Unfortunately，I have very few Chinese words apart from those, so you have to listen to me in English. Thank you, professor, for your introduction, a very long introduction of my biography, very boring. It’s a great pleasure to be here today and to speak with you. I’m very pleased to be invited by your university. I want to talk to you today about as professor Li said “The future of law and lawyers”. And I’m mainly talking about what is happening in Australia and what my law school has been doing about that in preparing educating our students. I know it won’t always easy for you to follow me, there is on the screen, a little bit of Chinese, and as professor Li said, please feel free to ask questions in Chinese if you feel more comfortable. And to ask to have things explained if you are not certain.

Before I begin, I’ll just mention that I’m from the University of Technology Sydney, as you know. And we are a very large, young university, which has faculty of science, engineering and so forth. But also, faculties of law, business, communication, etc. We are in the center of Sydney, so it is very central. And the law faculty is our very proud faculty for its teaching and research. Our students have very high employment rates when they graduate. And the work we have been doing with our students around this topic has also made them very attractive to future lawyers. That’s a little bit about what I want to talk to you this morning. Is it okay the speed I’m going? Alright. So, the future of law and lawyers.

A few years ago, there were a lot of reports in the media and a lot of people saying that there was no need of lawyers in the future, that young people shouldn’t study law, because there     won’t be great jobs for them. Why would they say that? They were saying that because the reports said that technology would replace the need for lawyers. Now that is very concerning. I was concerned what did that mean for our students? What was our responsibility to our students? And our students will be concerned as well, even though they will get in jobs very easily. So, we decided in the faculty that we would try to discover what was happening. Was it true that technology will replace lawyers in the future? So, we began a public lecture series. We invited experts to come to talk to us, and we did that for serious for three years. And it was very successful. We learned a lot. A lot of people came to listen to these lectures, because they were also confused about what was happening. And a lot of law firms and IT specialists were very interested as well that we were talking about this topic. They came and talk to us and connected with us because of this. We were the only law school in Australia that was talking publicly about this topic. So, what do we learn? We learned that it was not true that lawyers would be replaced by technology. But technology is very important and it would change the way lawyer works in the future. So, we couldn’t ignore it, we couldn’t pretend that it wasn’t happening. As a dean of law school, I have the responsibility to prepare for our students for their future. So, we had to think about what this meant for our students.

First of all, what was the technology doing? Well, what does technology could do and is doing even more now when we started this series. Is through processing, through artificial intelligence, machine learning. Technology could speed up many of processes that would take us a long time to do: checking documents, checking complaints. Technology processes, programs could do this much more quickly. So, lawyers have to understand what that meant for the way they worked. So, we started in the law faculty by giving our students some opportunities for them to experience this different way of working. I’m just going to talk to you about one of these and it was developing applications for clients. This has been a very important activity for our students. I’ll spend a little bit time to tell you how it works. We partner with a major law firm and a software company that donates its software program for this activity. And our students work with lawyers and IT specialists and work in teams. So, we have about five teams and 3 or 4 students in one team. Then we work with real clients. But these are very special clients. They are community legal centers. I’m not sure if you know what that mean but they were centers that are not for profit and provide using legally and other types of funding. They provide services for free to people who could not use a lawyer. They might be refugees, they might be people who have housing problems, family problems. They are generally poor people who couldn’t go to a lawyer. This community legal centers have many clients, but they don’t have the funding and resources to make the needs of their clients. How could technology help them to do things better and to serve more clients? Through this program, each team works with a client, a lawyer from the law firm and an IT specialist. And they find from our clients what their needs are? How they could help them better? Then they developed a program, an application that can be used. For example, a housing legal service could not provide services for all of its clients. And the program the students developed allowed the housing service to have some clients who were behind the rental payments online and have all the documents available that they would need to go to the court to get a help with relief to pay their rent. That means clients don’t need to see a lawyer, but could have their needs commit. We’ve been doing that for 3 years, 15 programs have been developed, and all of them are being used the community legal centers. And next year we’ll doing it again, we hope to continue at least for another 3 years. It’s a very important program that helps students to see when does technology can be beneficial, to understand how it works, to have to work in teams and in groups, and to listen to their real clients, understand the needs of the community legal centers. This program and other activities we’ve done with our students have been very important. It gave our students the interest of this area and understanding of how technology is changing the way lawyers work. But we decided to do more in law faculty. We decided that we should introduce something into our curriculum. The other activities are all voluntary activities, extra curriculum activities.

So last year, we introduced this new major: legal futures and technology major. This year is the second year and the students’ number is doubled than the first year. The major provides particular subjects that allows students to learn about how new technology is affecting the way lawyer practicing. They also learning how the law is changing because of the new technology. Importantly, what is the ethical use, the responsible use of technology as a lawyer? Students have opportunities to study in this area, they do a lot of practical things, they hear from as well as speakers who are IT specialist in the legal area, and they can also do internship as well if they want to in the sort of law-technology opportunity. Finally, they work on projects. We call these “capstone projects” because it tests knowledge of whole of the major. It brings everything together. They work again in groups, they are given problems, and they have to consider how technology can assist the problem. But they also have to investigate the law and whether technology is going to be valid under the law. They have to investigate whether it’s responsible to use the technology in that situation. At the end of the project, students presented their findings to our panel, which includes externals, lawyers and IT specialists. They have been very impressed by the work that the students have done. Already, the major is providing the opportunity for our students to work in a new way. This year, one of our students graduated having also done the major. She found work in a new type of law firm, which just does online dispute resolution. Anyone who want to resolve the dispute doesn’t need to have a physical lawyer involved. They can manage it through a program that runs online. Our graduate was very excited to get a job and she describes herself as a legal-technologist. She brings together the law she knows and technology she understands. The major is a way to us to help prepare our students.

Technology will make a lot of changes in the future. It already has made significant changes in the way lawyers’ work and it will for the future as well. What I say to our students is that I don’t know what the future is going to look like. No one really does, because day by day we are finding that out. But what we can do is helping prepare our students to be confident that they can develop their path as lawyers and to know the way in which technology is having the impact. Already, because of the activities we were doing, law firms became interested in our students. Because they’ve got a lot of practical experience and knowledge already. And this is really helpful. Because law firms are trying to find out as well how technology will develop in their firms and the way they practicing.

So, as I’ve said before, technology will have an important part to play. It is changing works generally, not just for lawyers. Think about driverless cars, that will impact eventually on drivers, people’s employment. It will impact. But as lawyers, we have to remember that we have other skills that important. They bring the skills to their task more than technology can. You are very fortunate, because you all are highly-educated. You are very intelligent people; you will have ways to navigate and work out your future; you will have opportunities. People who don’t have those advantages, like people in jobs with less skills and education will find it more challenging with the impact of technology. We have to remember that lawyers do more than just process documents. They are not machines. So, we should to remember what it is that lawyers can do, how they can use technology, but be replaced by it.

The risk when we think about technology is, we start to think about low-level, easy processes that lawyers do. It is true that lawyers can help with that. But as human being, we bring a lot of values and skills. An important aspect of being a lawyer is about relationships. Human interact with their client, with what the client needs are. That might not be just about the application of legal solution. It might be a solution that is more human or practical solution. Human lawyers can relate to their client, they can listen and understand client. So, they can help to see other needs, other solutions that the client might need. A machine is not going to do that. It might be able to develop the clear legal answer but not be the best answer in the situation. So human lawyers are very important.

They have the knowledge of law, but they also go to a lawyer. Because lawyer bring judgment to the situation. A lawyer will be able to solve problems broadly, and importantly again, the lawyer has ethical responsibilities. Lawyer must consider the needs and interests of their clients before everything else. A machine is not programmed just to do that, it is programmed just based on the information that already received and the outcome will be given as developed. But is isn’t dealing with problem as human beings in that particular situation. It is important that lawyers bring many skills and values in addition to simply work out a legal solution. That remains really crucial to the clients.

It is another important aspect that lawyers need to consider. Lawyers will be failing in the role of acting for their clients in their best interests. They will be failing if they do not think the exercise judgment about the way technology works. So, lawyers have to see whether technology is going to be the right solution. Lawyers have to understand whether the use of particular technology in their law firm or clients will produce a responsible and right outcome? How well is that program developed? Does it take into account all the relevant information? They can’t just say: “oh, here is a program we can use, that will make it cheaper for us to deliver legal services.” Because that program might not be the right one for their clients. They will be failing to their duty if they don’t exercise judgment and think about the responsibility of using technology. So, lawyers have to understand how do technology is doing its job. We don’t use technology just because it is available. We have to decide when is the right time to use the program. That doesn’t mean, lawyer should be IT specialist. It means that understanding and learning about the way technology works: how it is developed, how does machine learn and operate, what data does machine learn and rely upon? We should know that sometimes data is flawed. Maybe the data is biased to certain agenda; maybe it does not include all the information. Lawyers have to ask these questions. AI is very helpful. It can do things fast. But it is just a copy from human activities.

Technology is changing the way lawyer working. For example, contract law. How does technology make a contract? How does court procedures change if we had a new kind of identified roll-in documents or producing evidences? It is also creating the need for new laws. Machine learns itself. Artificial intelligence has created challenges for our legal system. We have to develop new laws. For example, there are many uncertain moments we gather all of our information for machine learning. Who owns the data? Is it proper, legal, ethical to use these data to different purposes? These legal challenges we don’t think about the next year. But as a lawyer, we have to think about it. Last week, I saw a brief article. A law firm is talking about challenges in relation to AI programs. Are they be patented? What is their intellectual property right? These are important questions that still need to be addressed. So new laws as well. It’s actually very good, because one thing is guaranteed in law is a new problem and it will create new work. And it also creates new roles for lawyers. I want to give you a couple of examples. That photograph there is very small, it is a very small but successful law firm in Australia now. It just began maybe 5 to 7 years ago. It seems quite different from the normal law firm, it is called “legal vision”. They work entirely online and don’t need to see physical clients. They developed standard form documents that could be sold online. So when people need to set up a company or make a license agreement, very things that need contracts, they can buy those documents off the website and simply fill in their own details. Now the firm has to be more sophisticated. It provides specific services for clients and again doing it online. What they are doing here is developing legal-technology solutions for clients. Instead of traditional type, students going to a law firm and give advice, legal vision is developing technological solution programs that their clients can use. For example, a lawyer has to do a lot of complains checking. In the past, clients went to a law firm, find a lawyer and let them do these works for them. It would taken a lot of time and be expensive. Now, legal vision developed the program that allows client do these works themselves. They can simply apply for a program. Lawyers are working in a different way. It’s a very interesting development. But it is replacing lawyers. In fact, many lawyers do those low-level, repeat work like complains checking.

Legal vision not just employ lawyers, but also IT specialists. They work together. Lawyer would say: “well, your program has to do these things.” And specialist can say what we can do with program. Lawyer will test it to make sure it works. Many of large law firms are also working in this same way. Legal vison makes it very clear, even though their leaders are using technology when they work, it is not going to replace lawyers. I just quickly mention the law firm called “law path”. It provides legal advice online. When it started to do this, the lawyer who started needed a couple of lawyers and also AI managing people. Now, they engaged services about 1000 lawyers. In no way they diminished the number of lawyers, and in many ways, it created more flexibility for lawyers in the way they work. So, there are many opportunities here. Law path is doing so well that it has received funds to develop services in the Asian region. I think it’s really important for you to take opportunities to find out how technology is changing the future of law. You have to start to prepare yourself. But it doesn’t mean I don’t need to have IT background; you can find it out by reading more general literature. There are many well-known English books have been translated into Chinese about future of law. There are also many other aspects of future you may think about. So, I encourage you not to be afraid of technology, it’s not going to replace lawyer. It won’t. But you do need to be prepared, be aware that technology is important and begin to understand how it will work for you.

Thanks. I’m very happy to answer your questions.