Law and Technology
The legal market is in an unprecedented state of flux. Over the next two decades, the way in which lawyers work will change radically. Entirely new ways of delivering legal services will emerge, new providers will enter the market, and the workings of our courts will be transformed. Unless they adapt, many traditional legal businesses will fail. On the other hand, a whole set of fresh opportunities will present themselves to entrepreneurial and creative young lawyers.
– Richard Susskind, Tomorrow’s Lawyer: An Introduction to Your Future (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013) at 3.
Amid the doom and gloom of the articling crisis and decreasing access to justice, there is a silver lining: Tomorrow’s Lawyers. Tomorrow’s Lawyers are carving out new lucrative careers in the legal market, by combining expertise in law with technology and interdisciplinary skills such as process analysis and project management. Using tools like automated document assembly, online dispute resolution, and AI-based problem solving, Tomorrow’s Lawyers have the potential to deliver better legal services at a lower price and faster than ever before. How do I know this? Last year I had the pleasure of enrolling in the inaugural Legal Information Technology seminar, taught by three of Tomorrow’s Lawyers: Monica Goyal, Darin Thompson, and James Williams. If you’re not enrolled in this year’s Legal IT seminar, but want to learn more about Tomorrow’s Lawyers, you’ll have your chance during Osgoode’s 2016 Career Week. Students will have an opportunity to meet some of Tomorrow’s Lawyers and explore the world of Law and Technology during an interactive session taking place on February 4th.
While “legal technology” may sound like an oxymoron, I’m convinced that all of us, no matter what we choose to do with our JDs, will be impacted by “disruptive technologies.” Unlike “sustaining technologies,” which support and enhance the way that a business or a market currently operates, “disruptive technologies” challenge and change the way a business or market is run. An example of a disruptive technology is Online Legal Guidance. Online Legal Guidance systems provide legal information and step-by-step instructions on common legal processes like bringing an action in small claims court. These systems might even connect clients with a lawyer that will provide legal advice over the Internet. The traditional model of legal service delivery has few creative options for unrepresented litigants or self-represented litigants besides trying to connect potential clients with full legal representation. Conversely, technologies like Online Legal Guidance systems disrupt the way the legal market operates by providing legal support services to unrepresented and self-represented litigants, acknowledging that not everyone can afford legal representation, nor does everyone want to be represented by a lawyer.
One example of a Canadian Online Legal Guidance system is My Legal Briefcase, founded by Monica Goyal. My Legal Briefcase is an online tool that streamlines the legal process and offers a convenient, affordable, and timely solution to small business owners’ small claims needs. At Osgoode’s 2016 Career Week, students will have the opportunity to speak with professionals like Monica about delivering legal services using disruptive technologies and students will be given the chance to brainstorm ideas for future innovations in legal technology.
If you’re still not convinced that the words “law” and “technology” belong in the same sentence, consider the following three examples:
- In 2010, eBay handled 60 million disputes through their in-house online dispute resolution process for buyers and sellers.
- Under European Union rules, airlines must pay compensation of €250-€600 ($350-$860 CDN) for cancelled or heavily delayed flights in or out of an EU airport, or where a passenger is denied boarding because of overbooking. However, airlines were routinely turning down legitimate claims in the hope that consumers would simply give up and go away. In 2013, Bott & Co capitalized on this dilemma by offering to take up claims on a contingency fee basis (the firm keeps 27% of the money it recoups plus a €25 ($35 CDN) application fee). The firm developed software akin to Turbo Tax (a “flight claim checker”) to automatically process tens of thousands of claims. To date, the firm has claimed over €14.1m ($20m CDN) in compensation from the airlines for 54,000 clients.
- In 2016 British Columbia will be the first province in Canada to operate an online tribunal. The Civil Resolution Tribunal will be available for use twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, from a computer or mobile device connected to the internet. The CRT will likely be mandatory for all small claims and condominium disputes by 2017.
What these three examples demonstrate is that disruptive technology can play an important role in addressing large-scale, widespread issues of access to justice. At the same time, delivering these services can be quite lucrative for the service provider. However, what these examples also demonstrate is that disruptive legal technology does not necessarily involve lawyers.
By now you might be asking: Justin, how is this a silver lining? Won’t disruptive technologies just mean fewer jobs for new lawyers? Not necessarily. While disruptive technologies might displace traditional legal roles, new career opportunities will emerge in their place. Richard Susskind predicts that we are on the cusp of radical change in the legal market, but he also closes his most recent book with this important message: “The future of legal service is not already out there, in some sense pre-articulated and just waiting to unfold. …Here is the great excitement for tomorrow’s lawyers. As never before, there is an opportunity to be involved in shaping the next generation of legal services.” Susskind warns that most senior lawyers will be of little guidance on our generation’s quest to reshape legal services. In other words, it’s up to us. The silver lining? The legal technology we build tomorrow could resolve the great conundrum of our time, namely a lack of work for new lawyers and a lack of justice for everyone else. While I’m not naive enough to suggest legal technology is the silver bullet to all of our problems, it sure sounds promising.
If you think legal technology sounds promising too, I invite you to attend our Law and Technology event on 4 February as part of Osgoode’s 2016 Career Week.