This past week saw the publication of four articles on legal innovation – specifically as it relates to law and technology both in legal practice and in legal education.

The New York Times published an article by John Schwartz that showcased programs in three law schools who are changing their approach to legal education to include technology and business skills. The article mentions several diverse viewpoints on the impact of technology on the legal industry.

Ron Friedman at Prism Legal penned the blog entry “Big Law Changing or Being Disrupted?” In his blog Friedman argues against viewing disruption as the way to think about legal market trends. Instead Friedman cites to Paul Lippe’s July 31st ABA Legal Rebels article, “Disruption, Eruption or Interruption: 3 Views of Change in Law.” While Friedman is uncertain about Lippe’s reference to the changes we have seen in big law as eruption rather than disruption, Friedman offers a list of reasons he thinks big law has a nice future.

Susan Beck’s article in The American Lawyer, “The Future of Law,” is a balanced discussion of legal innovation. Her article invokes the possibilities that IBM’s Watson may bring balanced against the legal technology realities of relatively long-time players such as Neota Logic, KM Standards, Legal Zoom and Fastcase who have had to manage state bar rules and an industry that is, to quote Sarah Reed from the article, “uniquely impervious to change.”

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