People using cell phones. Photo by Courtney Keating.

Four years ago, Richard Susskind published the first edition of “Tomorrow's Lawyers: An Introduction to Your Future.” With the rapid changes in the legal profession, tomorrow is now today.

The second edition of “Tomorrow's Lawyers” focuses more sharply on how artificial intelligence, alternative business structures, low-cost law firm service centers, legal tech startups and evolving in-house roles are changing the way legal services are delivered and how law schools are educating students to meet those changes.

To that end, ALM during October is publishing excerpts across several of our brands from the second edition to spark thought and conversation about the industry's future among the legal profession's leaders. ALM editors and reporters have solicited reactions—positive and negative—to Susskind's ideas from law firm chairs, top legal educators, general counsel, law students and industry analysts to get their take.

The book's section on automation and connectivity, discussed below, can be found here.

Artificial intelligence has dominated the conversation around legal technology disruption for the better part of this year, but author Richard Susskind points out some simpler technologies poised to “disrupt” the legal profession in the second edition of his recent book Tomorrow's Lawyers—document automation and remote connectivity.

Automation tools can generate workable documents from wills to major contracts using information drawn from a series of questions, which Susskind believes is likely to move attorneys from what he calls “bespoke” legal work, tailored to each individual client uniquely, to more systematized legal work product. These tools not only allow for big law firms to produce documents more quickly, but also open up opportunities for clients to develop their own simple legal documents by simply answering a few questions.

This technology is certainly pressuring attorneys to produce work quicker and more cheaply, and the increasing connectivity of the technology landscape outside of legal work only adds to this pressure. Susskind posits that given the proliferation of mobile devices, from tablets to smartphones to video conferencing, “clients and colleagues will have and expect to have immediate access to lawyers.”

These two technologies have ushered the era of what Larry Bridgesmith, adjunct professor at Vanderbilt Law School and CEO of LegalAlignment, calls the “on-demand lawyer”: tailored legal advising on a 24/7 schedule. These added demands that new technology puts on attorneys could potentially diminish the quality of legal work, but may also open up new opportunities for attorney-client collaboration.

Bridgesmith noted that over the course of his legal career, one that began when the U.S. Postal Service as a primary form of communication, technology has wildly accelerated the speed of action. “One of the real obvious shifts has been the expectation of the client for more immediate feedback,” he noted.

This demand for immediacy was something Haley Altman, CEO of transaction management platform Doxly, saw early in her career.

“As a practicing attorney, I would answer emails at 3 a.m. You just grow used to the idea that if a client has something urgent, they're going to reach out. Those barriers of personal time, we've kind of given those things away as attorneys to make sure we can do the most complicated and sensitive work our clients need,” Altman said.

As this expectation has moved into an increasingly connected and automated world, it has grown from an expectation of attention to an expectation of results. Bridgesmith cautioned that while this may not always be particularly healthy for attorneys straining to find a work-life balance, it also may not necessarily be healthy for clients either. “The effect of that is to make us as professional advisers far more reactionary and far less thoughtful,” Bridgesmith said.

Daniel Linna, professor of law at Michigan State University College of Law, noted that there may also be a tendency to use automation techniques just to keep pace with the current landscape. While there are interesting innovations around tools like contract automation, especially as paired with other technologies like machine learning and Big Data analytics, Linna said the focus on leveraging these technologies to stay competitive can have a standardizing effect.

“When I think about law schools and law firms, everyone for the most part is doing things the same way. The Am Law 200 is looking much more the same than different,” Linna noted. Keeping pace, he said, may be a fairly myopic way to approach legal futurism.

“If we just automate the things we've always done, we will never advance as a profession. That's not what this is about,” Linna said. “It's also really, really, really important to emphasize that these are not just technology solutions. All this stuff starts with people and process,” he later added.

While client demands for better, faster, and cheaper work can send attorneys scrambling for new systems to automate, some are finding that open communication with clients about new technology and its potential applications in legal work could potentially open some new pathways to more meaningful attorney-client relationships. “Trust and accountability makes this more possible. This may require more than just a reactive response,” Bridgesmith said.

“It requires a much higher level of attorney-client communication than we've been accustomed to. It's inherent in the relationship from the outset, but we've just allowed it to go underserved,” Bridgesmith said.

Altman's platform Doxly leverages both document automation and online connectivity with the idea that these technologies are more than just a speed boost for attorneys, but rather can actually help clients get a window into how their attorneys work and what value they bring to the table.

“[Clients] want more visibility into what's happening. They want that constant connection, but that connection is more valuable if they're able to have more transparent collaboration ability,” Altman said. “That communication becomes smarter and more focused.”

For consumer clients, finding ways to collaborate can be a little trickier. Some automation tools, like those generated through chatbots or guided interviews, aim to help give users legal advice they can take steps towards on their own. Services like LegalZoom and Rocket Lawyer have used automation to help consumers generate small legal documents themselves at much-reduced rates from individualized attorneys. These services largely operate on the premise that automation can substitute bespoke legal advising.

Linna said creative-thinking lawyers may be able to use automation and connectivity to insert themselves into the equation, rather than getting written out of it. “There's a lot of potential out there for lawyers to be better connected to the masses of people who could use legal advice for a wide array of problems,” Linna said.

Bridgesmith agreed, adding that these two technologies may open venues to connect with people who aren't otherwise even seeking attorneys. To do it, however, he thinks attorneys may have to reflect a little about how automation and connectivity can be used to collaborate around, rather than simply administer, legal practice. “To me, it's a huge opportunity, but we have to change the way in which we look at the practice of law,” Bridgesmith said.

Excerpted with permission from Tomorrow's Lawyers by Richard Susskind. For more information, click here.