The legal professional is facing the Innovator’s Dilemma. The lower-margin jobs are outsourced to tech companies that use programs to run discovery and other mundane legal tasks. However, these companies are becoming more efficient at doing the work associates complain about. What happens when these companies create better products that provide semi-legal services cheaper and more efficiently than human lawyers? The landscape of the law is likely to change. As for now, the majority of the legal work is protected by the ABA (i.e. you must have a license to practice). However, there is debate about how ABA rules should change to adopt to the new technological age. How will the legal practice adapt to these new innovations?
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/05/science/05legal.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1
These companies are very intriguing, provided they can do a good job. Sean raises an interesting point about ABA requirements. If the computer messes up, is the law firm to blame? Is the software company to blame? Presumably the client wouldn’t take the fall, but it raises interesting problems about who will bear the cost when mistakes are made.