The Fourth Industrial Revolution and Legal Education

Abstract

The legal world will change dramatically during the careers of students currently in law school. Innovations in science, technology, economics, business, political arrangements, and social structures will require different legal services and entirely different mechanisms for delivering those services. A “Fourth Industrial Revolution” (4IR) may describe the changes that are already beginning to occur. The first Industrial Revolution saw the use of steam power for production; the second, mass production and electrical power; and the third, semiconductors and the digital innovation. 4IR is riding on several developing technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI) and the massive data bases on which they run, an entirely new form of computation (likely “quantum computing”), blockchains, genetic editing and related biotechnology, 3-D printing, intelligent robots, energy storage, nanotechnology, and nearly universal interconnectivity of devices and people. These changes have significant implications for all parts of society, including law and the legal system. The professional practice of students who are now in law school will be affected dramatically by these changes, and these graduates will be expected to carry society’s burden of harnessing, encouraging, and finding legal controls to offer society the benefits of these new technologies while limiting the undesirable side effects. 4IR will have many positive effects on legal practice—making it more efficient, reducing the drudgery of repetitive activities, and creating whole new areas and types of practice. Many see it as a threat to the current economics of practice, and in some ways it will be. The recurring, repetitive practice will begin to disappear, done much cheaper and better by machines. Preparing students for that kind of practice is, therefore, problematic. Advanced technology will lead to a wide range of new and creative legal services, and allow the legal profession to create legal services (not lawyers) available for everyone who needs them. This article identifies 22 competencies that law schools need to consider in preparing students for professional practice and the task of seeing to the system of justice and law. This will require law schools to adjust the education of students and focus every part of the curriculum on those competencies. Law schools will also need to change their research missions, appoint full-time and adjunct faculty who will be experts in newer areas of teaching and scholarship, and make much better use of every part of their curriculum. The resistance of law schools to change is easily overstated. Change is usually more evolutionary than dramatic. The challenge now is that there is not enough time to slowly begin to prepare students for their professional life in the 4IR. The article concludes with several ideas about accelerating the process without crashing.