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Digital lawyer skills at the present stage: the experience of Russia and China

Обновлено 16.01.2024 05:52

 

The transformation of public life leads to a reformatting of the requirements of the labor market for a modern lawyer, which will lead to the disappearance of some legal professions, while professional legal advice and justice are becoming more accessible to all. At the same time, the expansion and rapid growth of digital markets based on platforms using artificial intelligence and blockchain technology, big data and cryptography, required lawyers to specialize more narrowly and understand the work of basic technical solutions in order to participate in the support of relevant projects.

 

Keywords: legal education, digital competencies of a lawyer, LegalTech, electronic justice.

 

Introduction

 

The labor market in Russia has been changing quite significantly recently <1>. The abrupt transformation leads to increased competition among employees in the field of law. The peculiarity of hiring and career opportunities for lawyers is the qualification, the understanding of which is changing with the expansion of the influence of digital technologies on the ways and content of performing a labor function in the legal profession. For example, the traditional legal consulting system shows that in law firms, the number of hours employees work plays a crucial role in making decisions about promotion. As noted in the research, the use of knowledge management systems gives employees an advantage in the race for promotion, especially in law firms following the "evolutionary path" of legal consulting <2>. Today it is difficult to imagine a country in which certain digital elements in the field of jurisprudence are not implemented.

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<1>

<2> Vuori V., Helander N., Okkonen J. Digitalization in knowledge work: the dream of enhanced performance // Cognition, Technology & Work. 2019. Vol. 21. Iss. 2. P. 237 - 252.

 

Russia and China are following a similar path of digitalization of public relations. Online justice systems are being created, Russian and Chinese digital platforms are actively developing, and artificial intelligence technology is being introduced. Comparing the trajectory of the development of the legal profession and the education system in the two countries will allow us to identify areas for improving approaches to the education and labor market of lawyers in Russia.

 

The transformation of the legal profession

 

Legal technologies (digital solutions for the provision of legal services) "have become an integral element of competition between participants in the legal market", legal technologies make legal services more open and accessible, and also help lawyers develop innovative solutions and create a high-tech work environment <3>.

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<3> Hongdao Q. et al. Legal technologies in action: The future of the legal market in light of disruptive innovations // Sustainability. 2019. Vol. 11. Iss. 4. P. 10 - 15.

 

This phenomenon is measured using digitalization indices of various industries and processes. This takes into account factors such as transactions (the proportion of payments and transfers from consumers to enterprises (C2B) and from enterprises to other enterprises (B2B) carried out using digital means), interaction between companies, customers and suppliers (digital external communications; digital customer service, including intelligent assistants), digitalization of business processes carried out within the company (solutions based, for example, on the implementation of enterprise resource planning software, customer relationship management (CRM) software in the industry and digital marketing, product development software) <4>.

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<4> Manyika J., Ramaswamy S., Khanna S., Sarrazin H., Pinkus G., Sethupathy G. & Yaffe A. Digital America: A tale of the haves and have-mores. McKinsey Global Institute, 2015. P. 1 - 120.

 

Thus, the qualification of a lawyer depends on knowledge, skills and abilities in the field of digitalization.

A well-known study by K. Frey and M. Osborne provides a classification of professions depending on the risk of reducing the number of jobs under the influence of computerization. The rating of legal professions according to this criterion is as follows:

98% are Legal Secretaries;

94% - Paralegals and Legal Assistants;

46% - employees of courts, municipalities, etc. (Court, Municipal, and License Clerks);

41% - assistant judges (Judicial Law Clerks);

40% - Judges (Judges, Magistrate Judges and Magistrates);

34% - Detectives and Criminal Investigators;

3.5% are lawyers.

As a first approximation, we are talking about the automation of legal activity, which is possible in several ways today. First of all, it is working with electronic interaction tools. The introduction of electronic signatures, remote identification, and machine-readable documents requires lawyers to have knowledge in the field of so-called digital and information legislation. The McKinsey Global Institute estimates that 23% of a lawyer's work can be automated. According to some estimates, the introduction of all available legal technologies (including AI) will reduce lawyers' working hours by 13%.

In our opinion, a deeper transformation will entail the spread of artificial intelligence tools in the legal field. Lawyers are already using AI for things like reviewing documents during court proceedings and comprehensive counterparty verification, analyzing contracts for compliance with pre-defined criteria, conducting legal research and predicting the outcome of cases in court. The process of automating legal activity is called LegalTech. LegalTech refers to the technological solutions used by lawyers in providing services or carrying out their professional activities. LegalTech allows you to reduce the amount of routine work, reduce costs and increase the speed of lawyers' work.

 

Legal skills in China: challenges of our time

The innovative AI ecosystem in China is developing in a triple spiral, encompassing government and public administration, industry and academic/research institutions. In a dynamic context, the ecosystem manifests itself by identifying the main aspects related to the flows of skills, knowledge and financing, as well as the interaction between them <5>. It is becoming important for the legal profession to master platform solutions based on the use of artificial intelligence technology.

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<5> Arenal A. et al. Innovation ecosystems theory revisited: The case of artificial intelligence in China // Telecommunications Policy. 2020. Vol. 44. Iss. 6. P. 101960.

 

For example, the scope of the online justice system is expanding. The Supreme People's Court of China (HPC) has created a judicial process management information system that unites all courts in China to ensure online accessibility and transparency of intellectual justice <6>. Online platforms based on artificial intelligence technology have been created and are actively used <7>: for disclosure of information about the judicial process in the People's Republic of China, according to court documents (China Judgments Online), open court hearings of the People's Republic of China (Tingshen.court.gov.cn ), as well as on disclosure of information of enforcement proceedings. Artificial intelligence technology is used both in products addressed to users and for the management of courts and the exercise of control and supervisory functions in the judicial system. As reported in some studies, "a unified database of court decisions has been created in China, and the process of mass digitization of cases based on which sentences are passed has been launched. However, centralized algorithms for evaluating the work of judges are not being created. Instead, two types of systems are being developed in different regions. The first is to search for similar cases in a single database. The second one is to warn about the imposition of an "abnormal" sentence." <8> The Internet legal proceedings of the People's Republic of China - "this is the crystallization of modern technological achievements of mankind and the judicial and law enforcement practice of the judicial authorities, it undoubtedly keeps pace with the times and will continue to improve in accordance with the development of society, meeting the demands and needs of the state, society and an individual of the digital era" <9>. The use of technology in various legal processes requires modern Chinese lawyers to know the principles of technology and the ability to use platforms.

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<6> Yu J., Xia J. E-justice evaluation factors: The case of Smart Court of China // Information Development. 2021. Vol. 37. Iss. 4. P. 658 - 670.

<7> Wang Z. China's E-Justice Revolution // Judicature. 2021. Vol. 105. P. 36.

<8>

<9> Nepeivoda N. Justice at your fingertips: the experience of the PRC.

 

Digital Lawyers in Russia - employers' expectations and technology opportunities

 

In Russia, many researchers confirm that the requirements for the skills of lawyers on the part of employers today cannot be imagined without mentioning digital technologies. Market expectations are related both to the ability to work with platform solutions and to understanding the essence of end-to-end digital technologies used by specialized companies.

Of course, in modern conditions, a lawyer should be able to use various information technologies in his professional activity, as in China. To know and understand the mechanism of remote justice systems, the specifics of working with data, electronic signature and machine-readable power of attorney. But even this may not be enough to provide legal support for a high-tech business of a client or employer.

The technological solutions used by lawyers in providing services or carrying out their professional activities can be divided into several groups: online services with standard solutions for standardized legal issues, programs for preparing letters and contracts, monitoring deadlines for one-time and repetitive tasks, technologies that reduce the complexity of a lawyer's work on analyzing data from previous court decisions and evaluating prospects proceedings in a specific case.

At the same time, the emergence of the specifics of lawyers' work with new end-to-end technologies leads to the need to gain skills not only with tools for automating legal activities, but also with new ways of doing business in digital markets. Digital technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and Blockchain are leading in this direction today. Legal support of digital projects, crypto assets and crypto exchanges requires lawyers to know the basic laws of technology <10>.

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<10> Passport of the federal project "Personnel for the digital Economy" (approved by the Presidium of the Government Commission on Digital Development, the use of information Technologies to improve the quality of life and business conditions, Protocol No. 9 dated May 28, 2019).

 

Conclusions

 

The transformation of public life leads to a reformatting of the requirements of the labor market for a modern lawyer. Professionals are expected to have a confident command of various kinds of tools for automating the work of a lawyer, which is associated with the widespread use of platform solutions and digital services to solve legal issues with the participation of the state, business, and citizens. These lawyer skills have been called digital and have become an integral part of his professional image in the eyes of his employer. The consequence of this transformation will be the disappearance of some legal professions in general, but at the same time professional legal advice and justice will become more accessible to all. At the same time, the expansion and rapid growth of digital markets, based on the work of platforms using artificial intelligence and blockchain technology, big data and cryptography, required lawyers to specialize more narrowly and understand the work of basic technical solutions in order to participate in the support of relevant projects.