Digital Drafting
A First of its Kind Course on Digital Lawyering
Lead PI: Oliver Goodenough
As part of the Legal Education Project, Law Lab has developed a first of its kind law school course on digital lawyering. The course contains many of the elements Law Lab is developing, including working with, and even drafting, digital approaches to contracts, business organizations, and dispute resolution. The first course was offered at Vermont Law School in spring 2010. Based on the inaugural course, Law Lab will refine the content, publicize it, and promote adoptions at Harvard and other schools.
Course Description from Vermont Law School:
The impact of digital technologies on the practice of and business of law is already profound - and it will only grow in coming years. This course focuses on how these technologies affect legal drafting, with particular attention to document assembly systems, expert systems, and XML contracting. In addition, the class considers the historical background of law and technology, the logical basis for such legal documents as contracts, wills, statutes and regulations, and the theory, expounded by scholars such Lawrence Lessig, of embedding law in code. The course also considers the secondary effects on law, lawyering, and the legal profession likely to arise from the digitization of many legal tasks.
In addition to the reading and class discussions, students learn basic programming techniques and undertake drafting projects.
