To expand or to maintain: the boundaries of lawyers’ duties of competence in the technological age

Subjects: Law >> Legal professional ethics submitted time 2024-01-23

wuzeyi

Abstract： The rapid development of technology has brought new changes to the boundaries of lawyers' professional obligations. The American Rules of Professional Conduct for Lawyers have expanded lawyers' professional obligations by introducing the concepts of lawyers' technical abilities and technical competence, but they have also been criticized and questioned because of the radical expansion process. Compared with the professional ethics of lawyers in the United States, China's lawyers' professional conduct rules still maintain the existing requirements for lawyers' competence obligations, but maintaining the text of the rules should not be equivalent to maintaining the boundaries of competence obligations; in the technological era, the requirements for lawyers' competence obligations It is appropriate to expand the boundaries accordingly. The current professional codes of conduct for lawyers should be adjusted accordingly according to the different types of technologies involved in lawyer practice. First, the connotation of the current norms of lawyers' professional obligations should be expanded to include "skill" technologies; secondly, the requirements for lawyers to master "technical" technologies should be specified to initially expand the boundaries of professional obligations. At the same time, in order to achieve a reasonable expansion of the connotation of lawyers' technical competence, supporting regulatory measures for other legal service market participants who use technology should also be simultaneously established. Through comprehensive measures, we will reconstruct the boundaries of lawyers' professional obligations and ensure that lawyers have the technical capabilities and technical competence commensurate with the technological era.

Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review

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