Tomorrow's Lawyers

Book excerpt: In its first and second editions, Tomorrow's Lawyers became an international bestseller, widely read and cited by practitioners and students. The third edition focuses on the law and lawyers in the 2020s. For Richard Susskind, the future of legal service is neither Grisham nor Rumpole. Instead, he predicts a world of online courts, AI-based global legal businesses, disruptive legal technologies, liberalized markets, commoditization, alternative sourcing, simulated practice on the metaverse, and many new legal jobs. This volume is a definitive and updated introduction to this future - for aspiring lawyers, and for all who want to modernize and upgrade our legal and justice systems. It offers practical guidance for everyone intending to build careers and businesses in law. Written in an era of greater technological advance than humanity has ever witnessed, this work is a call to arms: it challenges those who feel that the law and lawyers are somehow immune from technological advance; it draws attention to the unaffordability and inaccessibility of legal service, for businesses and citizens alike; it invites the next generation of lawyers to harness the power of technology in improving and even overhauling the way in which legal and court service is currently provided. Tomorrow's Lawyers identifies new opportunities for lawyers, new ways of helping clients and the community. It enjoins its readers to become involved in building the systems that will replace outmoded forms of legal work. It argues that it is both a privilege and an obligation for tomorrow's lawyers to embrace and bring about change. A must-read for legal undergraduates, aspiring and young lawyers, senior practitioners, leaders in law firms and legal businesses, law professors and law teachers.