Law school talk: Legal Zoom and Legal Hacking

This month I had the opportunity to return to the University of Nebraska College of Law to talk about the future of the legal profession (as I see it). Professor Eric Berger is a good friend from the days when I served as his research assistant for his work on constitutional law issues. When he was out in Seattle last summer we had a long that about these topics on a hike and so I wound up coming out to talk to students and faculty.

For those immersed in “legal future” issues there’s probably not much new here. Primarily I wanted to help students think about the quickly changing legal services marketplace. Students need to get out of the head space of thinking about getting “jobs,” and focus more on new models for delivering valuable results to clients.  What’s the difference? It’s a difference of mind set. New lawyers should not assume that a cookie-cutter career will be handed to them on a silver platter. They should assume that they will have to deploy creativity and critical thinking to really examine how they can contribute to an organization and ultimately – most importantly – to the clients they serve.

Video is courtesy of the nice folks at the law college.

_{Photo credit: Pakorn}