ABSTRACT

From around the millennial turn, Australia was to the fore among common law countries in the liberalisation of legal practice with a range of radical reforms, such as the ownership of firms by non-lawyers and listing on the stock exchange. Albeit not peculiar to Australia, technological innovations, including remote working, digitalised platforms and artificial intelligence (AI), are also dramatically changing the way law is practised. Invariably motivated by profit maximisation, the impact of these reforms poses discomfiting questions for the underlying values of legal professionalism. This article will overview the reforms that have occurred, drawing on a small study of NewLaw firms in Australia and the UK, to illustrate how the “Uberisation” of contemporary legal practice is contributing to a new incarnation of postprofessionalism. The article will also show how the injunction to work at home in response to COVID-19 has given “Uberisation” an adrenalin shot in the arm.

摘要

从千禧年开始，澳大利亚在法律实践自由化方面在普通法国家中脱颖而出，并进行了一系列激进的改革，例如非律师拥有公司和在证券交易所上市。尽管不是澳大利亚独有的技术创新，包括远程工作、数字化平台和人工智能 (AI)，也正在极大地改变法律的实施方式。这些改革的影响总是以利润最大化为动力，对法律专业主义的基本价值提出了令人不安的问题。本文将利用对澳大利亚和英国新律师事务所的小型研究概述已经发生的改革，以说明当代法律实践的“优步化”如何促成后专业主义的新化身。