The post-modern lawyer: Technology and the democratization of legal representation

In recent years, scholars and the media have chronicled the challenges facing the legal profession: notably declining law school enrolment, higher unemployment for law graduates, and technological advances that increasingly threaten the livelihood of lawyers. To many, these developments confirm suspicions that the legal profession is in an irreversible decline. This article takes a more sanguine view about the profession’s future. While technology has indeed contributed to the current struggles of the legal labour market, it has centred thus far on automating the rule-based tasks of lawyers. The latest technologies – still in their nascent stages – focus on facilitating how lawyers analyze more complex legal questions. I argue that these intelligence augmentation technologies will reduce the cost of legal services for both lawyers and litigants, democratizing the legal profession in the process.