future discussion about the merits of the rules, students grounded in technology will be well equipped to participate in it. As a relatively recent law school grad- uate, I can also say from personal experi- ence that change is needed in law schools as well. Despite the laudable efforts at VLS, such as the General Practice Program in which I participated, I am amazed by the things I never encountered in law school. In Civil Procedure and Evidence “documents” were always paper, never electronic. Never once did we encounter the possibility that systems could be built to automate parts of legal work. We never discussed the pos- sibility of delivering legal services over the Internet, let alone best practices for secu- rity in doing so.26
I cannot state strongly
enough how different it felt to wade into this new world shortly after graduation. An eventual goal at VLS is to split the course into several elements in order to give each the attention it is due, construct- ing a curriculum of several courses instead of one that has perhaps been overly broad because of the time limitations inherent in a three credit course. However, I am hap- py to see that Vermont Law School is tak- ing the opportunity to stay ahead of the curve. The efforts there, led by Prof. Good- enough, have put the school far ahead of the curve and among a relatively small group of schools that have made the leap
into the future of legal practice and teach- ing.27
I hope that Vermont Law School will continue to be a leader in the field. Per- haps someday it will be known as the en- vironmental and technology law school. I also have faith that Vermont, through the bar, courts, and legislature, will be ready to manage the coming changes brought by the impact of technology in the prac- tice of law.
____________________ VBA member Brock Rutter, Esq., is a 2008 graduate of Vermont Law School. Since then he has worked as a research assistant at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, as a programmer of A2J interview programs for pro-se clients in Vermont, and as a lecturer at Vermont Law School each of the past three spring semesters. He just completed a compara- tive law LL.M. at McGill University examin- ing differing approaches to the regulation of cloud computing, primarily between the United States and Europe. He is admitted to the bars of New York and Vermont and currently lives in Montreal. All of the views expressed in this piece are exclusively his own. He can be contacted at rutterbrock@
gmail.com.
____________________ 1
Marc Lauritsen & Richard Granat, The Many Faces of E-Lawyering, LAW PRACTICE, Jan./Feb. 2004, at 36, at
http://www.americanbar.org/ publications/law_practice_home/law_practice_
www.vtbar.org
THE VERMONT BAR JOURNAL • FALL 2012
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Preparing for the Increasing Pace of Technological Change
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