In the first webinar of the 2019-2020 school year, Dean Matthew Diller sat down to talk with Professor Ron Lazebnik about the intersection of law and technology and how it affects the education provided at Fordham Law School. Other topics include the latest Fordham Law news and updates.
Dean Matthew Diller: Ron, how is the transformation in technology affecting legal practice and the legal profession?
Prof. Lazebnik: It’s doing it in several different ways. Lawyers have always had to keep up with the changes in the industries of their clients but now the lawyers’ practice itself is starting to change. We have of course e-discovery tools that have been around for several years now but what we’re seeing is an emergence of tools that go beyond simply helping a lawyer review documents and actually helping a lawyer make other critical decisions. There are, at the forefront right now, artificial intelligence machines that some profess are able to write briefs just as good as lawyers in things like bankruptcy law. There are technologies that will review the briefs of both sides of a case and let you know what case neither party cited that they should have. So there’s a lot of growing technologies and as lawyers we have this rule that we have to maintain a certain level of competence and at least here in New York and several other states that includes understanding technologies that are emerging so now lawyers are not only needing to understand the technologies that their clients use but what technologies are available to them to maintain the competitive edge against their opponents and also to help their clients.