3 - The Effects of Technology on Legal Practice

Summary

It is difficult to come up with any events after World War II that have led our entire global society to recognise that before The Times They Are A‐Changin’¹ as clearly as today’s global crisis has done. The COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath have revealed that almost everything we once considered stable and sustainable is actually built on quite shaky ground. But the crisis has also brought out the best in our coexistence, seeing that societies in many countries have shown that they are capable of finding creative solutions to overcome the current challenges. Digital technologies have played a crucial role in the world’s response to the COVID-19 crisis. Just think of modern methods of telecommunication such as video conferencing, which have made an immense contribution to maintaining the economy and work processes, or the various corona tracking apps, which try to help stopping the spread of the virus. It can be assumed that the harmful consequences of the pandemic would have grown even greater if those digital solutions had not been available. Just as almost every area of life is affected by the pandemic, so are the law itself and legal practice.