Law's New Frontiers: An On-line Symposium

Among the gaggle of recent books on law schools and the challenges to the legal profession, two 2016 books, both from Oxford University Press, stand out for what they teach us about the emerging frontier of law, technology, and professional regulation.  Richard & Daniel Susskind, The Future of the Professions:  How Technology Will Transform the Work of Human Experts and Gillian K. Hadfield, Rules for a Flat World: Why Humans Invented Law and How to Reinvent It for a Complex Global Economy.  

They point to an interesting future -- dynamic, unstable, and conspicuously multidisciplinary -- and make the none-too-subtle point that professional education must adapt to a new landscape.

Over the next three weeks, a group of commentators, from the U.S. and abroad, will offer their reflections on the themes animate in the Susskind and Hadfield books.  (You'll note that Phil Weiser (former dean, Colorado) happily jumped the gun, with his interesting post from late last week).  I hope that these posts, and the comments they generate, will help advance this very important conversation about how we can move constructively forward as lawyers and legal educators into a world in which technology and the shifting infrastructure of information and expertise propel adaptation (or even failure).