We're running out of time to identify the functions and design the competencies of the post-AI legal profession. Here's my latest "Future Lawyer Starter Kit." Tell me what you think.
Jordan — your list of 10 is, I believe, essential to the individual lawyer/operator tasks of lawyering — the completion of specific tasks or operations that require the application of legal judgement. I use that somewhat turgid definition because lawlanders consistently conflate legal services with the performance of tasks requiring the application of legal judgment. In actuality legal services contain relative few steps or operations that require that application of legal judgment. The conflation occurs because it sustains the convenient and self-serving myth that ALL legal services must be provided by a lawyer — they don’t and need not be. So, while I agree that your 10 competencies are essential to lawyering, they are neither sufficient for nor expansive enough to cover the provision of legal services. Those required competencies are significantly different than those related to the development, refinement and application of legal judgment. Those competencies are focused on management: financial, project, process, human capital, data, relationships, and service delivery. Those competencies remain largely untaught in and disregarded by the legal academy, at least not as required training — yet those are what’s need to deliver value in the provision of legal services to our customers.
In my view, the task you've set yourself can be rephrased as follows: "What does it mean to be a person in the world of AI?" Or to put it another way, "When our purely cognitive capacities have been bested by machines, where shall we discover our value as human beings?"
I think we agree that lawyers, if they are to be anything, must be people first and foremost -- AI will take care of the rest.
My own list of 10 is as follows:
Conscience and self-control
Disposition to learn (for lawyers this means learning the current state of the law); awareness of the mutability of knowledge (for lawyers, the law's constant flux)
Analytical thinking
Metaphorical thinking
Assertiveness; willingness to face conflict if necessary
Flexibility; willingness to find common ground
Capacity to live with, and tack between, incompatible rules, values, priorities, ideas
Imagination; creativity; “thinking outside the box”
Awareness of one’s own feelings; calmness; centeredness
Locating within oneself what others feel; empathy; relatedness
From these attributes flow the essential legal skills: Disaggregating problems; discovering solutions; advising; advocating; negotiating; planning; and strategizing.
Very good article, Jordan. Can I translate part of this article into Spanish, with links to you, and a description of your newsletter and you?
Go right ahead, Salvador -- gracias!
Dear Jordan, this is the translation:
https://leyderecho.substack.com/p/construir-el-abogado-del-futuro
Jordan — your list of 10 is, I believe, essential to the individual lawyer/operator tasks of lawyering — the completion of specific tasks or operations that require the application of legal judgement. I use that somewhat turgid definition because lawlanders consistently conflate legal services with the performance of tasks requiring the application of legal judgment. In actuality legal services contain relative few steps or operations that require that application of legal judgment. The conflation occurs because it sustains the convenient and self-serving myth that ALL legal services must be provided by a lawyer — they don’t and need not be. So, while I agree that your 10 competencies are essential to lawyering, they are neither sufficient for nor expansive enough to cover the provision of legal services. Those required competencies are significantly different than those related to the development, refinement and application of legal judgment. Those competencies are focused on management: financial, project, process, human capital, data, relationships, and service delivery. Those competencies remain largely untaught in and disregarded by the legal academy, at least not as required training — yet those are what’s need to deliver value in the provision of legal services to our customers.
Dear Jordan,
Thanks for this thought-provoking list.
In my view, the task you've set yourself can be rephrased as follows: "What does it mean to be a person in the world of AI?" Or to put it another way, "When our purely cognitive capacities have been bested by machines, where shall we discover our value as human beings?"
I think we agree that lawyers, if they are to be anything, must be people first and foremost -- AI will take care of the rest.
My own list of 10 is as follows:
Conscience and self-control
Disposition to learn (for lawyers this means learning the current state of the law); awareness of the mutability of knowledge (for lawyers, the law's constant flux)
Analytical thinking
Metaphorical thinking
Assertiveness; willingness to face conflict if necessary
Flexibility; willingness to find common ground
Capacity to live with, and tack between, incompatible rules, values, priorities, ideas
Imagination; creativity; “thinking outside the box”
Awareness of one’s own feelings; calmness; centeredness
Locating within oneself what others feel; empathy; relatedness
From these attributes flow the essential legal skills: Disaggregating problems; discovering solutions; advising; advocating; negotiating; planning; and strategizing.