Abstract Structural problems, such as institutional racism and bias, require structural solutions. White people in the legal academy are only now reckoning with the reality of systemic racism within our hallowed halls, an insidiousness that many People of Color in the legal academy have always known. Yes, racism and bias are pervasive in our teaching,…
Legal Skills: Making a Real Change in Nigerian Legal Education
Abstract The hallmark of legal education is the transfer and acquisition of knowledge of legal theories and skills. The purpose of this chapter is to examine those legal skills that are crucial to both the study and practice of law. This chapter argues that legal education in Nigeria is confronted with a crisis that can be attributed to the non-teaching of functional legal skills to…
Promoting Diversity and Inclusion in the Legal Profession: The Significance of Giving Voice and Listening to Persons Who Experience Discrimination, Bias, and Harassment
Abstract Let’s admit it, harassment and bullying are endemic in the practice of law. Horacio Benardes Neto, the President of the International Bar Association (IBA), made this observation in introducing an IBA report, called Us Too: Bullying and Sexual Harassment in the Legal Profession. Published last year, the report was based on findings from the largest-ever global…
Canadian law schools must do their part to help combat climate change
The intensifying physical and socio-economic effects of climate change, mainstreamed by political debates and scientific evidence on anthropogenic disruptions to the global climate system, have motivated changing legislation, regulation, litigation, and institutions. But legal education is not keeping up; climate change has not yet been taught well and broadly in Canadian law schools. While a few schools have…
Unguided: social media usage in the legal profession and the need for practical guidance
An unprecedented ethical dilemma currently faces the legal profession, how to ethically utilize social media. Lawyers who choose to utilize social media in their legal practice are not provided any ethical guidance on how to properly use social media. Specifically, there are currently no uniform guidelines for state bar examiners to emulate these guidelines from. Existing rules of professional…
Entity Regulation, Litigation Rights and the Changing Meaning of Professionalism at the Bar of England and Wales
Abstract Entity Regulation, Litigation Rights and the Changing Meaning of Professionalism at the Bar of England and Wales The Legal Services Act 2007 provided a framework for a liberalised marketplace for legal services. The most significant responses to this by the Bar appear in the Bar Standards Board Handbook, which was first released in January 2014. This included changes allowing…
Legal Technology and the Future of Women in Law
Abstract Much has been written about how automation will change the legal profession as a whole, less so about how automation might affect women in legal practice. This paper briefly maps the likely changes that legal tech (legal technology) will bring to the provision of legal services, and explores how these changes might affect the barriers to advancement that women face in the profession….
Listening and Relational Lawyering
Abstract Legal professionals spend much if not most of their time listening to others, including clients, witnesses, co-workers, and judges. And yet, lawyers are notorious for being poor listeners. Perhaps this helps explain why the legal profession consistently gets ranked as one of the least trusted professions. The primary reasons for clients’ dissatisfaction have more to do with…
Law, Artificial Intelligence, and Natural Language Processing: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to My Search Results
Abstract Renowned legal educator Roscoe Pound stated, “Law must be stable and yet it cannot stand still.” Yet, as Susan Nevelow Mart has demonstrated in a seminal article that the different online research services (Westlaw, Lexis Advance, Fastcase, Google Scholar, Ravel and Casetext) produce significantly different results when researching case law. Furthermore, a recent study of 325…
Augmented Lawyering
Abstract How will artificial intelligence (AI) and associated digital technologies reshape the work of lawyers and structure of law firms? Legal services are traditionally provided by highly-skilled humans — that is, lawyers. Dramatic recent progress in AI has triggered speculation about the extent to which automated systems may come to replace humans in legal services. A related debate is whether…