UPDATE (11/26/2013 at 5:45 PM): The story has been updated with an additional quote.
Students at Boston-based Suffolk University Law School now can sign up for a concentration in legal technology—a program that the school hopes will help graduates leave the campus better prepared for the changing legal industry.
Last week, Suffolk announced the creation of the new legal technology and innovation concentration for its Juris Doctorate students, citing the transformative effect of technology on the law, as well as the increased competition for legal employment. Students can start signing up for the program immediately. Other concentrations, which are open to second-year students, include civil litigation, intellectual property, business and financial services, health and biomedical, international, and labor and employment. The law school, according to its website, is more than 100 years old, and offers “three degree programs, several joint degree options, 18 areas of focus,” and now, seven concentrations.
The unveiling of the program furthers Suffolk’s embrace of technology and its effect on the legal industry. Professor Andrew Perlman, director of Suffolk Law’s Institute on Law Practice Technology and Innovation says the new concentration isn’t about playing with the latest toys and gadgets, but will focus on how technology has changed, and continues to change, the way lawyers practice. (Perlman, by the way, is an early adopter of Google Glass which he uses in his law school classes.)
“This concentration will help students understand changes in legal marketplace itself,” says Perlman. “The delivery of legal service has become much different over the last few years,” he said. “Clients are demanding more efficiency,” he noted.
The concentration—which includes a mix of previously-offered and new courses—has a decided business flavor, with several classes taken from the school’s Masters in Business Administration curriculum. Participants will take four required courses, addressing project management, the legal profession, and a course that examines practical and ethical issues relating to the use of sophisticated software for lawyers.
