Paul Lippe of Legal OnRamp is one of many involved in the discussions over the changes occurring in the delivery of legal services and the legal profession generally. The discussion of the New Normal isn’t itself new – but has been spurred on as of late by a new book by Richard and Daniel Susskind – The Future of the Professions: How Technology Will Transform the Work of Human Experts…. that identifies a number of trends affecting the professions generally – from technological displacement of basic tasks, to nontraditional substitutes to regulated service providers and even for machines to take on higher-level work ordinarily done by professionals. In a piece at the end of January at the ABA Journal, Lippe gives his take as:
“For my money, we face two crossroads:
• Lawyers (and law schools) can either be the folks who help refine and simplify legal rules, integrate them with other kinds of rules, and help design these kind of systems—including how to incorporate ethical and social concerns—or they won’t.
• Lawyers and (law schools) can better understand more about other disciplines, figure out “design,” get better at taking on feedback, innovating, and achieve their natural leadership role in cross-disciplinary work, or they won’t.”
Read more and join in the debate at Profession at a crossroads: Will lawyers lead, follow or get out of the way? at the ABA Journal