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Should Lawyers Learn How to Code?

 

As a lawyer who codes, the answer is a resounding yes! However, I may be biased. But then again, I also believe that lawyers should go to business school and get an MBA to complement their law license. I hate to speak from experience, but I would be doing the next cohort of junior lawyers a disservice by not telling them of the minefields that await them.  

 

 

So, here's the deal. Besides the constant reminders in my first year of law school (2017) that computers would replace us, and we would be jobless, there was a more imminent threat to our employment prospects that everyone was avoiding. And that is your peers and an oversaturated market. It seemed that no one wanted to talk about the fact that if you did not go to a top law school and or graduate top of your class, then your chances of securing articles of clerkship were slim to none. If you are a first-generation lawyer, the odds are even worse. The solution to my demise was clear, and I saw it implemented in other faculties. Commerce, engineering, and medicine were teaching their students complementary skills, and they would often attend law classes like forensic law, IP law, contract law, and business law. Often after completing a degree in these faculties, they join the law facility. The same is not true for law students. You are taught the law and only the law!  

 

 

My zeal for advocating for law students to gain software engineering and finance skills is so that law students have many career paths after law school, especially for law students who are not fortunate enough to secure a training contract. Instead of spending two to three years unemployed or doing odd jobs, they would have the option of working in law adjacent careers and still get their law licenses. It's a matter of creating employment for law students in the face of a faculty that has failed to equip its students with the skills necessary to compete in today's world. 

 

 

So, what are these adjacent law jobs? 

 
1. Business analyst in a law firm. 
2. Software developer/legal engineer in a law firm. 
3. Bookkeeper in a law firm. 
4. Consultant in an in-house department. 

 

 

You may want to read 'Tomorrow's Lawyers: An Introduction to Your Future' by Richard Susskind to get an idea of the legal profession's future.