I posted some time ago about a talk given by Richard Susskind, who predicts (more or less) the "end" of lawyers, or at least a fundamental change in legal services as we know them.  I was a bit dismissive in my post because my reaction (from reading the reactions of the attendees of the conference where Susskind spoke) was that Susskind was heavy on the buzzwords and light on specifics.  I'm not a buzzword guy.  In fact I recoil when I hear buzzwords.  (You can listen to the whole keynote here and decide for yourself.)  I asked for specific examples of changes and took serious issue with Susskind's thoughts that social networking will factor heavily into the mix.

I wanted to add that in the past week I came across two pretty good examples of fundamental changes.

Term Sheet Generator: Wilson Sonsini released a "term sheet generator".  Basically a program that constructs a financing term sheet, provides data, and has built in a decision tree.  Background on WSGR's decision to release the tool at altgate here.  It's very interesting that they made the tool available to the public (including to other lawyers) and they are not charging for it.  Lawyers will obviously continue to be involved in the process, but business folks can inform themselves in advance (or on their own) of things to think about.  I think the tool will be useful and I'm intrigued to see that WSGR made it available for free. 

Outsourced Litigation Scores Win: This is fairly significant as well.  Above the Law reports that an outsourced Indian law firm did much of the heavy lifting in drafting a motion that ultimately resulted in the dismissal of a lawsuit against Ali G.  (On a loosely related note, I'm really looking forward to the Bruno movie.  Vassssupp!)  Seriously though, I took a look at the brief, which was signed by a US (California) lawyer and a few Indian lawyers who seemed to have no bar affiliation . . . in the United States.  It was good.

I think both of these are pretty good examples of the types of changes that are to come and that are already happening.  As for Susskind?  His claim to fame was predicting lawyers would end up using the internet and email.  I'm probably too young to really appreciate this fully, but maybe this explains why we are in different ballparks on the whole lawyering revolution issue. 

NB:  I don't really enjoy posting about the legal process (apart issues relating to the virtual practice, e-filing, etc.).  I posted about Susskind, and I thought in the interest of completeness I would add these two points above.  Also, at the risk of sounding presumptuous, I feel like I'm participating in it.  I don't have the strong itch to talk about it.  I think a better way of putting it is that I'm not a great cheerleader.

Added:  slight edits above, and I've spoken to a few people who enjoyed his books.