On June 28, 2018, the 17th Salon of Legal Guru Club was held as scheduled. Mr. Shen Xinwang, the director of the Judicial Collaborative Innovation Center of Alibaba Group, attended the salon themed with “Digital Age and Legal Profession Reform”, and discussed the impact of the Internet on the judicial industry together with the guests present. Ms Angel Yingjun Wang, the founder of Legal Guru Club, welcomed everyone and invited Mr. Shen Xinwang to deliver a speech.
Mr. Shen Xinwang believed that the development of the Internet and the drive of technologies had caused subversive changes in the social collaboration model, which started from the productivity and then influenced and changed the legal field which was a production relation.
For most people, a mobile phone can solve all the needs for daily necessities. The Internet is gradually changing our life style, and technology is overturning our inherent working mode and production relations. However, Mr. Shen believed that the Internet hadn’t changed the legal profession despite many explorations, which could be reflected in four aspects: the same information collection method, the same communication mode, the same social collaboration mode and the same legal working mode. Without fundamental changes or reforms in these aspects, it couldn’t say that the Internet had changed the legal profession.
However, the productivity change has created huge challenges and demand for reform of the legal profession. Mr. Shen described these challenges in three aspects: 1. Breakthrough of geographical jurisdiction: the pattern of a certain region under certain jurisdiction is being challenged. How can the judiciary build the ability to respond to the weak geographical constraints of the legal subject? 2. Changes in the form of evidence: the legal facts, objective facts, evidence submission, circulation and preservation will be revolutionarily changed. 3. Geometric growth of the total number of cases (disputes): the contracting ability of various entities will be enhanced, leading to sharp increase in the number of disputes.
In these contexts, the legal profession needs to respond to both the needs for productivity change and the technological development. At present, the legal profession has carried out a lot of explorations in four major areas: 1. dispute mediation; 2. smart court; 3. legal services; 4. legal platform.
Mr. Shen believed that the future reconstruction of legal ecology were characterized by four aspects: the first is the generalization of legal services: convenient, low-cost and easy-to-get; the second is the platformization of the judicial system: to become an infrastructure for social governance; the third is diversification of legal abilities: identity authentication, delivery of documents, etc. with professionals in charge of professional matters and judges only responsible for verdict; and the fourth is the popularization of legal language: to change from the law of legal professionals to the law of common people.
After the sharing, Mr. Shen had exchanges and discussions with the guests. Xiao Wei, the managing partner of JunHe LLP, and Zhang Yuming, the legal director of Syngenta (China) Investment Co., Ltd., believed that AI would not easily replace legal professionals, as the work of lawyers and legal department was complicated and multi-directional, requiring human judgment. However, the technological innovations should be embraced to improve the working efficiency of legal professionals. During the exchange, many guests said that they were benefited a lot from the salon and very interested in the legal technologies discussed today. After the discussion, the attendees had exchanges with each other and took group photos.
