Barker, D --- "Tomorrow's lawyers: an introduction to your future" [2013] LegEdDig 31; (2013) 21(2) Legal Education Digest 52

• Tomorrow’s lawyers: an introduction to your future

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BOOK REVIEW

Tomorrow’s lawyers: an introduction to your future

Richard Susskind

Oxford University Press, 2013, 180 pp

Richard Susskind needs no introduction as a legal author who is always looking into the future of all aspects of the law, even though one of his most successful books was entitled: The End of Lawyers?!

However there is no doubt that any new text by Susskind has the ability to create a great deal of interest and will be of particular concern to younger lawyers for, as the author writes in his Preface, it was: ‘originally conceived as a guide to the future for the next generation of lawyers’. In fact it his intention to: ‘encourage wider discussion of the forces at play and their likely impact.’

The book is divided into three main parts with Part One reiterating the authors’ views as expressed in his previous books’ – The Future of Law (1996), Transforming the Law (2000) and his most recent mentioned above – The End of Lawyers? (2008).

Part Two is devoted to what the author describes as the new legal landscape, particularly his views on the future for law firms and the challenges facing the legal profession, whilst Part Three focuses more specifically on the prospects for young lawyers.

In Part One the author covers the issues which many in the legal community would agree are the main indicators of how the legal market is changing. In fact most readers would accept that the many topics listed by Susskind in Part One are predictable. These include in the first chapter those forces which in his view are the main drivers of change in the legal market, such as the challenge of ‘more-for-less’, meaning greater efficiencies in the use of staff and services, liberalisation and the more efficient use of information technology. With regard to the latter he makes the telling point that one of the problems is that currently there is: ‘no finishing line for the IT and the Internet’ with innumerable new applications emerging on a daily basis. Subsequent chapters in Part One incorporate suggestions for meeting the challenges enumerated in the opening chapter. These include recommendations for both reducing fees and consequentially costs. With respect to fees Susskind does not try and avoid the problem of hourly billing but suggests alternative fee arrangements. These include an innovative proposal for the introduction of a collaboration strategy whereby clients should come together and share the costs of certain legal services. Also within Part One the author, in using the description of ‘Commoditizing the Law’, endeavours to illustrate how legal services have developed through five main stages to attain greater efficiency. This evolution is taken further with suggestions that it can be decomposed and sourced in new and different ways culminating with a distinction being drawn between sustaining and disruptive technologies.

In Part Two, Susskind endeavours to predict the future for law firms under the description of: ‘The New Landscape’. In this respect he recognises that the question of adopting alternative methods of working might not be the objective for all law firms and here he considers that there will still be a global elite, approximately world-wide 20 in number, who because of their reputation will be able to carry on as they have in the past. However, even with changed work practices, the author does not hold out much hope for the continuation of the small high-street law practice beyond 2020. He endeavours to draw a similar comparison between the future prospects for exceptional senior trial lawyers whom he considers will still retain their reputation and employment and the remainder of the bar such as junior civil trial lawyers who might need to rethink their future by engaging in virtual hearings and Online Dispute Resolution (ODR). His remit for change includes the challenges facing new partners in law firms, the shifting role of in-house lawyers and the need for a more collaborative spirit between in-house lawyers and their external law firms.

The timing of these predicted changes is obviously all important. The author expects that there will be an incremental revolution taking place which, in his view, could proceed in three stages, that of (1) Denial, (2) Re-sourcing and (3) Disruption, the latter involving intelligent discovery, automated document production and an electronic legal marketplace. The remainder of Part Two deals with a visionary outlook with respect to the modernisation of the courts system, embracing IT and Virtual Courts incorporating ODR.

Of particular interest to readers of a journal focused on legal education is Part Three of the book entitled ‘Prospects for Young Lawyers’. Within this section of the text the author expresses his view that conventional lawyers, whilst having a less prominent role in society, will have the opportunity to engage in important new forms of legal service. Susskind distinguishes between what he describes as ‘traditional lawyers’ of whom he considers there will be less of a need for in the future, and those lawyers ‘who are sufficiently flexible, open-minded, and entrepreneurial to adapt to changing market conditions.’ With regard to the latter group he typifies them with such descriptions as, ‘The Enhanced Practitioner’, ‘The Legal Knowledge Engineer’, ‘The Legal Technologist’, ‘The Legal Hybrid’, ‘The Legal Process Analyst’, ‘The Legal Project Manager’, ‘The ODR Practitioner’ and ‘The Legal Management Consultant’. Each of these roles is carefully analysed and, as the author states, that despite not being what law students have in mind when they are embarking on their legal studies at law school they will not only provide an intellectually stimulating and socially significant occupation, but at the same time will open up a rich and exciting new set of career opportunities.

Whilst Susskind accepts that many readers will regard his list of projected new law jobs as rather fanciful, he draws attention to the fact that many of these new roles will be made available by a new range of employers working in different types of legal business. He is also willing to indulge in a wide range of prophetic statements as to what might be the major employers of practising lawyers outside the conventional law partnerships. In this respect he foretells the return of the major global accounting firms having another foray into the legal profession. He also regards the major legal publishers as future major employers together with what he describes as the ‘Legal Know-how Providers’ such as the English-based Practical Law Company (PLC), ‘Legal Process Outsourcers’, ‘High Street Businesses’ such as banks already designated in an earlier chapter as ‘Alternative Business Structures’ (ABS) together with ‘Legal Leasing Agencies and ‘Online Service Providers’. Also in this list and worthy of more detailed scrutiny is his view of what will be achieved by what he describes as the ‘New-Look Law Firms’ such as ‘Clearspire’ in the United States and ‘Radiantlaw’ and ‘Riverview Law’ in the United Kingdom. These have jettisoned their old business models and introduced flexible working practices to ensure that they can charge their clients less but still be profitable. The view is expressed that although these firms will not be offering young lawyers conventional law career paths they will nevertheless be making opportunities for an entrepreneurial future for innovative lawyers with the provision of a more flexible and respectful workplace.

A major focus of Part Three is devoted to the future training of lawyers or to use the words of the author: ‘what are we training young lawyers to become?’ With respect to this question the text is concerned not with the jettisoning of core subjects but more for providing aspiring lawyers with options ‘to study current and future trends in legal services’ and ‘to learn some key 21^st century legal skills to support future law jobs’. The author provides examples of world-wide law schools who have introduced innovative teaching methods which take account of future trends in legal practice. Although he does not offer a definitive response to the question of whether a potential law student should study another discipline at undergraduate level before undertaking a law degree, he does acknowledge that there are strong arguments for following such a course of action before embarking on a legal career. (This reviewer is concerned that non-Australian legal authors tend to ignore the successful practice in Australian tertiary institutions of law students undertaking combined degrees which can incorporate such combinations as law and business, law and computer science and law and international studies.)

In the concluding chapters dealing with the training of young lawyers in the future the author stresses the importance of the re-thinking of legal training. In this respect he advocates three basic building blocks whereby young lawyers undertake some variant of the apprenticeship model, that when significant bodies of work are sourced beyond the firm, young lawyers should be able to undertake samples of this work and lastly, that young lawyers should benefit from existing and emerging techniques of e-learning. The author also expands on his experience of reviews which he has carried out within the College of Law in England with regard to e-learning and more widely in other law schools that of simulated legal practice.

There is also a chapter devoted to the questions which Susskind advises young lawyers should ask of their future employers when at the close of a job interview the interviewer asks: ‘Do you have anything you would like to ask us?’ Suffice it to say that the advice is that whilst there is a wide range of suggested questions, interviewees should be selective as to how they respond by the choice and length of their questions!

In the concluding chapter the author poses the question as to the nature of the benefits which clients seek when they instruct their lawyers and how will this question change in the future? Susskind repeats the view which he expressed in 1996 in one of his earlier books: The Future of Law, predicting a shift in the legal paradigm whereby legal services will move to a ‘one-to-many, packaged, internet-based information service’.

In the opinion of this reviewer this book will not disappoint the reader. It is, like many of the author’s previous titles, a challenging book which will stimulate both by its questions and also by its innovative and though provoking answers to some of the demands placed on today’s legal educators.

Emeritus Professor David Barker AM

Editor