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16 August 2019 / David Christie
Categories: Profession , Features , Technology , Training & education
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Course of action

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David Christie explains how understanding and harnessing the development of technology in legal practice is far from academic
  • Defining ‘legal tech’: changing the practice of law.
  • Looking through the student’s eyes.
  • Reflection: have the goals been achieved?

Every day, developments in technology are reported on social media feeds—and emails from law firms announce new methods of using a new technology or a new process which harnesses new, emerging opportunities. Teaching students about the practice of law in this flowing river of news is difficult. Moreover, it’s not only the river which changes each time we step into it, but ourselves. Understanding the changes (in order to teach them) brings out new ideas and new questions about some fundamental points of practice.  

There are different ways to deal with this. The approach with our module on Legal Tech at the Law School, Robert Gordon University, aimed at students in the Postgraduate Diploma in Legal Practice (the Scottish equivalent of the Legal Practice Course) has anchored itself with two prongs. The first is working

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