Birth of Digital Mentality

• Author: Adam Newhouse
• Pages: 93-101

93

CHAPTER 11

Birth of Digital Mentality

Older lawyers may know more about substantive law and legal

practice but younger lawyers have a new and vital narrative to

convey. It is indeed from younger lawyers that those conducting

the [Legal Education and Training Review] might secure the most

penetrating insights into the future legal marketplace. Engaging the

Internet generation would not only be useful for the insights that

would be forthcoming. More than this, the involvement of tomorrow’s

lawyers in the preparation of the [Legal Education and Training

Review] is likely to increase the chances of securing buy-in from the

next generation of legal practitioners.230

—Richard Susskind, consulting on legal education and training

The new landscape of legal practice may feel cold and unapproachable

to many of us who grew up in a pre-digital environment. Even if we

can understand what’s happening around us on a rational level, we

find it problematic to truly connect with the underlying culture. Indeed,

the new ways of thinking are totally at odds with traditional values of

the profession focused on hierarchical relationships with clients where

lawyers knew all the answers and clients spoke only when asked. More

critically, digital values are steadily eroding traditional lawyers’ world-

views and threatening to upend their power bases.

The digital philosophy is spreading fast into our business lives. The

digital spirit of the times can be felt all around us. To stay relevant in

business and cope with ongoing social and technological disruptions,

there is little for us to do but immerse ourselves in the new culture.

How do we do it? We learn from experts: the youngsters of the Net Gen-

eration who cut their teeth growing up with the digital technology. “[I]f

you understand the Net Generation,” as Don Tapscott tells us, “you will

understand the future. You will also understand how our institutions

and society need to change today.”231

230. Susskind, Provocations and Perspectives (cited in note 7) § 13.5.

231. Don Tapscott, Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation Is Changing Your World 11

(McGraw-Hill 2009) (“Grown Up Digital”).

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