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Legal Tech, the Law Firm and the Imagination of the Right Legal Answer

Parsa, Amin ; Noll, Gregor ; Brännström, Leila LU and Gunneflo, Markus LU (2023) In Law and Critique
Abstract (Swedish)
Legal tech is growing, and its growth provokes anxieties about the future of the
legal profession as such. In this article, we examine the impact of legal tech on the
central role of lawyers at law firms in crafting an imagined ‘right legal answer’ by
drawing on Duncan Kennedy’s suggestion that a claim to the rightness of one’s
legal propositions is a central characteristic of the legal profession. We first ask
how changes in the organisation of legal services affect the ability of lawyers at
law firms to produce that ‘right legal answer’. While legal tech only exacerbates
already ongoing processes of eradication of routine tasks, we find that it continues
to mask the role of ideology in arriving at a right... (More)
Legal tech is growing, and its growth provokes anxieties about the future of the
legal profession as such. In this article, we examine the impact of legal tech on the
central role of lawyers at law firms in crafting an imagined ‘right legal answer’ by
drawing on Duncan Kennedy’s suggestion that a claim to the rightness of one’s
legal propositions is a central characteristic of the legal profession. We first ask
how changes in the organisation of legal services affect the ability of lawyers at
law firms to produce that ‘right legal answer’. While legal tech only exacerbates
already ongoing processes of eradication of routine tasks, we find that it continues
to mask the role of ideology in arriving at a right legal answer under a new layer
of technological projection. Second, we ask how lawyers’ ability to produce ‘the
right legal answer’ is affected by, first, expert systems and, second, a legal tech ap-
plication named Bryter, representing a no-code system. We find that expert systems
do not permit to uphold the unity of the lawyer required for Kennedy’s model of
the right legal answer, but that no-code systems as Bryter do so. No-code systems
can be reduced to a slogan: Have the lawyer, but evict her ideological temptations
more efficiently than before! (Less)
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author
; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Folkrätt, Public international law
in
Law and Critique
pages
14 pages
publisher
Springer
external identifiers
  • scopus:85173681499
ISSN
0957-8536
DOI
10.1007/s10978-023-09363-4
language
Swedish
LU publication?
yes
id
b29e58a8-a325-4c3c-8ec6-9159a6447f8d
date added to LUP
2023-10-26 13:11:01
date last changed
2023-12-20 10:31:55
@article{b29e58a8-a325-4c3c-8ec6-9159a6447f8d,
  abstract     = {{Legal tech is growing, and its growth provokes anxieties about the future of the<br/>legal profession as such. In this article, we examine the impact of legal tech on the<br/>central role of lawyers at law firms in crafting an imagined ‘right legal answer’ by<br/>drawing on Duncan Kennedy’s suggestion that a claim to the rightness of one’s<br/>legal propositions is a central characteristic of the legal profession. We first ask<br/>how changes in the organisation of legal services affect the ability of lawyers at<br/>law firms to produce that ‘right legal answer’. While legal tech only exacerbates<br/>already ongoing processes of eradication of routine tasks, we find that it continues<br/>to mask the role of ideology in arriving at a right legal answer under a new layer<br/>of technological projection. Second, we ask how lawyers’ ability to produce ‘the<br/>right legal answer’ is affected by, first, expert systems and, second, a legal tech ap-<br/>plication named Bryter, representing a no-code system. We find that expert systems<br/>do not permit to uphold the unity of the lawyer required for Kennedy’s model of<br/>the right legal answer, but that no-code systems as Bryter do so. No-code systems<br/>can be reduced to a slogan: Have the lawyer, but evict her ideological temptations<br/>more efficiently than before!}},
  author       = {{Parsa, Amin and Noll, Gregor and Brännström, Leila and Gunneflo, Markus}},
  issn         = {{0957-8536}},
  keywords     = {{Folkrätt; Public international law}},
  language     = {{swe}},
  month        = {{10}},
  publisher    = {{Springer}},
  series       = {{Law and Critique}},
  title        = {{Legal Tech, the Law Firm and the Imagination of the Right Legal Answer}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10978-023-09363-4}},
  doi          = {{10.1007/s10978-023-09363-4}},
  year         = {{2023}},
}