ABSTRACT
In questioning, if not declaring, the demise of the legal profession of the 20th century, Richard Susskind’s The End of Lawyers? Rethinking the Nature of Legal Services (Oxford University Press, 2008) set the stage for a new subfield of legal ethics devoted to entrepreneurship and innovation. A scholar of law and technology, not an ethicist, Susskind nonetheless forced regulators of professional ethics to consider whether or not to address obligations related to technology-driven evolution in the delivery of legal services. In the decade-plus since the first publication of the book, numerous jurisdictions have adopted ethical rules that require lawyers to maintain competence in the risks and benefits of changes in law practice, many of which Susskind forecast. Similarly, a growing number of scholars and commentators now include the ethics of legal services delivery under the umbrella of legal ethics generally.
This chapter situates Susskind’s book in the context of the international canon of legal ethics and validates it as a leading work. In doing so, the chapter is partially autobiographical in nature, discussing the parallel evolution of Renee Knake Jefferson’s own work creating a law laboratory devoted to technology, entrepreneurship, and innovation to prepare future lawyers for the world Susskind predicts. Susskind often criticizes lawyers for failing to recognize and provide what their clients actually want. For example, he tells the story about the sale of drills. People don’t buy drills because they want drills, he says, they do so because they want holes. But Susskind is only partially correct; people don’t want holes. They want artwork or photos hung on the nail that fills the hole, and the feeling they have when the see that art or photo hanging on the wall. Similarly, the conclusions he reaches in The End of Lawyers? are only partially correct. Viewing his book as one about legal ethics, not simply the nature of legal services, reveals critical gaps and omissions that this chapter aims to fill.
