A simple framework for understanding the U.S. legal profession is a gradual progression through three generations of lawyers: the generalist, the specialist, and the project manager. The transition from one generation to the next is driven by the familiar story of supply and demand. The generalist era (colonial period to the end of World War II) gave way to the specialist era (post-War to early 2000s) because of a shortage of sophisticated business lawyers capable of serving the needs of large, growing,...
Professor Steven Solomon (Berkeley) has a piece in the New York Times DealB%k column today discussing the recent deal between Thomas Jefferson School of Law and its bondholders that restructured the school's debt in order to avoid a foreclosure. Professor Solomon makes the point that despite the dire predictions about many law school closures in the next few years, as a practical matter he doesn't see that happening for some very pragmatic financial reasons. Among them, a law school typically has no assets...
Boston Dynamics' Atlas is terrible at karate - CNET. Okay, now that Boston Dynamics has a robot that can do karate kicks, is the future a robot that, with an A.I. interface can practice law? My example is hyperbolic; but, lawyers are being supplanted by technology faster than you might think. Computers sift through electronic discovery for relevant data. Lawyers use tech to do research, write documents, and to communicate. Up until now, the technology has been developed to enhance the human's ability...
Google has been working hard on its self-driving car, and based on the comments of the Google X designers here at the company’s FORM design conference, that once fantastical notion is well on its way to becoming a real product that people will use and even trust.
No huge surprise there, but the Google car, in its current form, is designed in such a way that the user experience is heavily reliant on a mobile app. Instead of the old paradigm — using a key — people will unlock and start Google’s...
A California woman is facing a felony insurance fraud case after being accused of falsely claiming that she was burned when the lid came off a cup of hot coffee at a fast food restaurant drive-thru in Fontana.
Selena Edwards, 38, is alleged to have sent faked treatment documents and burn photos from a hospital website in a bid to get $10,000 from McDonald’s Corp., authorities said. Although she received no medical treatment for the claimed injury to her hand last year, she was paid $2,000 by an insurer...
Louis Del Duca, Edward N. Polisher Distinguished Faculty Scholar Emeritus and Director, Institute of Commercial Law at the Penn State Dickinson School of Law, has published Consumer Financing Pre-Dispute Mandatory Arbitration: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Developments, Uniform Commercial Code Law Journal, Vol. 46, p. 71, 2014. In his article, Professor Del Duca discusses some of the possible implications raised by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s recent findings on the use of mandatory...