Well, I am not sure I know the answer to this question.
But I can try to break it down into a number of derivative questions and observations to shape the landscape for that answer.
What I can only offer in the next few minutes is a part of the Balkan perspective on these issues. I will try to articulate the discreet concerns of some of my Balkan colleagues- that means I will try to translate to you the whisper of the fish from my pond so that you understand us better. Whether a drop of that pond reflects the whole ocean is up to you to decide. And I do hope for a degree of a cultural handshake.
I gladly accept and enjoy the new horizons that high-tech has brought into our business. But the crucial defining question here is Who is in the center of our professional universe: is it still the simple man on the street or is it the big corporations and the financial markets – just because the big money is there? We cannot avoid that crucial starting dilemma- it is as important as having a compass of values. I am not saying our universe has only a center but we should remember who is on the top. In my view it is not the richest client. And our priority should not be to look professionally sexy to that rich client- at any price and by all means.
My next assertion is that the social function of our profession has significantly changed in the last 20 years.
We are living in a deluge, in a flood of law provisions, in a so called lex-slide (not a mudslide but a lex-slide) which has overwhelmed the simple man on the street and that simple man has given up hope to understand the law. He is looking for guidance at us. From his perspective we have become the initial voice of law. He does not read the Official Paper. We are his oxygen mask through which he breathes his rights and obligations. For the ordinary citizen we have become a crucial part of his judgment capacity for good and bad, like the Apple tree in the Garden of Eden. We are the traffic lights for his social movements. This is a major change in the social function of our profession.
Long gone in the history books are the values of a single universal law-like the great European codes of the 19th century. Since we are in Vienna may I recall that in 1896 a famous Austrian lawyer Dr. August Pleschner transformed the Austrian Civil Code of 1811 into poetic verses so that it became understandable to the common people. Today this legal poem sounds like a fairy tale. Can you put in verses for example the recent General Data Protection Regulation? That would be a big fun, wouldn’t it?
Yet much has not changed in the last 20 years. The confidence between client and lawyer remains a confidence between human beings. Professional trust is still addressed to humans only. If we forget that simple truth, our guess game on legal high tech will look like the king’s new clothes.
Another observation of mine is that The high-tech role in our profession has its limits and its shadow.
Yes, high-tech is a premise for the adequate office environment. Yes, high-tech does facilitate access to information, to communication, to research and reference, even analysis and decision making, but it also carries its shadow of additional cost. I can hardly see why the high-tech component of our work should be translated into cheaper fees.
The magic of our profession is still that seed of creativity, that mental blitz of association and that unexpected counter-point in the court room. To put it short: There is no Spiritus Sanctus in our high-tech equipment. A cognitive Watson computer is not a substitute for fair judgement and common sense. Our service is no parallel to the high-tech industry machines which make the product cheaper.
Yet we should not be uneasy to discuss openly our fees.
Our fees should be fair, transparent and justified leaving no frustration residue in the client. Services and fees are not a part of a poker game in a casino. Here is the fine difference b/n making money and taking money. The client should not be reminded of that famous Shakespeare quote from Henry VI where the rebels call: First Let us kill all the lawyers!
To sum it up: There is no simple and single answer to the issues of my topic. May be the truth is among the following factors:
To start with the obvious: Our profession remains a delicate balance between a competitive trade and a social mission. We should not devalue our efforts by charging absurd and dumping fees. But we are also conscious of our vocation and responsibility to help the ordinary man survive the legal avalanche. Hence we should probably consider stepping up our free of charge service to society like popular newsletters, media interventions, early warnings or simply free advice.
But we should also send alarm signals to governments that due to their sheer overdose, the legal provisions are turning from medicine into poison. And high-tech is not the antidote. First the contamination should stop.
And we are confronted with some challenges where high-tech is not the answer: We should not be afraid to concede that there is no solution for all. No place for everybody in the high-tech sky. We cannot be all sky-walkers. Some of us will not survive the competition and will drop out of the market. We should be spiritually prepared for a dignified retreat. A precious human skill is the management of one’s own sunset. I mean that art of soft landing due to fuel exhaustion. But that is not easy to achieve in a professional life which is often marked by a noisy loneliness.
Of course we cannot be prepared for everything that will come. We should save at least 10% of our spiritual capacity and resilience as a reserve to meet the unpredictable future. Especially now when it seems that the winners of the cold war are losing the cold peace.
Do you know what the greatest mistake was which some Balkan lawyers made in the 1990s (myself included)? That mistake was that we rushed to look western. We forgot the first Columbus rule that He who goes too far to the west will certainly turn up in the east. So we made the full circle and found ourselves back into our eastern shoes. Let us be what we are and what God has made us to be. There is merit in staying a bit behind and learning from the mistakes of the front runners. But not too far behind
We remember well that great generation of western lawyers of the 1990s who fascinated us and baptized us in the IBA standards. For example I can recall the legal team of a major multinational corporation who went for a team building on an expedition to the North Pole! Yes, to the North Pole. Now their successors do their team building on the Caribbean Islands. Higher tech does not always mean harder characters.
The International Bar Association is a network of mutual understanding and of champions of freedom. We should not take these benefits for granted but we should constantly strive for them. Together.
Yet I do not perceive the International Bar Association as a brass band marching on a victory parade. From time to time we should speak about failure, defeat and disappointment and how we handle them in professional and human terms, not in high-tech terms.
Of course there are things beyond our control which we cannot impact. But to that end I would recall the most famous refrain of that famous Johann Strauss operetta The Bat = Die Fledermaus which sings:
Happy is the one who forgets
what he cannot change.
Gluecklich ist wer vergisst
was doch nicht zu aendern ist.
DANKE!