IN THE event, e-mail did revolutionise communication, while the world wide web, with its 600 billion pages, reshaped our information-seeking habits. And 1 billion users of the internet now have an unprecedented facility for the purchase of goods and services. What about lawyers? In the words of the sci-fi author William Gibson: “The future has already arrived. It’s just not evenly distributed yet.” Some legal pioneers have forged ahead, demonstrating the potential of all manner of exotic applications: from online legal advice systems to internet-based auctions for procuring legal services; from multimedia knowledge systems to virtual case rooms. However, these successes have been relatively rare. IT and the internet have provided stiff competition for the phone, the ledger, the library and the filing cabinet, but the substantive work of the lawyer has yet to be reconfigured. Lawyers may feel that they are through the revolution, but there is much more to come. What, then, can we expect in the coming decade?

CRUCIALLY, I believe that the pace of technological progress is not simply steady. It is accelerating. The next ten years should therefore bring more rapid and far-reaching change for lawyers than the last. IT will reach well beyond communication, research and automation of the back office. Technology will alter the very fabric of legal life. Advanced systems, such as document assembly, will enable and encourage an elemental shift from bespoke advice to commoditised legal service. The foundations of dispute resolution will be rocked by a combination of electronic disclosure, e-filing in the courts and online dispute resolution. Legal education and training, along with knowledge management, will be reconceived and reshaped by e-learning and online community. At the same time, the working relationships between lawyers and their clients will mutate beyond recognition, as they come under the one virtual roof and operate under a new order of online collaboration and communication. And risk management and compliance — key challenges for clients — will be tackled through intelligent legal modules that will plug directly into the systems, processes and documents of clients. For better or worse, disintermediation will drive relentlessly through the legal world. All of which is about as nuts as e-mail was in 1996.

The author lectures and consults internationally. He is IT adviser to the Lord Chief Justice and Honorary Professor at Gresham College. He can be contacted through www.susskind.com

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