Knake, R N --- "Cultivating learners who will invent the future of law practice: some thoughts on educating entrepreneurial and innovative lawyers" [2013] LegEdDig 36; (2013) 21(3) Legal Education Digest 16

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Cultivating learners who will invent the future of law practice: some thoughts on educating entrepreneurial and innovative lawyers

R N Knake

Ohio North University Law Review, Vol 38 pp 847 – 854

The convergence of technological advances, global competition, and financial pressures facing the legal profession in the 21^st century demands that we equip our students to be entrepreneurial and innovative in their pursuit of a rewarding and meaningful career in the law. Legal education prides itself in producing members of a learned profession. We face, however, a ‘time of drastic change’, as Eric Hoffer might say, where the ‘learned usually find themselves beautifully equipped to live in a world that no longer exists’. His observation calls us to cultivate ‘learners’ who will invent the future of law practice, to borrow from Alan Kay’s observation that ‘to predict the future’ we must ‘invent it’. In other words, we need to educate entrepreneurial and innovative lawyers.

The value in educating an entrepreneurial and innovative lawyer is, in some ways, tied to the economic realities of a disrupted legal market, a massive tuition-based debt bubble, and disgruntled graduates unable to secure jobs. Legal education cannot afford to ignore this culmination of forces. Indeed, this is precisely why – contrary to what recently ran on the front page of the New York Times – law schools actively pursued reform over the past decade and continue to do so. The New York Times author’s critique, that law schools do not teach lawyering, was not only misguided, but failed to hone in on the actual problem. Law schools now widely focus on lawyering skills by incorporating clinical activities, mock simulations, and other efforts designed to provide practical, hands-on experience as well as to encourage collaboration with others.

The real issue is that law students also need to be engaged in the enterprise of inventing how law will be practised in the future.

Instilling entrepreneurialism and innovation holds additional significance beyond simply responding to the current pressures faced by the profession. Admittedly, lawyers have always been entrepreneurial in some ways (particularly those setting out to hang their own shingles), so one might question why it is necessary, at this particular point in time, for legal education to take up the endeavour of cultivating an innovative atmosphere. Even if economic pressures were not at play, in my mind it is essential that legal education embrace a culture and curriculum of entrepreneurialism and innovation for at least three reasons. First, an enormous need exists for legal services, a demand that has gone largely ignored by the legal profession. Second, law schools are filled with creative, bright individuals who, given the right atmosphere, will be inventors of new models for legal services delivery in addition to practitioners of law. Third, developing the qualities of an entrepreneur and innovator can benefit any lawyer in her own career development, whether or not she decides to become an inventor or to open a new business.

Some law schools are beginning to acknowledge the need for this sort of culture and curriculum in legal education. For example, Stanford Law School is a partner in a multidisciplinary laboratory called CodeX, which brings together ‘organizations from industry, government, and academia’ in order ‘to explore ways in which information technology can be used to enhance the quality and efficiency of our legal system while decreasing its cost’. Scholars at the University of Miami Law School founded LawWithoutWalls, ‘a part-virtual, collaborative academic model ... that brings together students, faculty, practitioners, business professionals, and entrepreneurs from around the country and the world to innovate legal education and practice’. Harvard’s Berkman Center Law Lab ‘is a multidisciplinary research initiative and collaborative network of University, non-profit and industry partners. Its mission is to investigate and harness the varied forces – evolutionary, social, psychological, neurological and economic – that shape the role of law and social norms as they enable cooperation, governance and entrepreneurial innovation’. A new course offered at Georgetown Law Center, Technology, Innovation, and Law Practice: An Experiential Seminar ‘exposes students to the varied uses of computer technologies in the practice of law’, where teams of students partner ‘with a legal tech expert to develop a platform, application or system that increases access to justice and/or improves the effectiveness of legal representation’. The class ‘culminates in a design competition, The Georgetown Iron Tech Lawyer Contest, which is judged by outside experts in the field.’

At my home institution, Michigan State University College of Law, together with my colleague Professor Daniel Martin Katz, we offer Entrepreneurial Lawyering, a course designed to help students understand the economic pressures, technological changes, and globalisation facing the legal profession in the 21 ^t century, and to assist students in successfully navigating their legal career given these challenges. The course explores the concept of a virtual law practice as well as the use of technology and cloud-computing in building a law practice; free and low-cost resources and tools are shared to assist the entrepreneur-minded student in leveraging leading-edge technology to defray start-up costs associated with launching a practice and to control overhead. Ethics, licensing, and malpractice issues related to virtual and multi-jurisdictional/global law practice are discussed. The course is meant to be particularly useful for students contemplating solo practice, consulting, or engaging in an entrepreneurial venture, as well as those considering non-traditional uses for their law degree. Other topics covered in the course include client development and networking, case studies of innovative legal services delivery mechanisms and alternative business structures, and work/life balance including the study of emotional intelligence and mindful lawyering practices. Students hear from guest lecturers on topics such as technology for lawyers, digital law practice, the retail of legal services, and deregulation of the legal profession. There is an optional excursion to the American Bar Association Annual TechShow in Chicago. As part of the final grade, students create an electronic resume and present a six-minute Ignite/PechaKucha-style presentation, which is recorded and becomes part of the electronic resume.

Professor Katz and I also recently launched ReInvent Law, a law laboratory devoted to technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship in legal services. Our mission is to cultivate a creative community through partnerships with other university departments, academic institutions, industry, non-profit organisations, government, and our students. The primary purpose of ReInvent Law is to provide a new element of education to our students through research and experimentation on endeavours designed (1) to solve problems faced by the legal profession including access to justice concerns; and (2) to create new vehicles for the delivery of legal services. Through ReInvent Law, collaborators from the fields of law, technology, engineering, design, retailing, computer science, and beyond will come together in this shared space to engage in conversation and to actively construct innovative solutions. In creating ReInvent Law, we aim to provide an environment where ideas can be generated, tested, and brought to market – a sort of research and development department for future law practice. Most important, however, is that ReInvent Law will harness collaborative energies and expertise for inventing ground-breaking solutions to problems faced in 21 ^t century law practice while simultaneously encouraging and equipping students to embrace innovative approaches in the practice of law.

One example of ReInvent Law’s work is the creation of our 21 ^t Century Law Practice Summer Program, ‘a first of its kind, intensive study of technology, innovation, regulation, entrepreneurship and the international legal marketplace.’ The program is held in London, England, a location selected mindful of the recent deregulation in the wake of the United Kingdom’s Legal Services Act of 2007 and the corresponding outgrowth of alternative legal services delivery models. Students are immersed in the study of these new models. As we explain on our website, the program has three primary educational objectives: (1) Provide students a comprehensive understanding of the market for legal services as it transitions to a global legal supply chain in the wake of deregulation, economic pressures, and technological innovation; (2) Prepare students to become practise- ready entrepreneurial lawyers who can leverage information technology in order to operate more efficiently and thereby attract (and retain) clients; and (3) Inspire students to think broadly about future delivery of legal representation and access to justice by exposing them to the innovative legal service delivery models and platforms of the present (and not-too-distant future).

The program covers subjects essential to cultivating a learner who will invent the future of law practice, topics that often are neglected by law schools including technology, legal informatics, marketing, case studies of new legal business structures, math/statistics, virtual law practice, and digital lawyering. We also encourage personal reflection on how each student might shape law practice in the future to reach those who currently cannot access a lawyer and to do so in a way that allows for positive work/life balance. Our partners include industry innovators, government entities, regulators, non-profit organisations, and international academics, with the program culminating in a capstone ‘un’conference of presentations, ReInvent Law London. By creating this new space for students to interact with these cross-institution and cross-sector partners – all of us connecting to consider alternative ways of delivering legal services – the program embodies the very kind of innovative spirit we hope to infuse in participants.

Educating an entrepreneurial and innovative lawyer should be a priority for every law school.