Technology is and will continue to disrupt the practice of law for transactional attorneys. Where the focus of legal education has been on the fundamental building blocks of legal thinking and, to some extent, legal drafting, the latter skill is likely to be less and less necessary as technology improves.
Technological innovation in the areas of Artificial Intelligence, Encryption, Blockchain, and bot interaction are likely to change the nature of the provision of legal services. Clients will no longer need lawyers to draft documents or provide recitation of statutes or manage deadlines - all things that are susceptible to automation. However, these technologies rely on concepts such as modularity and community organizing to build models and create consensus to implement industry standards.
The role for lawyers will stop being drafters, and being instead counselors. Being a counselor requires skills such as understanding organizational dynamics, strategic planning, project management, and operational scheduling. None of these subjects are currently taught in any law school that I am aware of.
I propose that we to our teaching schedule a class (or two or three) in Non-Lawyering Skills for Lawyers, with subjects like:
- Community Organizing
- Programming/Software Development
- Project Management
- Strategic Planning
- Interpersonal Communication
- Organizational Dynamics and Structure
- Customer-oriented Design
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