Home » Law 2050 Initiative (Page 7)
Category Archives: Law 2050 Initiative
Law 2050 Class Speaker Schedule
My Law 2050 time the past few weeks has been devoted to getting the Vanderbilt Law School class up and running, thus no blogging. As I mentioned in my post introducing the class, I have been overwhelmed by the enthusiasm invited guest speakers have shown. We have a wonderful speaker schedule planned. I will be blogging about these events as the semester progresses, but with the understanding that that these are busy people with fluid schedules, I wanted to thank all who have agreed to appear in case any have to drop out later due to unforeseen schedule conflicts. So, here’s the schedule as it stands today, and many thanks to all of you for agreeing to share your insights with our students:
Monday, August 26: Guest Speaker Panel – Law firm managing partners discuss the state of the practice
• Ben Adams – Baker Donelson
• Richard Hays – Alston & Bird
• Stephen Mahon – Squire Sanders
Tuesday, August 27: Guest Speaker Panel – Corporate in-house counsel discuss the drivers of change
• Reuben Buck – Cisco
• Jim Cuminale – Nielson
• Cheryl Mason – Hospital Corporation of America
Monday, September 23: Guest Speaker Panel – Legal Project and Process Management
• Larry Bridgsmith – ERM Legal Solutions
• Marc Jenkins – Cicayda
• Dan Willoughby – King & Spalding
Tuesday, September 24: Guest Speaker Panel – Law firm associates discuss life in the modern law firm
• Ashley Bassel – Bass Berry
• Daniel Flournoy – Waller Lansden
• Sarah Laird – Bradley Arant
• Chris Lalonde – Nelson Mullins
Tuesday, October 1: Paul Lippe of Legal OnRamp
Monday, October 7: Guest Speaker Panel – Alternatives to the Big Law model
• Walt Burton – Thompson Burton
• Lindsay Grossman – Axiom
• Eric Schultenover – Counsel on Call
Tuesday, October 15: Guest Speaker – Michael Mills of Neota Logic
Tuesday, October 22: Michael Bess, Vanderbilt History Department, on the Bioengineered Superhuman
Tuesday, October 29: Guest Speakers: John Murdoch of Bradley Arant and Nancy Lea Hyer of the Owen Business School – Implementing LEAN Law
Tuesday, November 12: Guest Speaker – Prof. Bill Henderson of Indiana University-Bloomington Law School
Announcing Law Practice 2050 — The Vanderbilt Law School Class
I am pleased to announce that Law 2050 will move beyond the blogosphere this fall to the four walls and PowerPoint slides of a law school classroom. With the tremendous support of my dean, Chris Guthrie, I have designed Law Practice 2050, a course designed to immerse students in the dynamic environments forcing change in the law and in legal practice, the goal being to develop the skills necessary for actively participating in and taking advantage of those changes. There are four distinct but related themes embedded in the course scope:
- Understanding the structural changes taking place in the private sector legal services industry (e.g., changing firm models; new fee structures; online services; outsourcing)
- Gaining familiarity with established and emerging legal technologies (e.g., e-discovery; routinized compliance software; data aggregation and analysis)
- Exploring new kinds of legal services and employment (e.g., legal risk management; legal knowledge management; legal process management)
- Anticipating scenarios of the future of law and building skills useful for identifying and developing future practice opportunities (e.g., climate change; 3D printing; robotics; demographic shifts)
Through a series of readings (e.g., Tomorrow’s Lawyers is required reading), individual and group projects, and guest speakers and panels, we will explore the forces acting to transform the legal services industry and survey established and emerging developments. We will also explore scenarios of future social, economic, technological, and environmental change and brainstorm their possible impacts on the law. Students will engage in active small group discussions, prepare reaction papers, make group presentations, and develop practice development proposals and legal industry case studies.
I have been overwhelmed with how willing people in the industry have been to contribute to the course as speakers and panelists. Currently we have scheduled a rich variety of outside speakers including:
- a panel of managing partners of three Big Law firms
- a panel of in-house counsel of three major corporations
- a panel of representatives from several lawyer staffing firms
- a panel of representatives from legal process outsourcing firms
- a panel of associates from three Big Law firms to discuss their perspectives
- speakers from several law+tech companies
- speakers on legal process and knowledge management
- speakers from several non-law disciplines offering visions of the future of the environment, technology, and society
I will be blogging about the course as we move through it and hope to get feedback from students, academics, and practitioners. More to come…
Introducing Law 2050 – A Forum about the Legal Future
I am pleased to announce the creation of the Law 2050 blog, a forum for envisioning the future of law, legal practice, and legal education. My shorthand term for this endeavor is “legal futurism.” Legal futurism primarily considers questions such as: How will climate change influence property law? How will liability law respond to robotics and human bioengineering? How will energy regulation law need to change to accommodate a renewable energy future? Legal futurism draws from nonlegal disciplines such as scenario planning and change forecasting to focus on the social, economic, technological, and environmental forces of the future that will put pressure on law to change and will open up new legal opportunities. Legal futurism is thus both theoretical (what might law look like in 2050) and practical (how do lawyers participate in that legal future).
Although the focus of Law 2050 is primarily on the future of law and legal systems, it will also cover important events and news regarding the future of legal practice and legal education. The evolution of law influences the evolution of legal practice, and vice versa. And legal education had better keep its eyes on both processes to stay useful and relevant. (more…)
Law 2050 