Dan Katz on Legal Informatics, Corporate Law Firm Ownership and 21st Century Legal Education
A recent article argues “65 percent of today’s elementary aged kids may end up doing work that hasn’t even yet been invented.” This is a thought provoking number and it points to the disruptive nature of innovation and its impact on a variety of labor markets. There is a portion of the downturn in legal hiring that is associated with the business cycle. When economic conditions improve – there should be a rebound. However, starting even before the recession, it is reasonably clear that a serious structural change was underway. Expect this broader trend to continue. As Bruce H. Kobayashi & Larry E. Ribstein have argued, we are at the very beginning of Law’s Information Revolution. Whether we like it or not, informatics, computing and technology are going to change both what it means to practice law and to “think like a lawyer.”