Much of the debate in legal education centers on whether law schools are doing their best to educate lawyers who are ready to practice today. But significant technological advancements are changing how lawyers provide legal services. While much of lawyering will stay the same, much will change. To address the ongoing evolution, law schools also must prepare students for the legal profession of tomorrow.
In the last half-century, technology has revolutionized how lawyers practice, but its impact on the substance of lawyering has been surprisingly minimal. Word processors represented a quantum leap over typewriters. But at its core, typing is still typing—a way of putting words on paper (or PDF). Electronic research using WestLaw or LexisNexis allowed lawyers to more quickly retrieve current information.
