The Legal Profession in the Digital Age

Conception:
22 centuries ago
when a group of influential persons who called themselves experts in the law were said to
have first appeared in ancient Rome and then Greece in about 200 BC
now a noble calling
Perception of nobility
could have some unhappy distortions at times
o a judge who passed on to as by the Public Information Office of the SC, called the
contending lawyers to his chambers regarding a bribe for a case
the 2 most publicized scandals in the world (Watergate and Enron) involved lawyers
The New Challenge
the lawyer of today and tomorrow must now also meet the challenges of cutting edge
science and technology and a borderless society
recent events would tell us that it is no longer possible for a lawyer to content himself
with just bare ways he has to know
technology interfaces with science, law enters the equation
o will impact unprecedented levels and in yet undefined proportions
The Transition has Begun
advances in science and technology and the idea of globalization usher a new era in the
legal system
the new age promises a system of law that would be global and dominant in its character
Ignoring technology will be at our peril. Palakrishnan, President of Law Society of
Singapore
The Academe
Programs for legal education must consider a curriculum based on a notion of
comprehensive rather than autonomous, legal system that connects to linkage
arrangements.
The bottom line: requiring law graduates with the ability not only to practise
transitionally or across jurisdictions, but also to have a broad understanding of world
issues that maybe cultivated, if not taught, through an interest in, and a familiarity with,
all social sciences along with modern technology
Planning and designing programs for legal education that are professionally relevant and
intellectually enriching curriculum based on a notion of comprehensive rather than an
autonomous, legal system that connects to linkage arrangements.
The Bench and the Bar

Their response must be prompt, appropriate and revolutionary

Pursuant to Administrative Order No 25-96, Philippine Judicial Academy is established
o Core of continuing judicial education
o Has received statutory recognition in RA 8557 on Feb 26, 1998
o 2 years later, the Committee on Legal Education in collaboration with the IBP,
Association of Law Schools, Association of Law Professors and the Commission on
Higher Education
approved a special session, The Mandatory Continuing Legal Education for
all Lawyers.
Supreme Court changes
o Own Email
o Own website
o E-Court
o E-Library
o E-Learning
o Philippine Judicial Academy to put up an On-Line Academy
o Adoption by the Supreme Court f the Rules on Electronic Evidence
Response by the legal profession must be equally bold
o Local law firms may undertake to examine the feasibility of developing
arrangement with off-shore law firms towards becoming global legal service
providers
o Different strategies may be used
The Legal Profession in Twenty Years by John Tredennick
o compilation of feedbacks received via forum in the internet
o participants were big names in the legal profession
o two areas of concern:
only law firms with more than 1000 lawyers could have the scale to be
competitive and have the capability to deliver systematized legal services
that clients would demand
computers would play a much larger, but complementary, role for legal
service providers that would diminish personal contacts with clients
one-stop shop law firms
Trade and Service according to World Trade Organizattion
o Including legal and other professional services may not much longer be
restricted by state borders
Problems
o Exercise of profession confined to Philippine citizens, and subject to locallyobtained academic qualifications
o According to the 14th Annual Meeting and Conference of the Inter-Pacific Bar
Association,
one barrier is the qualification barrier relates to the obstacle on crossborder legal services

the other is the association barrier prohibition in many counties

against the entry of lawyers into partnerships or other forms of common
enterprise with anyone other than another lawyer of those countries
Road for progressive liberalization of trade in services
o Approaches by the International Bar Association
Full licensing
Foreign lawyers thus licensed are fully assimilated into the
domestic legal profession
Limited licensing
Scope of a foreigner lawyers practice is restricted to certain areas
or under certain specified conditions or constraints
Keith Clark, chairman of Londons Clifford Chance
o the world is becoming smaller and yet bigger at the same timetime zones and
geographical differences are no longer the obstacles they have once beenthe
changes make new demands on lawyers who will be expected to help navigate legal
shoals.
Electronic Commercial Act of 2000
o Only significant e-law that has been legislated
o Will spawn new issues
o Questions will be asked regarding fundamental personal and property rights,
jurisdiction and venue of courts, rules of procedure, situs of transactions,
applicability if tax and regulatory laws,
Family Code
o Allows a marriage contract to be entered into by a man and a woman, and not by
persons of the same sex
o Law disallows proxy marriages
Legalization of Cloning
Charting the E-course of Philippine E-Laws
o even the basic concept of consent and the theory of cognition in the perfection of
a contract are important
o shrinkwrap agreements
unsigned license agreements which state that acceptance on the part of
the user of the terms of the agreement is indicated by opening the
shrinkwrap packaging or other packaging of the software, by use of the
software
o clickwrap agreements
work arise a user comes to a website to locate and download computer
software and the users can be required to review the terms of any
applicable license agreement and to affirmatively assent to those terms by
clicking on a keyboard button at the end of the license before the software
is downloaded
Use of DNA in court proceedings

o
o
o

People v Yatar
Its application has caused a reversal of a number of final convictions in the US
Accuracy depends on the reliability if DNA samples

Can it thus be said that the tone has already been set i.e. that the ends of justice might justify
the means or that in the hierarchy of value, the cause of justice can prevail over individual rights?
Or should we invoke again the so-called balancing of interest rule or pro hac vice approach.
Beyond the Digital Age
All that we have is hope and our humanity
If today we are still unsure, then there is even greater uncertainty to aptly grasp
tomorrows complexity
Conclusion: Hope that the legal profession will not allow itself to become obsolete and a
mere reliance of a bygone age; that it will have the capability of recognizing, as well as
have the resolute to survive, the crossroad when it comes, all despite his insatiable quest
for the ultimate.