The legal industry is changing. So, too, is the path to a successful career in law. These changes impact the practice of law, the business of the practice of law and legal education itself. Richard Susskind has proclaimed “The End of Lawyers,” describing a process by which technology is converting much of lawyers’ work from one-off custom work to standardized, automated and computerized processes. Professor William Henderson of Indiana University has written extensively about the changing dynamics of the legal market, questioning whether the traditional auction among law firms for top-ranked graduates from top-ranked law schools is a recruiting model that actually works well for most of the legal industry. And a study by the Carnegie Foundation has recommended significant changes in the way law schools educate lawyers.
One thing is clear: Across the board, institutional change is coming. But the pace of institutional change is slow, and almost certainly takes longer than a single student’s legal education. So what can you do about it right now?
