The profession(s) engagements with LawTech: Narratives and archetypes of future law

This article argues that there are three narratives to technology’s role in augmenting, disrupting or ending the current legal services environment—each of which gives life to particular legal professional archetypes in how lawyers react to LawTech. In tracing these influential narratives and associated archetypes, we map the evolving role of LawTech, the legal profession and…

Evidence-based lawyer regulation

The legal profession is losing its authority over the regulation of legal services. Recent changes in antitrust law have put state bar associations under a spotlight. Competition from technology companies and concerns about access to justice have increased political pressure for market liberalization. Independent research is challenging the unique value of lawyers’ services, even in…

The great disruption: How machine intelligence will transform the role of lawyers in the delivery of legal services

Law is an information technology—a code that regulates social life. In our age, the machinery of information technology is growing exponentially in power, not only in hardware, but also in the software capacity of the programs that run on computers. As a result, the legal profession faces a great disruption. Information technology has already had…

How Should We License Lawyers?

During the summer of 2020, anger and frustration about lawyer licensing practices boiled over. The bar exam had always imposed economic and psychological burdens on test takers, but the rise of a pandemic added an additional hazard: exposure to a dangerous virus. Some states continued the in-person traditional exam despite the health risks, but others…

The Politics of Lawyer Regulation: The Case of Malpractice Insurance

This article examines the politics of lawyer regulation and considers why some states will adopt lawyer regulation that protects the public, when others will not. It uses the debates over how to regulate uninsured lawyers as a lens through which to examine the question. Clients often cannot recover damages from uninsured lawyers who commit malpractice,…

The Lawyer of the Future as “Transaction Engineer”: Digital Technologies and the Disruption of the Legal Profession

Fenwick, M., & Vermeulen, E. P. (2019). The Lawyer of the Future as “Transaction Engineer”: Digital Technologies and the Disruption of the Legal Profession. In Legal Tech, Smart Contracts and Blockchain (pp. 253-272). Springer, Singapore This chapter introduces two connected arguments about the future of the legal profession . First, the ongoing “digital revolution ” will continue…