The twenty-first century lawyer will face rapid and unsettling changes in the way legal services are delivered. Legal futurists foresee many aspects of legal services being delivered more efficiently with the use of technology. For example, future breakthroughs in artificial intelligence may expand the ability to automate many tasks that currently require the skill of…
Legal Profession of China in a Globalized World: Innovations and New Challenges
The legal profession is undergoing fundamental changes; and this is the case not just in those established legal markets. Based on a state-of-the-art sketch of China’s legal profession, this paper identifies and analyzes the latest innovation initiatives and alternative business models, which happen simultaneously at the levels of the law firms as incumbents, and the…
Access to Justice: Looking Back, Thinking Ahead
This Article seeks to assess our progress and reassess our goals concerning access to justice. It begins in Part I by summarizing the nature of the challenge. Although there is much we do not know about the scope of the problem, the data available suggest a shameful inadequacy of services for the poor and a…
New Legal Ethics Textbook: Problems in Professional Responsibility for a Changing Profession — Sixth Edition
In this new Sixth Edition, the longest running professional responsibility book on the market, Problems in Professional Responsibility for a Changing Profession, has been thoroughly updated and rearranged by its current and two new authors. New and expanded materials in this Edition address cybersecurity, access to justice, judicial ethics and disqualification, the ABA’s Ethics 20/20…
In Critique of RoboLaw: The Model of SmartLaw
This research consists of four parts. The first part presents the analysis of the standard regulation framework and its elements within the theoretical context of ontology of law and institutions. The second and third parts describe the methodology and illustrative research of the standard regulation framework’s failures. Having indicated the reasons of these failures, the fourth part is used…
Professions and Professional Service Firms in a Global Context: Reframing Narratives
Professions are changing rapidly and profoundly as new technologies, organisational forms, and regulations are introduced into the professional world. As a result, professions are creating new narratives to stake their legitimate claims in the world and justify their positions. This paper examines some of these narratives in the contexts of organisation, globalisation and technology among…
Report from the National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being
A coalition of groups, including the American Bar Association Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs, have released a comprehensive report, The Path to Lawyer Well-Being: Practical Recommendations for Positive Change, aimed at addressing the problem of substance use and mental health disorders of lawyers. The report, by the National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being, includes several dozen recommendations…
The Integration of Law into Global Business Solutions
Using a unique data set comprised of original research of both the corporate websites of the Big Four — PwC, Deloitte, KPMG, and EY — and their affiliated law firms, as well as archival material from the legal and accountancy press, this article documents the rise and transformation of the Big Four legal service lines…
The Women and Men of Harvard Law School: Preliminary Results from the HLS Career Study
The Preliminary Report presents the results of the Harvard Law School Career Study (HLSCS), conducted by the school’s Center on the Legal Profession (CLP). Begun with a generous grant from a group of women alumnae in connection with the 55th celebration of the graduation of the school’s first female students in 1953, the study seeks…
The Leadership Imperative: A Collaborative Approach to Professional Development in the Global Age of More for Less
Notwithstanding the increasing importance of technology, the practice of corporate law is — and is likely to remain for the foreseeable future — a human capital business. As a result, law firms must continue to attract, develop, and retain talented lawyers. Unfortunately, the traditional approach, which divides responsibility for professional development among law schools, which…