Sara Rayment is the Principal of Inkling Legal, and an Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Newcastle. She researches legal design, legal innovation and international disputes. She has particular interest in algorithmic law, natural language processing and visual law. As the founder of Inkling Legal Design Sara advises government agencies, regulators. law firms and corporate counsel on emerging technology and the practice of law.
Educating Lawyers for Innovation: Where to from Here and Why?
Abstract:
Futurists such as Susskind emphasis the importance of lawyers being innovative in order to respond to technological disruption in the legal profession. However, as this paper highlights, there are particular challenges that lawyers face in being comfortable and competent at innovation. These challenges are multi-level, stemming from personal, socio-cultural and structural factors. This paper presents our empirical research into how best to educate tomorrow’s lawyers to innovate. It presents both the data from that research and our practical experience in the classroom and the boardroom to explain why we believe that deeply collaborative, multi-disciplinary, human-focused approaches, such as a design thinking methodology, provide the greatest promise for equipping lawyers for tomorrow’s world.