Reception from 6.15pm and lecture commences 7.00pm.
The future of legal services:
We live in a world in which technological developments as well as market pressures are rapidly changing the way that lawyers work. The Internet and Artificial Intelligence provide the potential for a radical transformation of the way that legal services are delivered. This poses challenges to the legal profession, which is likely to look very different in the years to come, with far fewer lawyers providing bespoke legal service to individual clients and a far greater use of automated legal services and electronically shared legal knowledge. It also poses challenges to law schools which need to adapt in order to prepare their students for a legal world in which very different skills are required compared to those traditionally taught. At the same time, the digital revolution offers great opportunities to address the ever-increasing problem of unmet legal need through the sharing of legal knowledge, the creation of consumer-friendly automated legal systems and numerous other innovations. Drawing on his voluminous writing on technology and the future of the legal profession, in the 31st Essex Annual Law Lecture, Richard Susskind will provide an up to date exploration of the challenges and opportunities for lawyers, law schools and those in need of legal services in the coming years.
Guest Speaker: Professor Richard Susskind OBE
Professor Richard Susskind OBE is the world’s most cited author on the future of legal services. He is President of the Society for Computers and Law, Chair of the Advisory Board of the Oxford Internet Institute, and, since 1998, has been Technology Adviser to the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales.
He chaired the Online Dispute Resolution Advisory Group of the Civil Justice Council in England and Wales whose proposals on online courts have been adopted as judicial and government policy.
Richard's work has been translated into 15 languages and he has been invited to speak in over 50 countries. He has written numerous books, including The Future of the Law (1996), Transforming the Law (2000), The End of Lawyers? (2008), The Future of the Professions (2015, with D Susskind) and Tomorrow’s Lawyers (2013, 2017).
In the 1980s, he wrote his doctorate on artificial intelligence and the law at Balliol College, Oxford University. He holds professorships at Oxford University, UCL, Gresham College, and Strathclyde University. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and of the British Computer Society, and an Honorary Bencher at Gray’s Inn, he was awarded an OBE in 2000.
Sponsors: Suffolk and North Essex Law Society
Ticket information: This event is open to the general public. Please book your free place on eventbrite.