Skip to content

Technology, Law, and Leadership – Spring 2023

leadership

This is the home page for LAW 5754 – Technology, Law, and Leadership for the Spring 2023 edition of the course.

The course will meet on Mondays from 12:40 pm to 2:40 pm. The class will meet on Zoom rather than face to face. Class meetings will not be recorded. Students are expected to be present for each meeting of the course.

Reading Assignments and Outline of Classes

For each class, three columns are listed. All three columns contain required reading, watching, and/or listening materials.

Each item is identified in one of three ways, to indicate how you can access it:

  • [WWW] indicates that the item is on the World Wide Web, that is, it’s free for reading and/or downloading on the open Internet. In almost every case, materials designated [WWW] below are also available as pdf documents in the TWEN site for this course.
  • [YouTube] indicates the the item is on YouTube. Each YouTube video listed below is approximately 1 hour long.
  • [Tw] indicates that the item can be found as a pdf document in the TWEN (“Course Materials” subsection) site for this course. Each reading is numbered to correspond to the appropriate class section and identified by the first author’s last name.

The readings are front-loaded, so that the workload is heavier at the start of the semester and lighter toward the end. The purpose of the front-loading is to give students more time and space to work their research papers into final form.

The biographies of the authors and speakers are provided here. Many of the works assigned below are related to larger works.

Recommended but not required: For continuing looks at the economic and technological challenges facing the legal profession today, I strongly encourage students to take a look at articles on these websites:

And, for podcasting fans, these podcasts:

Law-themed:

Not law-themed:

Class 1: Wednesday, January 11, 2023

This is the first day of class. Read and watch what you can before class and catch up with the rest before Class 2.

Lawyers in history. Read the following:

Innovation and leadership. Read and watch the following:

The law and politics of technology. Read and watch the following:

Class 2: Monday, January 23, 2023 (no class on Monday, January 16, 2023)

Legal organizations today. Read the following:

Collaboration. Read and watch the following:

The law and politics of technology. Read the following:

  • [Tw] Martin Campbell-Kelly, et al., Computer: A History of the Information Machine (2014) [34 pp.]
  • [Tw] Laura DeNardis & Andrea M. Hackl, Internet Governance by Social Media Platforms [9 pp.]

Class 3: Monday, January 30, 2023

Law practice today. Read the following:

Teamwork. Read the following:

The law and politics of technology. Read the following:

Friday, February 3, 2023: The short summary of the research paper topic is due.

Class 4: Monday, February 6, 2023

The future of the legal profession. Watch the following:

Values and power in leadership. Watch the following:

The law and politics of technology. Read and watch the following:

Class 5, Monday, February 13, 2023

New roles for law and lawyers. Read the following:

Ethics, values, and power in leadership. Read the following:

The law and politics of technology. Watch the following:

Class 6, Monday, February 20, 2023

Systems thinking and problem solving in law. Read the following:

Leadership tools and skills. Watch the following:

Tools for governance. Read the following:

Class 7, Monday, February 27, 2023

Innovation in law. Read the following:

Leadership tools and skills. Read the following:

Power. Read any of the following:

Friday, March 3, 2023: The outline of the research paper is due.

Class 8, Monday, March 13, 2023 (no class on Monday, March 6, 2023 – that’s Spring Recess)

Disruption in law. Read the following:

Leadership tools and skills. Watch the following:

Power. Read the following:

Class 9, Monday, March 20, 2023

Legal education. Read the following:

Leadership tools and skills. Watch either of the following:

Who made it? Labor and employment in history. Read either of the following:

Class 10, Monday, March 27, 2023

Law as a service industry. Read the following:

The hard work of leadership. Read and listen to the following:

Who made it? Labor and employment today. Read the following:

Class 11, Monday, April 3, 2023

What law and lawyers do. Read the following:

Teaching leadership. Read the following:

What’s at stake. Read the following:

Friday, April 7, 2023: The first draft of the research paper is due.

Class 12, Monday, April 10, 2023

Class 13, Monday, April 17, 2023 (last class)

Pulling leadership together in a simple, useful, and usable package, the way that clever public intellectuals and management consultants do. Read and listen to the following:

Thursday, May 4, 2023: The final draft of the research paper is due.