Images of the Future Worlds Facing the Legal Profession 2020-2030 Geo-political dynamics AI and emerging technologies Our changing Data, ethics environment and trust FW2050 – Images of the Future Worlds Facing the Legal Profession 2020-2030 Contents Acknowledgments Our thanks to the team at Acritas, and in For queries and more information about particular Maya Campbell, Steve Blundell, this report please contact the author: Hayley Fothergill and David Gray for all their Dr. Tara Chittenden – Foresight Manager, hard work and for steering this research project [email protected] in unwieldy times. To all of the individuals who so generously gave their time and who shared their thoughts and imaginings during the research, Thank You. While it has not been possible to include verbatim quotes from all participants in this report, the ideas, explanations and challenges that each one brought to our discussions have formed a firm foundation underpinning the narratives that follow. Thanks also to those who cast a critical eye over the report and shared comments as it developed, namely: Victoria Ward, Sue Calthorpe, Dr. Kion Ahadi and Kim Horstmanshof. 2 FW2050 – Images of the Future Worlds Facing the Legal Profession 2020-2030 Contents Acknowledgments 2 Foreword 4 Executive summary 5 1 Introduction: Future worlds and foresight fluency 8 1.1 About the Future Worlds 2050 project 10 2 The legal sector context 11 3 Emerging disruptions and uncertainties 13 3.1 An introduction to arrangements of the data 13 3.2 Exploring the landscape 13 3.3 The geopolitical sphere 16 3.4 Artificial intelligence (AI) and emerging technologies 25 3.5 Data, ethics and trust 35 3.6 Our changing environment 42 3.7 Unfolding over time: Three Horizons 50 4 Implications 54 4.1 Implications for the legal profession 54 4.2 The role of the Law Society 59 5 Conclusion and next steps 60 Appendix 1 – Methodology and participants 63 3 FW2050 – Images of the Future Worlds Facing the Legal Profession 2020-2030 Contents Foreword The legal profession is at a pivotal point, as What will be the key trends shaping the is the world within which we live. There are world in this coming decade? a plethora of forces shifting our collective experience and the business environment. How will this future world impact and Alteration of traditional organisational change the legal profession? structures; a rise in resources directed to the use of data; the lack of a clear ethical framework As a solicitor or partner in a law firm guiding AI development; the continuing mixing of how could you prepare for this future? cultures; exponential increases in the exchange of ideas; all these trends create new possibilities These are some of the questions we posed for the practice and application of law. We live to our expert contributors during this futures in an era of mass charisma. Now the lives of research. This report outlines the answers we everyday people (i.e. the birth of countless received and focuses on what the next decade YouTube stars) become just as vital to us as could bring. The findings have opened as many the Hollywood blockbusters. All the while mega personal questions for me as the answers they businesses encourage us to devour record levels have provided, but of two things I am certain. of products and digital content. However, there The rule of law and access to justice will remain is a cost to all this consumerism; inequality is critical yardsticks by which we measure the increasing; ecosystems are eroding; more animal quality of our collective experience. species are becoming extinct; mental wellbeing is deteriorating, and fundamentalism across Dr Kion Ahadi the world is intensifying. We are becoming the Director of Strategy, Futures and Insight products we consume, bodies with multiple personalities that shift and change based on whims and desires. Television shows us images of vistas beyond, history is replayed in modern tones, and the fate of humanity is constantly predicted. If we’ve learnt anything from 2020 it is that the future can still catch you largely unaware! So: 4 FW2050 – Images of the Future Worlds Facing the Legal Profession 2020-2030 Contents Executive summary The Law Society’s Future Worlds 2050 project Our initial work addresses four themes across was set up to bring an exceptional group of best, and worst, case trajectories focusing on: thinkers to the table for raw, frank and honest discussions around future client needs, to 1 Geopolitical dynamics postulate the legal business models that will • By 2050, it is expected that the E7 nations meet them. will have overtaken the G7 in terms of Then suddenly, ‘bring to the table’ looked economic strength; with a significant shift different in 2020. towards the Indo-Pacific region in future decades. Paradoxically, the rapid disruption we have all experienced over the past year presented our • Nationalist superpowers are shifting; China researchers with an invaluable opportunity overtakes the US as the world’s biggest to focus deliberations through new lenses. economy by 2026. Cataclysmic change was suddenly real, not • Nationalism is likely to increase while hypothesis. Governments used agile ‘law’ to globalisation retreats. enable, govern and protect communities and collective intelligence in a bid to solve an • Implications and uncertainties surround unprecedented challenge. political events (e.g. Brexit, US Presidency; Iran and North Korea nuclear programmes) In just 12 months, novel legal needs around employment rights, data capture, new • Many countries have realised the dependence technologies and protection of intellectual of their supply chains on other nations, property, requiring global standards for localised leading to global supply chains being replaced use have given us a glimpse of just some of the by more regional, supply webs and networks. possible demands on our sector in the run-up to 2050. • Generation Z begins to reshape global politics as we see a generational shift in allegiance Our Future Worlds project has harnessed a and identity, alongside the lasting impact reinvigorated appetite for debate with this first of Black Lives Matter and other social report – others will follow, as we explore specific movements. aspects of our increasingly uncertain future. 2 AI and emerging technologies • AI will contribute $15.7tr to the global economy by 2030 (PwC 2017). • 85% of job concepts in 2030 do not yet exist, and 50% of people think that the roles and skills of the next 10-15 years are impossible to predict within their industry. 5 FW2050 – Images of the Future Worlds Facing the Legal Profession 2020-2030 Contents • Skillsets and mindsets for a 21st century • Algorithms that are addictive and exploit knowledge workforce mean keeping up divisive content have the potential to cause with changing technology, with significant serious harm at an individual level and impact emphasis on STEAM and soft skills. the perceived credibility of institutions. • 80% of the world’s population (c.6.4 billion • COVID-19 measures expand the use of people by 2024) will have a digital identity. surveillance technology in coming years. • The cost of running the process necessary • The pace of development and the application to brute-force an AI application might be of AI and other emerging technologies raise too expensive in terms of the environmental some key challenges in terms of potential impact (electricity and heat dissipation). for breach, harm, ethics and liability, and how accountability can be baked into new • A new complex of trust systems, such as innovations. blockchain, is reorganising value chains in radical ways. • It is possible to transfer experiential 4 Our changing environment knowledge from one organism to another via an ‘experience chip’ (already effective in mice • Climate change will have disastrously far- in 2020). reaching effects, depleting food, water and energy sources, and permanently flooding low-lying coastal areas. 3 Data, ethics and trust • Geopolitical relationship difficulties will hamper a collective global response. • The proliferation of personal data and its commercialisation and commodification raises • The thermodynamics and physical resource important questions of who will be able to constraints of bringing our ‘silver bullet’ own, access and use data in the future. technology solutions to fruition remain grossly underestimated. • Data regulations and jurisdictional divergences in how data is protected and controlled • Rise in the number of climate litigation cases create huge opportunities across all sectors and charges of ‘greenwashing’. and business sizes. • Current gaps in the regulatory system and • Growing global competition for data and AI limits of enforceability are demonstrated by hegemony, not least between US and China, the difficulty of adjudicating cases when there but with other regions such as Africa rising in is no clear way to quantify harm. influence. • The role of the law in achieving the • Data is increasingly collated in smart ways Sustainable Development Goals is often with data from currently unconventional overlooked. sources to produce more nuanced interpretations. • New opportunities around green funding, company formation and sustainability, requiring legal input and advice. 6 FW2050 – Images of the Future Worlds Facing the Legal Profession 2020-2030 Contents This report aims to provoke discussion with our We actively welcome contribution to, membership, our stakeholders and our wider collaboration on and co-development of further communities to identify challenges and present research as part of our Future World 2050 opportunities for our profession. This project project – there will be multiple opportunities for will help our members to provoke, predict and involvement as the project evolves. prepare for this new legal ecosystem, raising difficult questions for further debate. When Our research has thrown up startling statistics. clinging to the status quo is likely ruinous, what Sources cite that 85% of job concepts predicted must our profession be ready to supply to meet for 2030 do not currently exist.