cryptography eliminates lawyers?
From: "Cortland D. Starrett" <cort@bioanalytical.com> Subject: cryptography eliminates lawyers?
As a follow-up to the article reference I posted, I pose the following question:
Will cryptographic technology and information (communication) technology reduce the need for legal services in the future? (especially regarding contracts, buying/selling, patent law, etc.) Will legal services just look different? Will they be more efficient (cheaper)?
Put bluntly, will cryptography put lawyers out of business? Any comments would be appreciated.
Cort.
How could crypto put lawyers out of business? People would still have disagreements; plans would still go wrong; cars would still crash. More important, transactions would still need to be structured to carry out the desires of the parties while minimizing risks. Good communications technology, including crypto, could make lawyering more efficient, but I suspect the savings would be minimal. Communications technology will no more put lawyers out of business than CASE put programmers out of business. Buford C. Terrell 1303 San Jacinto Street Professor of Law Houston, TX 77002 South Texas College of Law voice (713)646-1857 terrell@sam.neosoft.com fax (713)646-1766
On Wed, 6 Sep 1995, Buford Terrell wrote:
How could crypto put lawyers out of business? People would still have disagreements; plans would still go wrong; cars would still crash. More important, transactions would still need to be structured to carry out the desires of the parties while minimizing risks.
Good communications technology, including crypto, could make lawyering more efficient, but I suspect the savings would be minimal.
Well, if crypto reduces the role of government in human affairs, it will reduce work for lawyers. Telecoms will certainly break the professional monopoly of lawyers (and other professionals). DCF
On Thu, 7 Sep 1995, Duncan Frissell wrote:
On Wed, 6 Sep 1995, Buford Terrell wrote:
How could crypto put lawyers out of business? People would still have disagreements; plans would still go wrong; cars would still crash. More important, transactions would still need to be structured to carry out the desires of the parties while minimizing risks.
Good communications technology, including crypto, could make lawyering more efficient, but I suspect the savings would be minimal.
Well, if crypto reduces the role of government in human affairs, it will reduce work for lawyers.
This first, I see.... Telecoms will certainly break the professional
monopoly of lawyers (and other professionals).
This I don't. How do you mean exactly?
DCF
On Thu, 7 Sep 1995, Black Unicorn wrote:
Telecoms will certainly break the professional
monopoly of lawyers (and other professionals).
This I don't. How do you mean exactly?
Licensing requires the ability to outlaw unlicensed transactions. Since the Net trumps censorship and allows consultations at a distance, it cracks licensing, DCF
On Thu, 7 Sep 1995, Duncan Frissell wrote:
On Thu, 7 Sep 1995, Black Unicorn wrote:
Telecoms will certainly break the professional
monopoly of lawyers (and other professionals).
This I don't. How do you mean exactly?
Licensing requires the ability to outlaw unlicensed transactions. Since the Net trumps censorship and allows consultations at a distance, it cracks licensing,
But won't clients insist on proper credentials in one form or another? Doesn't the practicality and accountability of a centralized authority (or several authorities) provide the best answer to this? Who is going to accept my signature promising that I did indeed get a law degree and pass the bar? I don't see how the net will eliminate the basic need for highly qualified professionals and the proof that they have credentials. Perhaps diplomas and such will be transfered into digital signatures for the institutions, but I can't see how this "cracks" any "monopoly." Perhaps the monopoly is shifted to those who have diplomas, rather than those "licensed to practice" but so what?
DCF
On Wed, 13 Sep 1995, Black Unicorn wrote:
But won't clients insist on proper credentials in one form or another? Doesn't the practicality and accountability of a centralized authority (or several authorities) provide the best answer to this? Who is going to accept my signature promising that I did indeed get a law degree and pass the bar?
An educational institution can certify its own graduates --- it does now. Competing credentialing institutions is exactly what I would be looking for as opposed to today's coercive monoply. No matter how skilled, it is illegal for an unlicensed person to practice law, medicine, or many other professions in any state. The nets weaken these restrictions because they allow action at a distance. Note the other effects of the nets. They make it hard to tell that you *are* working which reduces the impact of regulations of work by "illegal aliens." Thus if I am wandering through the South of France while writing the 'Great American Novel' I am unlikely to get busted for violation of work restrictions. The nets expand the number of jobs I can do while innocently wandering the South of France. I can or will soon be able, for example, to manage a large international corporation from anywhere. DCF "Who actually prefers Le Massif Central to those hot and crowded southern climes."
On Thu, 14 Sep 1995, Duncan Frissell wrote:
On Wed, 13 Sep 1995, Black Unicorn wrote:
But won't clients insist on proper credentials in one form or another? Doesn't the practicality and accountability of a centralized authority (or several authorities) provide the best answer to this? Who is going to accept my signature promising that I did indeed get a law degree and pass the bar?
An educational institution can certify its own graduates --- it does now. Competing credentialing institutions is exactly what I would be looking for as opposed to today's coercive monoply.
Yes, in the context of competing credentialing institutions I agree, but even now there is a base certification for such institutions (accreditation) which is delved out by a central authority, or common standards. What the other writer's approach missed was that one could not, in the end, do away with the basic requirement for some kind of standardization, even if it was market driven. While I too prefer the market approach, I still contend that a floor of credentials will exist, and indeed, should exist.
No matter how skilled, it is illegal for an unlicensed person to practice law, medicine, or many other professions in any state. The nets weaken these restrictions because they allow action at a distance.
But I believe there will still be a demand for an objective, or trusted authority in the market. This was my point when I asserted that certificated from Bob and Alice that I was a decent attorney would not be sufficent for most unless Bob and Alice were trusted in the "attorney credential" area. So in the end, isn't a trusted authority required to some degree? I think the difference here, as opposed to the Web of Trust in e.g., PGP, is that you are talking about legal talent, or any professional talent, for which payment is being made. It's easy to accept a signature from Mr. Mar indicating that Bob has (in Mr. Mar's opinion) decent key management habits, but it's asking a great deal to extend that trust in Mr. Mar to his opinion of Bob's legal skills. For that there will be a demand of more detailed and certain expertise in Mr. Mar, and also a trust that Mr. Mar is not just helping an upstart friend of his make some money in consulting for nuclear physics projects. i.e. it is very difficult to estlablish the objectivity of a certifier without some kind of public and significant risk on the part of the certifier coupled with some verifiable skill in appraising nuclear physics skill- a situation I would argue is almost impossible without a certificate from an institution which meets some base credentials, which are set up publically by a objective process, or nearly so.
Note the other effects of the nets. They make it hard to tell that you *are* working which reduces the impact of regulations of work by "illegal aliens." Thus if I am wandering through the South of France while writing the 'Great American Novel' I am unlikely to get busted for violation of work restrictions. The nets expand the number of jobs I can do while innocently wandering the South of France. I can or will soon be able, for example, to manage a large international corporation from anywhere.
This I understand and applaud.
DCF
"Who actually prefers Le Massif Central to those hot and crowded southern climes."
On Thu, 14 Sep 1995, Duncan Frissell wrote:
On Wed, 13 Sep 1995, Black Unicorn wrote:
But won't clients insist on proper credentials in one form or another? Doesn't the practicality and accountability of a centralized authority (or several authorities) provide the best answer to this? Who is going to accept my signature promising that I did indeed get a law degree and pass the bar?
An educational institution can certify its own graduates --- it does now. Competing credentialing institutions is exactly what I would be looking for as opposed to today's coercive monoply.
No matter how skilled, it is illegal for an unlicensed person to practice law, medicine, or many other professions in any state. The nets weaken these restrictions because they allow action at a distance.
That's certainly true. But what about liability insurance? That's one of the key aspects of my retention of a professional. Being cynical, and somewhat knowledgable about human error, I want to be sure there's someone to turn to if the advice/treatment/whatever turns out not only to be wrong in hindsight, but in foresight. Having taken, and passed, bar exams in three states (3 for 3 for those of you thinking I was forum shopping), I can tell you that they weren't that big of a barrier. You can flunk (over several tries) by failing to prepare at all, panicking, being an extremely poor test taker, or, well ...
Note the other effects of the nets. They make it hard to tell that you *are* working which reduces the impact of regulations of work by "illegal aliens." Thus if I am wandering through the South of France while writing the 'Great American Novel' I am unlikely to get busted for violation of work restrictions. The nets expand the number of jobs I can do while innocently wandering the South of France. I can or will soon be able, for example, to manage a large international corporation from anywhere.
DCF
"Who actually prefers Le Massif Central to those hot and crowded southern climes."
Just wondering about liability issues after state accrediting is dead. EBD Not a lawyer on the Net, although I play one in real life. ********************************************************** Flame away! I get treated worse in person every day!!
participants (4)
-
Black Unicorn -
Brian Davis -
Duncan Frissell -
terrell＠sam.neosoft.com