1st Edition
Digital Lawyering Technology and Legal Practice in the 21st Century
In today’s rapidly changing legal landscape, becoming a digital lawyer is vital to success within the legal profession. This textbook provides an accessible and thorough introduction to digital lawyering, present and future, and a toolkit for gaining the key attributes and skills required to utilise technology within legal practice effectively.
Digital technologies have already begun a radical transformation of the legal profession and the justice system. Digital Lawyering introduces students to all key topics, from the role of blockchain to the use of digital evidence in courtrooms, supported by contemporary case studies and integrated, interactive activities. The book considers specific forms of technology, such as Big Data, analytics and artificial intelligence, but also broader issues including regulation, privacy and ethics. It encourages students to explore the impact of digital lawyering upon professional identity, and to consider the emerging skills and competencies employers now require. Using this textbook will allow students to identify, discuss and reflect on emerging issues and trends within digital lawyering in a critical and informed manner, drawing on both its theoretical basis and accounts of its use in legal practice.
Digital Lawyering is ideal for use as a main textbook on modules focused on technology and law, and as a supplementary textbook on modules covering lawyering and legal skills more generally.
Biography
Emma Jones is a senior lecturer in law and Director of Wellbeing at the University of Sheffield’s School of Law. Her research interests focus upon emotions and wellbeing in legal education and the legal profession, and digital lawyering. She teaches modules on digital lawyering.
Francine Ryan is a senior lecturer in law, Co-director of the Open Justice Centre at The Open University in the UK, and a qualified solicitor. Her teaching and research interests are clinical legal education with a particular focus on technology and innovation enhanced learning.
Ann Thanaraj leads the digital transformation of learning and teaching at Teesside University. Her scholarly work focuses on raising the significance of law degrees in preparing for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. She has developed models of digital lawyering to transform law degrees.
Terry Wong is a technologist and entrepreneur based in Hong Kong. Born, raised and educated in the United States, he holds degrees in architecture and management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Terry leads a global team of technologists and designers building and actively investing in technology-led businesses, with interests in legal and financial services.
"For the law student of today to be able to flourish in the future law workplace, they need a wide range of competences, including both people and technology skills. The very practical, hands-on, and direct approach of this book will help learners to think critically about how to develop these and to grow the key capacity to reflect on experiences and continue to learn. These abilities will be essential in a legal world that changes more rapidly every day."
Dr Rónán Kennedy, Senior Lecturer in Law, National University of Ireland Galway
"The need for digital literacy skills is more important today than ever before. This is a must-have textbook for those studying law."
Dr Sara de Freitas, Executive Director of Education, Inspired Education Group
"As law firms, government agencies and courts increasingly automate not only document review and assembly, but many other aspects of daily practice, every law school will soon offer a course in Legal Technologies. Digital Lawyering in the 21st Century is precisely the text needed for such a course: a collaboration of technologists and legal academics, tailored to walk the law student through the many facets of digital technologies, exploring the opportunities and challenges they present to learning and the practice of law. Students and instructors alike will love its authoritative clarity."
David C. Donald, Professor, Faculty of Law, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
