TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
FOREWORD: 40 PRACTICE AREAS THAT DIDN'T EXIST 15 YEARS AGO....................................................................................................................................... 4 3D PRINTING...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................10 ALGORITHM LAW.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................15 #ALTLAW REGULATION....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................17 ANIMAL LAW..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................21 ANTI-VAX LAW .....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................23 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, ROBOTS & SELF-DRIVING CARS............................................................................................................................................................27 ASSISTED REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGY................................................................................................................................................................................................31 AUGMENTED & VIRTUAL REALITY (AR/VR)...............................................................................................................................................................................................36 BIOMETRICS ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 40 BITTORRENT LITIGATION..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................45 BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY ...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................47 CAMPUS DEFENSE LAWS.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................50 CANNABIS LAW....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................53 CLIMATE CHANGE LITIGATION.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................59 COWORKING LAW...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................61 CRAFT ALCOHOL..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................64 CROWDFUNDING ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 67
1
CRYPTOCURRENCIES .........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................71 CYBERBULLYING ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 75 CYBERSECURITY ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................88 DATA CENTER LAW ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................91 DIGITAL ASSETS IN ESTATE PLANNING AND SUCCESSION..............................................................................................................................................................93 DRONE LAW ...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................95 E-ACCESSIBILITY LAW .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................99 FIRST AMENDMENT & ONLINE DEFAMATION ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 101 GENETIC COUNSELING AND DISCRIMINATION .................................................................................................................................................................................... 107 INTERNET OF THINGS...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 113 LAWYERS AND INTERNET SCAMS ............................................................................................................................................................................................................ 116 LGBTQ ISSUES .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 120 ONLINE FANTASY SPORTS LEAGUES & E-SPORTS ............................................................................................................................................................................ 129 OPEN SOURCE LAW......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 132 ORGANIC CERTIFICATION LAW .................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 134 PERSONAL JURISDICTIONAL ISSUES IN THE AGE OF THE INTERNET ........................................................................................................................................ 136 PRIVACY LAW ONLINE.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 140 ROOFTOP SOLAR LAW................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 144 SHARING ECONOMY (AKA "GIG" ECONOMY') ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 146
2
SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP...................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 153 SOCIAL MEDIA AND DISCOVERY................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 156 STUDENT LOAN LAWS ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 159 TINY HOUSE LAW .............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 163 VAPING & E-CIGARETTES............................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 165
3
FOREWORD: 41 PRACTICE AREAS THAT DIDN'T EXIST 15 YEARS AGO
4
When it comes to discussion about the future of law, form dominates substance. Much of today's thought leadership on the future of law focuses on how technology -- artificial intelligence, blockchain, the cloud, document automation and data analytics -- changes the mechanics of how we practice law. Missing from the conversation, however, is any comprehensive examination of how those same technology trends that drive legal practice innovations are also shaping and transforming the very substance of the law itself.
But why is it important for lawyers to keep abreast of the myriad of new practice areas spawned by technology either on its own, or in cahoots with its frequent companions, policy reform and social change? After all, aren't the 41 new practice areas covered in this Guide nothing more than some version law of the horse on steroids - compendium of skinny little specialty niches that when you get down to brass tacks, are nothing more than new fact patterns readily resolved through the application of the same general legal principles that we learned back in law school?
Well, yes - and no. As I discovered after embarking on this project, technologic, policy and social forces careen so rapidly these days that they quickly bump into complex questions that stretch the boundaries of conventional legal analysis. Our slim legal toolkit for dealing with uninvented law -- basically, through application of past precedent, use of analogy and my personal favorite, reasoned elaboration (thanks, Cornell Law!) -- is hopelessly inadequate when we're confronted with developments that turn well-understood principles on their head. Consider for example, the Fourth Amendment doctrine that any evidence in plain view during a lawful traffic stop is fair game. With biometric technology like facial or retina recognition, plain view doesn't afford much of a privacy protection when a police officer can gain heaps of information just by snapping a photo. What about employment or disability laws that apply to most private companies - can they be bypassed when the company's business is performed by an army of independent contractors to whom these laws don't apply? This is a small sampling of the kinds of gaps and inconsistencies that arose in topic after topic.
LESSONS LEARNED
5
Below are some of my broader observations gleaned from this project and thoughts on why it's so important for lawyers to learn more about 41 Practice Areas That Didn't Exist 40 Years Ago.
1. Moore's Law - We always speak of Moore's Law as shorthand for the rate of change in technology. Policy reforms and social
progress move at a quicker pace too. By way of example, it took almost 60 years to move from the separate by equal doctrine under Plessy v.
Ferguson (1896) to the elimination of segregation in schools in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), and another 13 years to put an end to
state bans on mixed race marriages in Loving v. Virginia (1967) - a total of 68 years to achieve change. Contrast that to the 30 years required to
change law with respect on same sex couples - going from upholding state sodomy laws in Bowers v. Hardwick (1986) to overturning those
laws in Lawrence v. Texas (2003) to legalization of gay marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015). The correlation between technology progress
and policy/social change is not coincidental. With technology, news of change spreads more rapidly, and up close, is no longer as threatening.
Technology also results in speedier transfer of information, which can help movements like social entrepreneurship (another practice area
covered to blossom simply by making the resources available to others how to do it. Rapid change is exciting - but it also forces lawyers to stay
nimble to keep abreast of new trends and to responding to, or capitalize on the changes - or risk obsolescence.
2.
Lawyers Need Technical Expertise to Deal With Innovation - Many of the 41 new practice areas catalogued - such as 3D
printing, Blockchain, Internet of Things, Algorithm Law, Biometrics, Cyberbullying, Augmented & Virtual Reality, Cybersecurity, Open Source Law
and Privacy, to name a few - are so complex that to they require technical expertise and support to fully understand. Thus, it's common trend for
firms dealing with these issues to have in-house expertise - either through their own background (e.g., programmer-turned-lawyer) or in-house
information officers or software engineers. With collaborations between lawyers and other professional experts growing increasingly common, it
may be time for the legal profession to consider relaxing rules on non-lawyer partnerships to enable law firms to more easily offer hybrid services.
3.
Innovation Looks Alike - Although the specifics of technology, regulatory and social innovation are differ - and are critical to
master, when you immerse yourself in 41 new practice areas over the course of three months as I have, obvious patterns emerge. Some deal
with gaps in the law by redefining their service (e.g., Uber as a ride sharing service rather than common carrier taxi) and others by seeking reform
to level the playing field (like craft beer, food trucks and tiny houses) while others (like #altlaw) still struggle with the best path forward. With
some innovations, companies buy themselves time with strict arbitration clauses and strategic settlements to prevent definitive resolution of
issues with damaging consequences (See Sharing Economy) while in other fields, like cyberbullying, parties may have no choice but to fight until
6
resolution, which at least, creates certainty. There are other patterns and tactics too, far more elegantly described in a recent paper by J.B. Ruhl, Sara Light and Eric Biber entitled Regulating Business Innovation As Policy Disruption, Vanderbilt Law Review. The point is that even as each niche has its own unique characteristics that must be understood at the micro-level, a common theme of innovation and disruption runs through each of the 41 new practice areas, with benefits to be gained from viewing them as different pieces of the same puzzle rather than silo'ing each practice area entirely.
4.
New Practice Areas Means New Demand for Lawyers -With the rise of automation, solo lawyers handling a steady diet of
generic matters like preparation of wills, corporate documents and uncontested divorce will soon go out of business. Lawyers can gussy up these
services as much as they want, touting "exceptional client service" and error-free work, but the truth is that in ten years or less, most budget-
minded folks are not going to trek down to an office and pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for a matter that they can handle online with a
couple of keystrokes. And even today, when there are still clients able to pay for a helping of legal advice along with their paperwork, the
competition is fierce. Today, a startup can go online to sites like UpCounsel, LawKick, Avvo and others and choose from cut rate legal service
providers who can set up an LLC or draft an employment handbook. But companies needing advice on setting up a lawful cannabis industry or
craft beer establishment or deciding between a b-corporation or public benefit corporation won't readily find as many lawyers capable of doing
the work - which means that those lawyers who can will command higher rates. Lawyers doing more generic consumer oriented work don't
need to jump ship and trade in a family law practice for a cybersecurity niche firm. But they can incorporate practice areas like digital assets into
estate planning, social media discovery into family law, etc...to stand out from the crowd and access higher paying clients.
5. Available Knowledge on New Practice Areas Is Not As Available As You'd Think -Truth be told, when I embarked on this project, I thought it would be a breeze. I assumed that I could easily find law review articles or detailed blog posts summarizing key legal issues related to Cryptocurrency, Fantasy Sports, Internet of Things, Sharing Economy, Social Entrepreneurship or fill in the blank. Shockingly, for many topics, there were few legal resources and those available were pretty lame. Law firm blog posts and bar journal articles covering many of these topics either failed to link to underlying case law (thus sending me on a wild goose chase) or addressed generic obvious issues (i.e., the fact that all new technology will raise patent and IP concerns) without highlighting issues unique to the practice area. Moreover, much of the material that is available isn't conveniently indexed or easily located - a failing that I'm optimistic that my buddies, Kevin O'Keefe and Bob Ambrogi will figure out a way to solve through their new project at Lexblog.
7
................
................
In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.
To fulfill the demand for quickly locating and searching documents.
It is intelligent file search solution for home and business.
Related download
- 2018 salary guide robert half international
- ten keys to success in a small law practice
- health law a career guide harvard law school
- careers in health law and life sciences
- 100 largest law firms in pennsylvania
- top 30 fastest growing jobs by 2020 boston university
- tackling familiar and emerging challenges
- children s rights law harvard law school
- boosting your law firm s profitability
- table of contents
Related searches
- table of common cardiac medications
- mbti table of personality types
- time table of examination 2019
- complete table of values calculator
- table of values equation calculator
- table of values generator
- graph table of values calculator
- linear equation table of values
- table of standard scores and percentiles
- table of derivatives pdf
- table of integrals exponential functions
- table of exponential integrals