The End of Lawyers? Rethinking the Nature of Legal Services
Richard Susskind's new book, The End of Lawyers?: Rethinking the Nature of Legal Services Susskind sees the legal market as “broken.” Access to justice is available only to citizens who are very poor or very rich. The cost of dispute resolution in the courts often exceeds the amount at issue. Small businesses invariably claim that mainstream legal services are beyond their budgets. And even the world's largest companies and financial institutions are seeking radically new ways of meeting their legal needs. Susskind argues that, in this time of grave economic uncertainty, the market will no longer tolerate traditional, expensive lawyers who handcraft tasks that can be better discharged with the support of modern systems and techniques. He claims that the legal profession will be driven by two forces in the coming decade: by a market pull towards the commoditization of legal services, and by the increase of disruptive, Internet-based technologies. The threat here for lawyers is clear - their jobs may well be eroded or even displaced. Susskind challenges the legal profession to ask what elements of their current workload could be undertaken more quickly, more cheaply, more efficiently, or to a higher quality using different and new methods of working. Susskind argues that if automation can streamline certain legal tasks and that the market will forces lawyers to adapt to the "digitization" or they won't survive. I am still working my way through this important book, so will have more to say in future blog posts when I finish it. 
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