In his SCL 2006 Lecture Richard Susskind predicted that the pace of development in the coming decade will be more profound than during the last. Emerging technologies would enable transformations in the nature of legal service, the way lawyers work, relationships between lawyers and their clients, legal training and learning and dispute resolution.

He sees an evolutionary path to the commoditisation of legal service, through standardisation and systemisation, fuelled by explosions in processing power. Lawyers’ methods of working and their working relationships will see major changes influenced by second-generation KM and by technology which encourages and requires greater collaboration and an appreciation of the importance of online communities. Wikis, blogs and webinars carry enormous potential for changing working methods – for example, a partner in charge of a major transaction might keep a daily limited-access blog and would thereby create a more powerful KM tool than could be contemplated by existing techniques.