Competing in cyberspace: The future of the legal profession

Abstract

Law is an information-oriented profession that has been profoundly affected by the traditional media, particularly print. In relying on new information technologies, lawyers are engaged both in a process of adaptation, as new tools displace old tools, and in a process of acculturation, as a new information environment emerges in which there are changing assumptions and expectations about the value and use of information. In this digital environment, professional boundaries are vulnerable as control over bodies of knowledge is weakened. In addition, the legal profession must respond to increasing levels of complexity in relationships, to increasing rates of change, and to increasing levels of conflict, all of which are occurring at the same time that the role and meaning of the profession is being redefined.