Ian McDougall ponders the future of the legal profession
It is fascinating to ponder how the law will develop over coming years. My own retrospective anthology Cases That Changed Our Lives (LexisNexis, 2010) tried to examine the impact of legal changes on the lives of people. But something that often gets overlooked, and therefore has to play “catch-up” as the law moves on, is how the profession of law will change to meet the needs of a changing world? I believe it is a mistake to imagine the law developing without any impact either on, or from, the actual practice of law.
Past developments
The modern law office has been transformed. In the distant past, people employed “scribes” to copy important documents, when the ability to write was a skill in itself. Research was a process of reviewing a mountain of paper; books, periodicals and statutes. An important part of the legal advisor’s skill was the ability to retrieve the relevant area of law. Printing took the place of the scribe and eventually technological wonders such as the telex machine and word processor
