Drills and holes: Difference between revisions

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The masses can stay happy a lot longer than rational hot-takes can stay in print.
The masses can stay happy a lot longer than rational hot-takes can stay in print.


So what is going on? ''Ou est la revolution''? The first thing to notice is that Susskind’s founding observation — that people want outcomes — holes — not the specific configuration of machinery that delivers them — drills — isn’t some new disposition vouchsafed by the [[information revolution]]. It was as true in 1790 as 1990. The legal ecosystem developed in the way it did not ''despite'' customer demand but ''in response to it''. But, as in any system, the customers are not the only game in town. Customer demand, practitioner demand, societal demands, and the demands, contingencies, hierarchies and doctrines that the wider system — call it the common law [[paradigm]] — evolved. The legal system is, well, a ''[[system]]''. It is a web of [[complex]] interactions: stocks, flows and feedback loops, and conflicting interests that push it into a gently morphing pseudo-equilibrium. Re-imagining the whole system from scratch through the simplistic lens of a [[four-box chart]]<ref>There is a lot of this in Susskind’s {{Br|The End of Lawyers?}} (2010)</ref> ignores the deeply ingrained structures, institutions, conventions, and hierarchies that are there, in significant part, to protect the engineering of the system as it is and, yes, the interests of those within it. To deliver certainty. To provide the stability that is necessary to deliver reliable holes in the wall.
So what is going on? ''Où est la révolution''? The first thing to notice is that Professor Susskind’s founding observation — that people want outcomes — holes — not the specific configuration of machinery that delivers them — drills — isn’t some new disposition vouchsafed by the [[information revolution]]. This was as true in 1790 as in 1996, as today.  
 
The legal ecosystem developed in the way it did not ''despite'' that customer demand but ''in response to it''. But, as in any system, the customers are not the only game in town. Customer demand, practitioner demand, societal demands, and the demands, contingencies, hierarchies and doctrines that the wider system — call it the common law [[paradigm]] — evolved. The legal system is, well, a ''[[system]]''. It is a web of [[complex]] interactions: stocks, flows and feedback loops, and conflicting interests that push it into a gently morphing pseudo-equilibrium. Re-imagining the whole system from scratch through the simplistic lens of a [[four-box chart]]<ref>There is a lot of this in Susskind’s {{Br|The End of Lawyers?}} (2010)</ref> ignores the deeply ingrained structures, institutions, conventions, and hierarchies that are there, in significant part, to protect the engineering of the system as it is and, yes, the interests of those within it. To deliver certainty. To provide the stability that is necessary to deliver reliable holes in the wall.


There is nothing about the information revolution that makes possible alternative legal process outsourcing where it was not possible before. Some forms of legal process outsourcing — typing and secretarial work, proof-reading, couriers, mailrooms, prospectus printing services, even media and marketing services — have actually vanished. Lawyers type their own stuff now. They send their own email. They manage their own branding and do their own webcasts of the same dreary [[continuing professional development|seminars]]. All of these changes have happened iteratively, by the effluxion of time and the gradual change of behaviours, not by revolution.
There is nothing about the information revolution that makes possible alternative legal process outsourcing where it was not possible before. Some forms of legal process outsourcing — typing and secretarial work, proof-reading, couriers, mailrooms, prospectus printing services, even media and marketing services — have actually vanished. Lawyers type their own stuff now. They send their own email. They manage their own branding and do their own webcasts of the same dreary [[continuing professional development|seminars]]. All of these changes have happened iteratively, by the effluxion of time and the gradual change of behaviours, not by revolution.
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