Being a Lawyer in the Digital Age

Course content

The course introduces students to the challenges and opportunities of being a lawyer in the 21st Century, in the so called digital age.

Using theories and case studies, the course examines the history, structure, functioning, market competition, career development, and other relevant topics concerning the legal profession in Denmark and other comparable countries of interest to Danish legal profession (France, Germany, United States, and England in particular). The aim is to provide law students with an in-depth knowledge of the various challenges and opportunities that they will face once graduated from the Faculty of Law and entering the job market. The main focus of the course is to prepare students to face the most recent developments triggered by the rising importance of new technologies for legal work, such as the role of networks, outsourcing legal work, e-lawyering, big data, and articifical intelligence.

 

The first part of the the course introduces students to to the most actual concerns concerning the legal profession. In particular, the focus will be on the challenges to the lawyers’ monopoly over the practice of the law triggered by changes in society and technology. To this purpose, the course covers the following themes:

1) a general introduction to the structure and socio-political dynamics of some of the most important professional systems (Denmark, Italy, France, Germany, United States, and England) with a specific focus on the relationship between lawyers and the state;

2) the vertical competition within the profession and the horizontal competition of the profession with other experts service providers, such as accountants, economists, and, more recently, tech companies;

3) the challenges and opportunities deriving from the professionalization of the legal practice and the rise of large law firms;

4) the Europeanization and globalization of legal professionals;

5) the disruptive impact of new technologies on the legal profession;

6) the role of formal and informal networks. During the course, students will be also invited to discuss some of the main issues with leading figures of the Danish and international legal profession that will be called to speak to provide a practical guidance to them in their future professional choices.

Learning outcome
  • Become familiar with a set of theories and empirical studies related to the evolution of the legal profession in Denmark and a number of other countries. 
  • Be aware of the latest developments of the legal job market in Denmark and in other countries 
  • Identify the central issues and challenges facing the legal profession, such as professionalization, Europeanization, globalization, and digitalization. 
  • Understand how the legal profession is currently conceived in terms of expert knowledge, market control, and professional orders. 
  • Critically read and analyze both theoretical and empirical literature on the legal profession. 
  • Apply the knowledge built during the course to real life examples of the legal profession. 
  • Be able to work and communicate meaningfully and constructively with other professional figures (i.e., consultants, economists, political sicentists, and IT experts) and clients. 
  • Improve job seeking skills in the present and increasingly competive legal job market.

The students are expected to read the mandatory readings and participate actively in class. To improve the learning process, the course uses both traditional lecturing methods and other more interactive and research-based techniques aimed at activating the students in class. The goal is to educate students into thinking independently and across disciplines in order to fully understand the impact of society and other structural forces on the legal profession. The class room should be a learning environment in which the students can restructure the knowledge previously acquired through the readings into a richer and more critical knowledge. In particular, during the course, the following instructional strategy will be used:

- Theory-building learning with oral presentations and written reaction papers, where the students theorize and reflect on theories and cases that may explain the reality of legal profession.

In addition, to encourage the reflection on the ideas presented in the class and for the preparation of the final individual written assignment, students will present and and discuss with their peers questions related to a previous selected topic. Students will be asked to investigate the topic and provide answers grounded in research into the legal profession. The feedback collected by the student during the presentations will be used for developing new ideas connected to the final research assignment.

TBA

English proficiency

Written
Oral
Individual
Continuous feedback during the course of the semester
Feedback by final exam (In addition to the grade)
Peer feedback (Students give each other feedback)
ECTS
7,5 ECTS
Type of assessment
Written assignment
Individual written assignment
Marking scale
7-point grading scale
Censorship form
No external censorship

Single subject courses (day)

  • Category
  • Hours
  • Preparation
  • 171,25
  • Seminar
  • 35
  • English
  • 206,25