Partner Seeking Help On E-Discovery – or – Why it is a Good Idea to Learn Something About E-Discovery Before You Commit Malpractice

This semester here at Michigan State University College of Law, I am team teaching E-Discovery together with my colleague Adam Candeub. For a number of reasons, I enjoyed this video as it highlights the real gap in knowledge that exists between the tech infused Lawyer for the 21st Century and everyone else. The future belongs to the former and the time to acquire those skills is now!

Family Tree of Languages Has Roots in Anatolia, Biologists Say {via NY Times}

(1) Kinda amazing – the NY Times decided to have the public chew on a dendrogram – pretty damn cool 🙂

(2) Among other reasons, I also post this because this topic is of great import to the ungoing study of the origins of Western Civilization and Western Legal Thought.  In particular, this is part of an important active conversation in the legal academy community – (see e.g.  Rob Kar’s  paper  On the Origins of Western Law and Western Civilization (in the Indus Valley).  Also, check out – The Early Eastern Origins of Western Law and Western Civilization: New Arguments for a Changed Understanding of Our Earliest Legal and Cultural Origins – Part I, Part II and Part III.   They are a real tour de force!

Getting Serious About the Future of the Legal Services Industry : Restaurant Chains Have Managed to Combine Quality Control, Cost Control, and Innovation. Can Health Care { or for that matter Legal Services } ?

Just remember that the turmoil in the legal services industry offers both possibility and peril.  At our  ReInventLaw Lab we are all about the possibility …

One of my last conversations with the late Larry Ribstein was about the very idea in this article … not applied to medicine but rather to law … What if the sort of processing engineering that gave rise to the CheeseCake Factory was a play in the delivery of legal services?  Very solid food ( yes I know it is not 5 star dining ) but it is quite affordable for most folks on a Friday night 🙂

Suffice to say this (and legal information engineering) is where a significant of the growth (jobs) in the legal services industry will be located (as we showcased at our recent London event … and will do so at our upcoming Dubai and Silicon Valley events)

If you are a law student reading this post – please understand that you can be a leader in this space as it is still in its infancy.  There are lots of law startups working in this and allied domains but it is highly unlikely that your law school can help you acquire the skills you need to play ball in this arena … If you want to do what is described above you need a mixture of skills (not just law) …

Here are the four pillars — { law + tech + design + delivery } and that is precisely what we are teaching in the ReInventLaw Lab and the Michigan State 21st Century Law Practice Summer Program in London.  If you want to be part of the action … it is not too late … shoot me an email … daniel.martin.katz@gmail.com and will tell you how to get serious … because the time for action is now