The (necessary) digitization of Legal System

For a long time, the legal system in Mexico had been refusing to innovate, change, and improve; but not only in Mexico the legal sector is reputed to be traditional and allergic to change in the whole world.

Given the current conditions, astonishingly, we´ve been breaking this paradigm; but why now? Why not 5 years ago?

To be able to engage in better reflection, we must ask ourselves the following questions:

1. How do I see the legal system in 5, 10, 15, 20 years?
2. How do I see myself as a Lawyer in 5, 10, 15, 20 years?
3. Why can other professions innovate?
4. Is it worth outlining myself as a traditional Lawyer and not as Digital one?

Why does the technology exist? In order to answer this question, it´s important to define “technology”.

According to the RAE (Real Academia Española, acronym in Spanish), technology is understood as: “a set of theories and techniques that allow the practical use of scientific knowledge”.

From a simple analysis, we can conclude that the technology exists because it has to facilitate/ implement/ improve the life of the human beings.

Thereby and under this philosophy, innovation has been implented in many professions and areas of daily life, but unfortunately there are not yet in the legal system.

My father is a lawyer, and I still remember that in his office he has at least 25 books over 300 pages each, where if he wanted to find jurisprudence or an interesting  judicial precedent, he had to review a lot of books to find one that he could use; later, if I´m not wrong, they created compact discs instead of books; nowadays, we can search and find jurisprudence in less than 5 minutes, when before it took hours or days.

As Lawyers and future Lawyers, we have to learn how to use technology in our advantage. We have to understand that the world of Law has evolved and there´s no going back. We owe a quality legal system to our society.

The digital Lawyer, the Lawyer of the XXI century must know that the title of “Attorney at Law” is not enough, he needs to know that it requires technical knowledge of Microsoft Word, he has to know how to make a Power Point Presentation pleasing to the eye, to dominate the utilization of Microsoft Excel, the operation of social network, how a software works, basic computer science, handling virtual tools such as Zoom, GoogleHangouts, Slack, Monday!, etc.  Legal Design or until the conversion of legal services into legal products.

Why must we radically transform the legal system? Because, it turns out, we owe it to the society; we owe the society a judicial process that does not take years to resolve, we owe  the society honest and effective Lawyers, fair laws; we owe the society Judges, Lawyers, Officials who understand that the law must adapt to society and not society to law.

This way we can guarantee a true right of access to justice for all, without exception. We must remember: “belated justice is not justice”.

Currently, there is a legally unexplored world, an alternative reality to physical one, a virtual reality. New ways of crime, new forms to get an obligation, new forms of responsibility, new forms and ways of legal acts and facts.

The innovation and the creativity of the legal system will be necessary for the new and future Lawyers. This is why our profession is amazing, we always have something new to learn and there’s a new whole legal world to know.

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