Have you read the book "Tomorrow's Lawyers"?

JSL17824

Hello 7sagers,

Have you read the book "Tomorrow's Lawyers"?
http://www.amazon.com/Tomorrows-Lawyers-Introduction-Your-Future/dp/019966806X

I don't even know whether I should recommend it to you before the LSAT since it is quite pessimistic about the legal profession.

In a nutshell, the writer predicts that in decades most law firms need to, if not be forced to, ultimately transform themselves to survive in the market due to the new technology. He also claims that the apogee of legal profession was in 2006, and most law firms charge much more than they deserve, merely because corporations used to pay since it seems only small percentage of a given deal.

The author's argument is that most well-paid lawyers currently only provide technical services, which is not as professional as it seems and can be replaced by new technologies.
Since I am not a lawyer and not familiar with the firm milieu, I can't tell whether it is true or not.

I believe that some of you like me don't pursuit the law degree just for a lucrative job, but I am still concerned about the future, especially when it comes to paying back loans.

I would love to hear any of your opinions, for the book, for future, etc.

blah170blah

Oh god, there's actually a LSAT Reading Comprehension passage in one of the PTs about it. For the foreseeable future, I think our jobs are fine. Most of my friends who are working at firms are using super outdated technology -- like Windows XP status. The reason they're still using such old technology is because it takes freaking forever for law firms to make files compatible with new operating systems and it's literally the last thing on their priority list. Because of the need for widespread technology integration and adoption, I don't see our jobs becoming obsolete anytime soon. Once you start seeing law firms at the cutting edge of technology, then we can be a bit concerned.

The one upside I do see is that a lot of what lawyers do involves document review, where they spend most of their time looking at thousands of documents and trying to parse out relevant information for a case. It'd be awesome for a computer program to do that so that lawyers can spend more time on the analyses portion (which I think we all would think is the most fun). That being said, a lot of "knowledge" comes from friends who are working at firms at the associate level so perhaps their perspectives are limited because of their positions.

TL;DR: we're good for now, maybe not so good in the future but maybe yes.

Pacifico

That's a great RC passage... and I haven't read this book, nor would I want to. I'm going to do my thing regardless of how much some people want to whine about their circumstances or the state of this or that profession. Just understand the realities and do whatever makes you happy and is sustainable.

nicole.hopkins

@Pacifico said:
nor would I want to.

My general line of thinking on this law-pocalyptic genre is: If law is your calling at this time, and you've got a standard dose of common sense, then you get that there's risk involved. But that's not unique to the legal profession. Every profession has its own category of risk, and then there's just general get-hit-by-a-bus risk.

@"JASON LAI" said:
In a nutshell, the writer predicts that in decades most law firms need to, if not be forced to, ultimately transform themselves to survive in the market due to the new technology.

Isn't this true of literally every industry at every point in time and in all periods of history? Except maybe ... like ... artisanal cheese making?

Pacifico

Artisanal 3D cheese printing

nicole.hopkins

@Pacifico said:
Artisanal 3D cheese printing

@Pacifico , what are we doing wasting out time with law school when we could be making THAT dream a reality? Wait ... is THAT why you're getting that MBA???