higher education was a business. (Watch a college football game on the major networks last fall? Have you seen the size of research institutions’ intellectual property-based revenues? We could go on and on.)
Anyway, what tenured faculty members offered didn’t align with what the market needed and was calling for. They offered what was in their best interests, not the students’ best interests.
There has been an eruption of innovation in legal technology – and the role of the lawyer is evolving in consequence. From law firms and corporate practices, to the operation of the court system and management of documentation, technology is changing what we do, how we do it and where we can do it from.
PwC’s annual law firm survey 2019 found that eight of the top 10 firms identified technology as the key change in growth in the next two to three years. In November 2019, the Law Society published a paper, Lawtech: a comparative analysis of legal technology in the UK and in other jurisdictions, recognising the need for domestic lawyers to stay informed and up to date to remain competitive.
Lawyers are instinctively risk-adverse but the successful ones recognise the inevitability of change and opportunities. The introduction of technology requires investment of finance, time and resource. However, the steady march of technology and client and staff demands mean we must embrace the use of legal technology. It is vital to enable legal professionals to collaborate flawlessly with colleagues and clients, and to keep up with other professions and businesses. We must, however, not forget to be mindful of each other and not lose the ability and opportunity to communicate with each other personally. Machines think in binary terms and sometimes things are not that simple.
From DSC: My brother-in-law sent me the link to the video below. It’s a very solid interview about racism and what some solutions are to it. It offers some important lessons for us.
A heads up here: There’s some adult language in this piece — from the interviewer not the interviewee (i.e., you know…several of those swear words that I’ve been trying since second grade to get rid of in my vocabulary! Sorry to report that I’ve not enjoyed too much success in that area. Thanks for your patience LORD…the work/process continues).
While I have several pages worth of notes (because that’s just how I best process information and stay focused), I will just comment on a couple things:
* A 10 year old boy has rocks thrown at him by adults and kids and rightfully asks, “Why are they doing this to me when they don’t even *know* me?!” That burning question lead to a decades-long search for Mr. Daryl Davis as he sought the answer to that excellent question.
* Years later Daryl surmised this phenomenon was/is at play: Unchecked ignorance –> leads to fear –> unchecked fear leads to hatred –> unchecked hatred leads to destruction. One of the best ways to stop this is via education and exposure to the truth — which we can get by being with and talking to/with each other. How true.
One of the best things my parents ever did was to move us from a predominantly white neighborhood and school setting to a far more diverse setting. Prior to the move, we used to hear (and likely believed was true) that “There are all kinds of guns and knives at this junior high school and at this high school. Violence abounds there.” After moving and getting exposure to the people and learning environments at those schools, we realized that that fear was a lie…a lie born out of ignorance. The truth/reality was different from the lie/ignorance.
* Mr. Daryl Davis is an instrument of peace. He is:
Highly articulate
A multi-talented gentleman
A deep thinker
…and an eloquent communicator.
I thanked my brother-in-law for the link to the interview.
Product Description
As a child, Sheila Wise Rowe was bused across town to a majority white school, where she experienced the racist lie that one group is superior to all others. This lie continues to be perpetuated today by the action or inaction of the government, media, viral videos, churches, and within families of origin. In contrast, Scripture declares that we are all fearfully and wonderfully made.
Rowe, a professional counselor, exposes the symptoms of racial trauma to lead readers to a place of freedom from the past and new life for the future. In each chapter, she includes an interview with a person of color to explore how we experience and resolve racial trauma. With Rowe as a reliable guide who has both been on the journey and shown others the way forward, you will find a safe pathway to resilience.
2020 Top 10 IT Issues — from educause.edu The Drive to Digital Transformation Begins | EDUCAUSE Review Special Report
Excerpt:
Colleges and universities are working to unmake old practices and structures that have become inefficient and are preparing to use technology and data to better understand and support students and to become more student-centric.
They are working to fund technology and to sustainably manage and secure data and privacy. Higher education institutions are applying data and technology to innovate student outcomes and experiences.
The role of the CIO is undergoing its own transformation in order to advance institutional priorities through the use of technology.
The focus in 2020, then, is to simplify, sustain, innovate, and drive to Dx in all of our institutions and places of higher learning.
From DSC: To me, one of the key roles of today’s collegiate CIO should be to collaborate with the academic side of the house to identify ways to strategically use technologies to significantly lower the cost of obtaining a degree. Higher education affordability is listed as #8. That’s waaaaaay underestimating the issue and another key reason the backlash continues to build against traditional higher education. If things don’t change and a much cheaper — but still effective — means comes along, look out. Students and families are feeling the weight of the gorillas of debt on their back — weight that lasts for decades for many people today. Along these lines, issues involving privacy and data security — while also important to students — are mainly a CYA for colleges and universities. They don’t address the gorillas of debt as much as other solutions might.
Sorry if you don’t want to hear it, but one of the best solutions involves offering a significant amount of 100% online-based offerings. While this was mentioned, you can still get major pushback about this strategy. But you can’t tell me for one second that offering online-based classes is more expensive than offering traditional, face-to-face based classes. Why? What?! How could I possibly assert this?! The answer is quite simple. One just needs to request to review the budget of your Physical Plant Department. That’s why. Check it out if you can — you’ll see what I mean.
Also, though data is important, it won’t save colleges and universities from closing. What are some things that stand a better chance of doing that?! Here are some:
Vision
Developing a culture that supports innovation and a willingness to experiment/change
Finding ways to significantly lower the price of obtaining a degree
Scanning the horizons to see what’s coming down the pike and how that will impact our students’ futures. Then, develop the curriculum to best help our students prepare for their future.
“The CIO’s ‘role at the table’ has evolved to be one that is less about the mechanics of the IT organization and more about how IT can serve as a strategic partner in helping the institution execute its mission.”(source)
If your organization’s culture is all about maintaining the status quo:
* Your pursuit of lifelong learning needs to be in full gear
* Enhancing your personal learning ecosystem is critically important
…because given the rate of change, your organization may not be around for long.
How is AI technology disrupting the legal industry?
AI legal technology won’t replace lawyers, but these tools will drastically change the way lawyers provide services for their clients. While estimates vary, 23%t to 35% of a lawyer’s job could be automated. As a result, lawyers will need to be more strategic and supervisorial, able to act as project managers and supervise the information being fed into systems, and knowledgeable about the assumptions underlying the machine learning algorithms.
… What will be the next wave of AI legal technology?
The next generation, which is starting to hit the market now, will be document automation and legal research and writing tools, as well as predictive technology tools. For example, a contract can be put through an algorithm in order to identify how risky it is. It could be used to determine how likely it is to go into litigation or if it complies with the company’s internal contract procedures and policies.
Another use is analytic tools that can measure efficiency and pricing of the legal services. E-billing and practice management tools could measure whether a service contract should cost $2,500, not the $7,500 that’s being charged. In other instances, AI could help firms do estimates for alternative fee arrangements.
