Getting ready for the future (?)

Laura Nathalie
Feb. 12, 2018

Law professionals and law students who want to have better chances to secure a job in the future, now have an inevitable responsibility to understand both functionality and legal consequences of the Internet and the technologies. All areas of Law are involved and will have an even greater role in the future in determining and regulating how technologies will continue to play in our lives. 

Photo: Pixabay

The impact caused by technologies and the internet, in many areas of life, has been studied and discussed for many years now. Therefore, it is essential to use the transversality of Law and Technology, as more and more people become digital citizens[1].

Due to the rapid evolution of technologies and the internet, the comprehension of Law with regards to Technologies, also require a constant study, analysis, and update of those who dedicate their work and research to legal studies, regardless of their practice specialization[2].

On the basis of previous ideas, universities and governments in Latin America should make a serious consideration of the impact of technologies in our lives, and take an approach from education. The challenges and opportunities of technology are already here. It is on us to drive them to better serve the education of those students that will have to face a different job demand in the future than the one we know. 

It is fundamental to start teaching law students, in such a way, that they become able to analyze, contribute and insert themselves in the future[3] as law professionals with the ability to distinguish themselves from any type of technology that will do the work currently made by lawyers.

Why haven't more universities in Latin America yet implemented courses on Law and Technology?

It is becoming increasingly more important, for us Latin Americans, to engage in the study and debate on issues of Law and Technology. The opposite represents a major disadvantage in research and academic participation in activities related to the subject. We will keep falling behind. 

There is an offer of online courses and tools to advance in the field of Law and Tech. However, these are not always accessible to the vast majority of students in Latin America, either due to economic reasons, such as the lack of scholarships for, expensiveness of the study books and certificates or due to the lack of (or poor) access to the internet. 

Sometimes, even access to traditional courses in law is hard financially or tiresome due to geographical particularities of the areas where they live that sometimes forces the student to commute long hours from one area to another. Lastly, time factor. Some areas require a continuous study due to the constant changes of the technologies, and updating simply becomes too much of a burden. 

We can't continue avoiding this conversation...

"[A]bbiamo di fronte cinque sfide da cui dipende il futuro dell’umanità: ambientale, tecnologica, economica, geopolitica e democratica (...) ecco arrivare a un certo momento la riflessione sull’università “che deve guardare fuori dalla finestra, immergersi nel mondo in cui vive”, puntando a un cambiamento della didattica e della ricerca cercando di essere davvero capace di declinare concretamente quella interdisciplinarietà “molto lodata in pubblico, ma attivamente scoraggiata in pratica”[4].

Finances play a big role. But it is also an investment for the sustainable development of our countries. An approach to the legal consequences of technologies would enrich universities with debates and expand research areas. Those professionals would have better opportunities to contribute back to their home countries. 

With the continuous and recent development of technologies, such as artificial intelligence, it seems easy to reconcile and accept the view of Law Schools as a meeting point to hold multidisciplinary debates among researchers, to discuss issues that involve the intersection of their fields with Law. 

[1] The author, making reference to a Wired Magazine article, describes the enthusiasm of tech consumers, who also use these as a tool for political participation and as a means to revive democracy. FERDINAND, Peter. The Internet, Democracy and Democratization (Democratization Studies). Taylor and Francis: Kindle Edition. p.8.

[2] In 2014, the American Bar Association, as a consequence of the advances and the legal effects brought by the technologies to basically all scopes of the daily life, already were approaching the future of the profession (the year 2020), and the skills that succeding lawyers will need to face new paradigms in law as a consequence of the development of technology: JANIS, Blair. How Technology Is Changing the Practice of Law. Vol.31 no.3. American Bar Association. Available at: https://www.americanbar.org/publications/gp_solo/2014/may_june/how_technology_changing_practice_law.html. Accessed: Aug. 21, 2017.

[3] MARKOFF, John. Armies of Expensive Lawyers, Replaced by Cheaper Software. The New York Times, March 4, 2011. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/05/science/05legal.html. Accessed: 25 Oct. 2017.

[4] DE MARTIN, Juan Carlos. https://160caratteri.wordpress.com/2018/02/12/luniversita-del-futuro-fra-bit-e-democrazia-per-alessandria-sara-davvero-la-volta-buona/. Accessed: feb. 12, 2018. 


About the author

Laura Nathalie is a lawyer and consultant in public policies, human rights and digital rights. Founder and directress of TEDIREI, a research group on technologies, law and inclusion for the northeast of Brazil.
Email: lauranath@gmail.com