After 40 Years of Constant Change, What’s Next for the Legal Industry?  — from law.com by Dan Packel
Few could have anticipated the dramatic shift in scope and scale the industry has undergone since The American Lawyer’s founding 40 years ago. We asked some of the law’s brightest thinkers what we can expect over the next 10.

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

Technology and Upheaval
While it’s easy to conclude that the technological revolution that’s already been unleashed will continue to drive transformation over the next 10 years, it’s harder to pinpoint how.

Expect more and more tasks to become subject to automation—not just contracts and e-discovery but also areas like trademarks and due diligence for mergers, for starters.

Technology and artificial intelligence on their own are noteworthy, but what’s more compelling is the impact they will have on how firms are structured.

“Everything that can be taken out of the hands of subject-matter experts and handed over to the process experts and technologists will be,” says Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe Chairman and CEO Mitch Zuklie. “There will be far fewer associates sitting in rooms with documents and more strategic partnerships among law firms and legal tech providers.”

This transition could help chip away at the supremacy of the billable hour.

Not only will technology move up the value chain for litigation, it will also emerge as a greater player on the deal side. Jae Um, director of pricing strategy at Baker McKenzie, expects to see a much greater focus on compliance and regulatory technology in the next five years.

As AI solutions, which depend upon machine learning, are slowly deployed in the marketplace, their efficacy will inevitably grow.

 

How about a little wild speculation to wrap this up?  With more nonlawyer specialists finding professional homes in law firms, it’s a short leap to hybrids between law firms and professional services operations. Imagine consultants and accountants working together with lawyers and technologists to solve clients’ increasingly complex problems. And what about a high-profile merger between a Big Four firm and a global law firm? I wouldn’t rule it out.

 

 

What to expect at IFA 2019, Europe’s colossal tech show — from digitaltrends.com by Josh Levenson

Excerpt:

This week, the world’s leading manufacturers will take to the stage at IFA 2019 in Berlin, Germany, to showcase their latest innovations. Here’s what you need to know about this year’s show, including when it’s set to start, how long it will run for, where it’s held, the schedule, and all the devices we’re expecting to see unveiled by the likes of LG, Sony, Samsung, and more.

 

How Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Transforms Video Technology — from datafloq.com

AI and machine learning have many use cases in digital video technology. Here are several of them…

 

From DSC:
After reviewing the item below — and after trying to limit the screen time of our youngest daughter these days — I am again reflecting on how difficult it is to raise kids today. I’m not going to get on the technology bashing train, but I’m just going to say that — at least in this area of life — my parents had it much easier!  🙂  It’s not easy to cut off the kids’ access to the Internet these days…as the article below illustrates!

Teen goes viral for tweeting from LG smart fridge after mom confiscates all electronics — from cbsnews.com by Caitlin O’Kane

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Dorothy said she was boiling rice one night and was too preoccupied by her phone, so the stove burst into flames. “So my mom took all my tech so i’d pay more attention to my surroundings,” she said.

Then she explained that both the DS and Wii allow image share, so she could send images from those devices to Twitter, adding messages.

Sometime after finding her DS, it was taken again, so Dorothy started tweeting from yet another connected device: her fridge. “My mom uses it to google recipes for baking so I just googled Twitter,” she told CBS News.

 

Why teaching is still the best job in the world — from teachthought.com by Paul Moss

Excerpt:

…introducing students to new technologies and ways of presenting, curating, and collaborating with others with what they know is truly exciting and truly invigorating. Modern teachers are actually pioneering pedagogy, and can and will be able to hold their heads up high in the future when we look back and see how learning in this day and age took a radical but enormously beneficial turn for the better.

Engaging students in greater collaboration, and instilling initiative in curation and the promotion of information leads to truly independent learning, and setting up such learning environments is an opportunity that all teachers now have before them. There are few more gratifying feelings that being needed.

 

 

The Legal Industry is Starting to Collaborate — Why Now and Why It Matters — from forbes.com by Mark Cohen

Excerpt:

Law Is No Longer Is Immune To Broader Forces Driving Global Change
Law’s insularity—if not its culture—has changed during the past decade with the convergence of the global financial crisis, technology, and globalism. These powerful global macro-economic forces have produced legal disaggregation, segmentation, and a separation of legal practice from the business of delivering legal services-among, other things. Technology has enabled the creation of new legal delivery models whose DNA resembles business more than law.

Some common characteristics among leading new-model legal providers include: a flatter, corporate organizational structure; an economic model aligned with client value; tech-enabled platforms; focus on net promoter score (client satisfaction); institutional capital; agile, multi-generational, multidisciplinary, diverse workforces; data-driven internal and client-facing operations; proactive risk identification/mitigation; and a customer-centric focus. These providers are often referred to as “legal tech” companies. While they are tech-enabled, technology is only part of a broader, holistic process of customer-centric reorganization that drives enterprise value and responds to enterprise challenges.

 

 

What will happen when 28 billion devices are connected online? — from fastcompany.com
The Internet of Things is already well on its way. Here’s how it will impact our future.

Excerpt:

The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network that connects a staggering array of devices, from household appliances to factory machines. During a panel discussion at Cisco Live 2019 in June, two leading figures in IoT shared their thoughts on this rapidly evolving technology that has already transformed the world.

 

Governments take first, tentative steps at regulating AI — from heraldnet.com by James McCusker
Can we control artificial intelligence’s potential for disrupting markets? Time will tell.

Excerpt:

State legislatures in New York and New Jersey have proposed legislation that represents the first, tentative steps at regulation. While the two proposed laws are different, they both have elements of information gathering about the risks to such things as privacy, security and economic fairness.

 

 

Why law faculty need to learn about legal tech and what they need to know — from aals.org by Catherine Sanders Reach and Michael Robak — with special thanks to Kim O’Leary, Tenured Professor at WMU-Cooley Law School for this resource

Excerpts:

Technology is playing an ever-increasing role in the profession of law and the delivery of legal services. Legal educators must give real consideration to the role of technology in the legal profession if legal educators are going to sufficiently prepare law students to practice law in the 21st century. In this webinar, the presenters will explain why law faculty need to learn about legal tech and what they need to know.

Click here to watch this webinar on-demand. You will be asked for your contact information before viewing.

Presentation Slides

 

Also see:

Tech Competence That Solo and Small Firm Lawyers Really Need: Resources Here

Excerpt:

DIGITAL ASSETS AND ESTATE PLANNING
Many estate planning lawyers are hopelessly behind on assisting clients in making provisions for digital assets. In so doing, they expose themselves to malpractice. Without proper provision for digital assets, beneficiaries can lose out on substantial sums of money that they cannot locate or access. Many lawyers I’ve spoken with have dismissed digital assets figuring that most older clients aren’t using the Internet. But that’s not necessarily the case. To the contrary, older clients may indeed be using the Internet but not be aware of the need to make provisions for disposing of assets. At some point, lawyers will be sued for failing to advise on digital assets- and deservedly so.


Also see:

 

 

Top 10 Digital Transformation Trends For 2020 –from forbes.com by Daniel Newman

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

A faster WiFi for a faster world: Although WiFi 6 and 5G are completely different technologies, both will be bringing us much faster processing and wireless connection speeds in 2020. 5G and WiFi 6 working in concert will create the perfect end-to-end combination of ultra-fast connectivity for home and office. Expect download speeds up to 3x faster than were achievable with WiFi 5, but that isn’t the best measure of the new standard’s value. The real value of WiFi 6 will be its ability to extend faster data speeds to far more devices than WiFi 5 was able to manage.

 

Amazon pledges $700 million to teach its workers to code — from wired.com by Louise Matsakis

Excerpt:

Amazon announced Thursday that it will spend up to $700 million over the next six years retraining 100,000 of its US employees, mostly in technical skills like software engineering and IT support. Amazon is already one of the largest employers in the country, with almost 300,000 workers (and many more contractors) and it’s particularly hungry for more new talent. The company currently has more than 20,000 vacant US roles, over half of which are at its headquarters in Seattle. Meanwhile, the US economy is booming, and there are now more open jobs than there are unemployed people who can fill them, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

 

Against that backdrop, Amazon’s jobs skills efforts provide some reassurance that—in theory at least—you could be retrained into a new role when the robots arrive.

 

From the announcement:

Based on a review of its workforce and analysis of U.S. hiring, Amazon’s fastest growing highly skilled jobs over the last five years include data mapping specialist, data scientist, solutions architect and business analyst, as well as logistics coordinator, process improvement manager and transportation specialist within our customer fulfillment network.

 

Also see:

  • Amazon to Invest $700M to Retrain 100,000 Workers for New Jobs — from pcmag.com by Michael Kan Icon
    ‘There is a greater need for technical skills in the workplace than ever before. Amazon is no exception,’ the company said. The goal is to ‘upskill’ one third of Amazon’s total work force by 2025 through free retraining programs.
 

How WiFi 6 is about to revolutionize the Internet of Things — from interestingengineering.com by John Loeffler
While 5G tends to get all the press nowadays, WiFi 6 is going to have as big an impact behind the scenes by powering a next phase of the Internet of Things.

Excerpt:

So what’s such a big deal about these new standards? The difference between WiFi 5 and WiFi 6 is much like the jump from mobile’s 4G LTE networks to the new 5G networks rolling out this year and next.

The primary improvements will be in speed, connection strength, a wider spectrum of channels to operate in, and simultaneous streams. This means that there will be more room for each connection at an access point, allowing more devices to connect with less loss of bandwidth than current standards; these connections will be 37% faster than WiFi 5; and the ability of a WiFi 6 network to handle different data streams at the same time.

All of this adds up to a significant jump in speed over WiFi 5, allowing for up to 10 to 12 gigabytes per second of data transfer per connection, which opens up a whole new world of connected devices both at home, at work, and everywhere else in our lives.

 

 

 

What new trends and technologies can we use to design and deliver modern training experiences? — from modernworkplacelearning.com by Jane Hart
Here are 3 meta-trends that I’m seeing which show how new thinking, trends and technologies can be used to offer modern training experiences.

 

But more significantly, what this means is that these platforms are becoming a hub for work and learning. It’s no longer just about taking an online courses or classroom training – disconnected from the real world of work. Learning is now being seen in a very different light – as a work activity – and one that is highly performance-focused.

 

 

 

From DSC:
As many times happens with humans use of technologies, some good and some bad here. Exciting. Troubling. Incredible. Alarming.

Companies, please make sure you’re not giving the keys to a $137,000, powerful Maserati to your “16 year olds.”

Just because we can…

And to you “16 year olds out there”…ask for / seek wisdom. Ask yourself whether you should be developing what you are developing. Is it helpful or hurtful to society? Don’t just collect the paycheck. You have a responsibility to humankind.

To whom much is given…

 
© 2025 | Daniel Christian