Just as Uber and Lyft disrupt the taxi business, legal tech 2.0 frightens incumbent providers and cheers consumers. Desired or not, however, it is still embedded within the existing system. The current web of natural language laws, courts and the regulatory state remain largely intact. Our system of justice evolves but does not radically shift.

We are, however, fast approaching 3.0, where the power of computational technology for communication, modeling and execution permit a radical redesign, if not a full replacement, of the current system itself. If the Internal Revenue Code were enacted in computer code rather than natural language, a good technological parsing engine (rather than the limited biological parsing engine of a lawyer’s brain) could give tax advice quickly and cheaply. Indeed, regulatory compliance could be built directly into computational objects such as a share of stock built as a “smart security,” keeping track of ownership and applicable trading rules. Online dispute resolution looks significantly different from current courts, as the offerings of Modria already demonstrate.

Aspects of 3.0 sound a bit like science fiction, but so did the functionality of a smart phone a few years ago. The conceptual and technological pieces for radical redesign are falling into place; even law will innovate when the world changes. The shape of innovation can be relatively graceful or clumsy, however. If we anticipate the more radical changes and design safeguards into these processes with intelligence and attention to the public good, maybe we can improve the outcomes. We can help a system intended to create justice do just that.

Practitioners who anticipate and adapt to change can prosper in the new world of law. That’s a far better outcome than letting the rhinoceros trample its way through the legal profession.

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