Academic life
In search of a bulletin board for the blog
Comparison between the main community management and chat applications aimed at the corporate market. The mission is to avoid Whatsapp at all costs.
To improve communication with my students, I always looked for a simple tool. The main goal was to avoid the ubiquitous Whatsapp , as I understand it is important to separate personal and professional communication. Incredible as it may seem, this can currently be considered an ambitious goal.
In addition, he was looking for a form of communication in the style of an open forum, not of private contact with each of the students. What I wanted to do with this was to have a very simple bulletin board, so that I could record where I stopped and what the schedule of the next class would be.
That is, I wanted to create a digital class journal.
I also wanted to make it possible for the public to be accessible, because I know that the need for authentication for reading ends up being a huge barrier. As I already had a blog, I was looking for a more agile communication than a normal post, more along the lines of a chat. Finally, I wanted it to be a free solution.
My option ended up being the Gitter , which is a fairly simple community management platform. While Gitter doesn't define its audience as programmers, it's pretty clear that it's about community management for these professionals. Either way, there's nothing stopping us from taking advantage of the wonderful tools that developers create for you.
To get an idea of the importance of this platform, Gitter was bought by GitLab in 2017, when it already had more than 800 thousand users. Since then, it has been an open source project and without any limitation of use. This is because Gitter is no longer a company with a commercial purpose and has become GitLab's arm focused on developing communities that strengthen its position in the market (repository management for developers).
But this is not so relevant to us, other than for the fact that everything leads us to believe that Gitter is indeed a solid option and that it will not be discontinued. Speaking of options, some solutions are worth mentioning, if only to clarify how they differ from Gitter .
Among the alternatives is the Slack , a gigantic company, with daily activity of more than 12 million users. It is not, therefore, a niche option, but an alternative to communication for the world of work as a whole. In addition, its mission is internal communication between teams, not community management.
This field of generic solutions for the world of work seems to be quite congested, with multiple - and great - options, which would be a good subject for another post. Here I am restricting myself to comparing solutions to my concrete problem, which is the management of my communities. That is, the management of my classrooms.
Although it has had relative success in communicating with students via Slack and, more recently, via Discord , I ended up deciding to build a lighter and more open forum , which could be presented within the page of each course I teach. I was happy with the result and I hope it works better than my previous attempts, because I ended up realizing that I wasn't using the best tools for the mission.
The icing on the cake is that, precisely because it is a community in the world of technology, the development of Gitter is very agile and focused on integrations in different ways. In this case, I chose to use an integration called Sidecar , which allows you to display Gitter directly on the blog. The result is as follows:
No more Whatsapp, no more Facebook Pages. 😅
In fact, I know that these solutions will continue to exist and that many students will be informed, second-hand, by posts propagated in those communities. The important thing for me is that I will be able to maintain organized and accessible communication, which I was having difficulty accomplishing through more complex tools.
Henrique Costa 
It is quite common to hear teachers saying that the worst part of the profession is correcting tests. But how do they prepare for this activity?
For me there are two alternatives: either you invest time in preparation and then you have a good correction; or you will have a real nightmare during this process.
In recent years, due to the type of discipline I started teaching and also due to the large number of students enrolled in the classes of the Faculty of Law of UnB, I decided to invest in the preparation of objective tests. I really think it was a good decision and that I learned to create tests that evaluate well the progress of each student throughout the course.
I have already published one post previously, explaining how I elaborate and organize the questions. In summary, I use the Bear for this, because it has the best hierarchical tag organization system I know. It is, in fact, a generic note-taking application, currently only available for Mac. If you are a Windows user, you may be able to solve your problem, for example, with OneNote.
Going back to the subject, let's say, for example, that I have prepared a test with objective questions, either in Bear, or in another text editor with less organizational capacity. Still, it would be necessary to edit and print this proof, which would possibly be done in Word.
So far, nothing new. But how could correction be made?
That's where a series of applications come in, whose mission is simply to generate an answer sheet for correcting objective questions through your cell phone. There are several options for this and most of them are free, if you just want to generate the answer sheet.
But that's not enough for me and I'd rather pay (a few cents per race) and have a number of advantages. My choice is the Gradepen , a Brazilian application that also shuffles the questions, generates the test for printing, hosts the answer on the internet and allows its correction by cell phone.
If you prefer another national tool with a more comprehensive purpose, it is worth taking a look at the Easy Proof or in the Quick Proof . I would say that both are more like an assessment automation platform than an exam generator. In other words, they include the possibility of applying tests in electronic media and, in the case of Prova Fácil, the entire management of the application of the test in several rooms.
Without a doubt, Prova Fácil and Prova Rápida are more complete and even cheaper than Gradepen. Nevertheless as I don't need the features offered by them, my choice is for Gradepen . In addition, I like to support independent developers, who develop software for small market solutions.
Among the foreign options, I would consider the QuickKey or ZipGrade or the Gradecam . I would not, however, consider the Lightning Grader Not even the Scantron , as they are much more expensive and compete exclusively in the corporate market. The following video illustrates how one of these options works:
Still as for my option, which is the GradePen, It is necessary to recognize that not everything is rosy . The development of the application has not been showing much breath and the user experience is not the best. The software has a very old-fashioned look. But if you just need to shuffle a few questions and correct everything on your phone, it's much more than enough.
With this strategy, I started to prepare and correct the tests with great agility. In addition, because I started to manage a very large base of questions, I started to have no problem in performing several exercises and allowing students to take the question book home. In other words, the cost of preparing a test has decreased considerably.
Thus, I believe that the planning and execution of evaluations became much more aligned with teaching activities. In this way, the course tends to become more predictable and more dynamic. And I am happier, because I spend my time preparing the questions, not correcting them .
On the other hand, I recognize that some disciplines are incompatible with evaluation by objective questions. But I also think that, with some effort, the teacher can learn to formulate objective questions in a more interesting way, which will reduce this limitation.
Finally, an additional positive point is that, in my case, I started to learn more about the content, which helps me to be a better teacher . In my view, this way of working can inaugurate a virtuous circle. For this it is only necessary that the teacher dedicates himself more to preparing than to correcting the tests, which seems to me to be a much smarter option.
How many tabs are open right now in your browser?
I always take a look at my friends 😬' notebooks to see how many tabs are open in the browser. It is very common for there to be several tabs, each with a working web application.
If you identify with this and are resistant to living in chaos, that's okay . But if you want to have a little more focus and routine in your work, I'll give you some suggestions to overcome the proliferation of tabs in your internet browser.
Toby: the bookmark manager ↑
Free for personal use. Paid for teams.
The first alternative to beat tabs is to use the browser's bookmarks tab. But soon it will be crowded and you will only change problems. As far as I've researched, there isn't a native browser with a good solution for managing bookmarks. That's where the Toby .
The app (actually a Chrome extension) transforms the native behavior of the browser button that, by default, opened a new tab. With Toby installed, this button opens a kind of desktop in the browser, where all your favorites will be. In summary, it is this: Toby turns the bookmarks bar into a bookmarks workspace .
Since Toby isn't a new browser, its experience is more familiar. In addition, precisely because you use the same browser you are already used to, the address bar will always be visible - which can even be a disadvantage. After all, half of the magic of the following apps is precisely in hiding the address bar, reminding us that we are, most of the time, in real apps, and not mere web pages.
I've used the app more, but I still have my bank account shortcuts registered with Toby. It may sound like superstition, but I prefer to keep sensitive sites running natively in Chrome, using Toby as my bookmark manager.
Franz: messaging app ↑
Quite satisfying. Paid version available.
While managing tabs and bookmarks is a generic problem, there may be a specific cause for it. If your proliferation of tabs stems from the management of messaging apps, the Franz is the solution . You'll have all your messaging apps, including email, in one environment, which might solve your situation.
I use Franz at least weekly or when I need to search for an email in one of my Gmail accounts. I also use Franz to check other email accounts, Slack accounts that I follow less often, as well as Discord accounts. In other words, Franz is my go-to solution for messages, especially those that I don't want to receive notifications about right away.
Station: one app for everyone else ↑
Free for personal use. In the future, it will be paid to teams.
While Franz is focused on messaging apps, Station It caters to the most popular applications of all kinds. Station is in full development and recently the functionality that allows the creation of applications that are not yet listed was included.
I always use Station every day and I am very satisfied. It really is a must-have app for me . I wouldn't trade Station for anything.
Manageyum: Paid and Simpler Option ↑
Paid app with trial.
Manageyum it is an option only if you are willing to pay USD 47. But I find this difficult to convince, since the free version of Rambox does practically the same thing, with a little less elegance.
It is worth noting that, while the competition focuses on enabling multiple logins in several simultaneous applications, Manageuym also allows you to run multiple instances of the same application . This seems to be a real differential.
What it seems to me is that, in any case, the price is disproportionate to the product that is supplied. This perception is confirmed by the comments on the Product Hunt page. The same page also reveals that the current version of the software is already two years old, while competitors are moving quite fast, perhaps because they have more funding and staff.
Personally, since I paid for the software, I ended up leaving some very specific applications installed on it, services in which I manage multiple accounts without having to enter the password again at each appointment. I also keep my YouTube there, because curiously, it doesn't work well in the other apps I use. But this certainly does not justify the investment.
Rambox: paid and more robust option ↑
Paid app with a 30-day trial. Free version available, but limited.
Or Rambox It's the most mature option I've come across, as it has almost everything you can dream up for organizing your desktop. But this comes at a price: USD 4/month. Although there is a free version, it doesn't even resemble the paid version. If you don't intend to pay for the app, there's no point in starting to use the free version, as it is incompatible with the paid version. There is no migration between them.
Although it is the most complete application in the category, in my view, it still lacks some features, for example, reordering them in the vertical bar. From what I tested, once you create a group, you have no way to drag to change the order. Also, I didn't find an option to remove an app from the group, as well as make it appear in two groups.
I also noticed that Rambox is very faithful, in an exaggerated way, to the philosophy of the operation of an isolated application, failing to allow the opening of any link as a new tab. I think it's about a flexibility that a paid app (even more so as a subscription) needs to offer. In this regard, Station, which is free, seems to have a much better executed functionality.
I ended up not using Rambox to the point of having a definitive opinion about it, having only performed tests.
Shift: Rambox challenger ↑
Paid app, the most expensive of all. Free version available, but limited.
I still don't have a definitive opinion on the Shift , but it seems to me a more expensive Rambox option. Another impression is that it positions itself as a solution for managing several Gmail accounts, although it is much more than that. In any case, it prioritizes the development of features for Gmail, for example, an integrated search of all your email boxes with one click.
If you subscribe to such a service for $99.99/year, that's okay. For me, unfortunately, it's a problem. There is also a cheaper option, for USD 29.99/year, but it does not have all the features. In the same vein as the limitation of features, the free version is nothing more than a demo, which does not offer any conditions to test the application.
I don't recommend this app, although I recognize its quality. I simply think it's more expensive than it should be .
Firework: clone your launchpad ↑
Paid app. Free version available quite functional.
Firework It's a small launchpad for your web apps, with a pretty satisfying free version. As far as I could tell, the only missing features are: renaming the apps and allowing them to open in a new window. In the free version, Firework limits simultaneous access to two applications, but I don't think that's a problem. Just like Manageyum, in Firework it is possible to run more than one instance of the same application simultaneously .
It is a solution that really emulates the operation of a dedicated launchpad, quite functional and intuitive. For comparison, while Manageyum is a tabbed window (resembling a browser), Firework is a desktop with applications (exactly built like a launchpad). As a consequence, Manageyum will struggle to accommodate a large volume of applications, while Firework's approach is more scalable. So, point to Firework.
I also think Firework gets it right by having a minimalist browser, with the option to hide the navigation bar, which seems to me to be exclusive to it. This is a very interesting and little-known solution. The paid version is (theoretically) only available through a Russian payment mechanism, priced at approximately USD 15/year.
Although I tried to make the purchase, I was unable to complete the transaction with any of my credit cards. Firework is a curious app: I like it, but I don't use it much, especially since I've experienced compatibility issues with Airtable and YouTube.
Conclusion ↑
With the proliferation of great solutions being our own applications, our desktops have become a real mess. The browser has become the desktop of the computer and the most popular browsers have not kept up with this evolution. But there are already great solutions to this problem and, every day, there are many others.
In this scenario, you will find applications that are still in the early development phase. Some recognize this and do not charge for now, others charge anyway. Be smart and stick with one of the honest solutions I've listed.
Let's go to them: for favorites, Toby; for messages, Franz; for popular apps, Station . And if you demand the installation of lesser-used apps, in addition to being demanding enough to pay, you can choose between Manageyum (tab-centric browser, USD 47), Rambox (tab-centric browser, USD 4/month) and Firework (full launchpad, USD 15/year).
The problem of revision ↑
It's been a year since I published the first version of this post. Since then, a lot has changed and I decided to make a compilation of my findings and current anxieties.
From the beginning of this journey, my goal was to be more productive in writing, especially when this process required a routine of collaboration at work - both for mere revision and for co-authorship.
In this context, the first objective was to avoid exchanging Word files by email, which is certainly an unproductive process. In the end, most of the time, I couldn't convince my writing partners to change this dynamic, which is understandable, since Word and email are tools that everyone has used since they were born.
I confirmed that, if it is difficult to change a habit of ours, changing a habit of others is practically impossible.
That's why I was content to transform only my writing process, which turned out to be good for my personal productivity. Proof of this is that I am publishing this post, which might not have happened, if I still wrote with the usual tools.
The problem of synchrony ↑
From the beginning, I also wanted to avoid the risks of leaving shared files in Dropbox (a natural alternative to email), as we know that only the latest version of the file is saved. Now, anything can happen in a shared folder, and everything can be lost from one moment to the next. Thus, replacing email with Dropbox did not seem to me a desirable solution.
Looking better, I found several ways to get around these problems, and tools for this can be organized into the following groups: editors for writing, editors with revision marks or versioning, and editors with comments. But the truth is that any solution, by prioritizing one approach, sacrifices the others.
The problem becomes, therefore, to know which dimension is more important to you: the writing itself, the record of the evolution of writing or the conversations that are collateral to the text. What is the real bottleneck of your writing? If you answered that the last alternative is the most (or at least quite) important, this text may be of interest to you.
The most overlooked approach ↑
In general, I consider that the perspective most neglected by editors is the one oriented to comments. The comments are not intended to merge with the text, but to provide a new layer of information, perhaps inaugurating a new discussion. That's why it's really hard to find a good text editor that pays enough attention to comments and their way of being.
A good example of a platform that moves in the latter direction is the Medium . The platform promotes the comment to practically a new fragment of text, starting infinite conversations (threads) of the same hierarchy in front of the originally published text. It wasn't always like this and Medium has already had another approach, when it had a kind of inline comment, displayed next to the text. Today Medium displays the comments stacked at the end of the text.
But, first of all, Medium is a publishing tool, not a web text editor per se . I don't recommend in any way that Medium be used as a solution for your writing productivity, because it really isn't good for that. In any case, Medium is a good source of inspiration for us to think about how the debate around and through texts can occur.
Returning to the subject, if you prefer comments next to the text, one possibility - and my old choice - would be the Hypothesis . I have always considered Hypothesis to be a better solution than its commercial competitors, such as Genius or Diigo. The latter seems to have a more closed profile and focused on education, a spectrum in which Perusall and Kami are also found. Hypothesis's ambitious presentation identifies it as A new layer on the Internet .
In fact, the problem that Hypothesis aims to solve is to make the internet noteworthy. To do so, your solution keeps annotation links intact, even in an environment where annotated text evolves. As I said, other products have tried to solve the same problem. None of them, however, seem to be as good as Hypothesis himself in this mission.
In addition, Hypothesis can be installed inside your own website or blog, which is not possible with other tools. Finally, it is open source and, naturally, has a vocation for integration with other systems. But, although it is an inspiring software, I believe that Hypothesis is not a good solution for productivity of your writing, nor mine.
In this field, more recently, in my view, the Coda has been evolving unbeatably. Really Coda is on a whole different level And, among other features, it has a great commenting tool:
In other words, the initial difference is that, conceptually, Hypothesis is a tool to comment on any page on the internet, while Coda is an application with a great commenting tool. They are completely different missions and, therefore, more than solving your writing problem, they serve to outline what are the existing solutions in the face of problems related to the theme of reading and writing in the digital age.
Reducing barriers for the reviewer ↑
The power of annotation lies in the fact that - there must be - a minimal barrier for the proofreader to collaborate with your text. With this, you are more likely to be able to count on that person who would not be available to collaborate within a co-authoring platform, for example.
We cannot fail to consider that, In the end, what matters is the quality of the text . Thus, it is important that the tools are aligned with this purpose.
For this purpose, we don't always need a sophisticated platform with version control (i.e., the text and its changes), which is something that is not fully mastered by most reviewers. In contrast, annotation tools are almost always within the reach of a minimally available person and can give much more return to the advancement of your text.
We cannot fail to consider the power of annotation . The annotation tools are simple and, in fact, work, mainly because they respect the time and comfort of the reviewer. After all, there is no one who writes well. There are those who dedicate themselves to revising the text and creating conditions for it to reach new levels of quality, which will be much easier through collaboration with different and more experienced people.
Conclusion: the tool is not the most important thing ↑
People write texts and this is not a simple task. That is why it is important that writing and proofreading tools have the authors (not the readers) as recipients, respecting their way of working.
Almost never are the barriers to writing visible, until they are discovered. In this scenario, the more comfortable the writing process, the more productive the author will be. And this applies, with much more emphasis, to the task of the reviewer.
Well, if you are fortunate enough to have a good proofreader, I recommend that you take advantage and work with a program that is in his domain. This fact is more important than the choice of any tool, especially if you have the chance to discuss your text in person.
What I expected with this post, in addition to praising the role of the proofreader and the collateral conversations to the text, was only to contextualize some tools aimed at collaborative writing.
Although none of the programs mentioned are the definitive solution to the problem of collaborative writing, they serve to expand your list of references and help you choose the essential tools for the workflow you will build. Happy writing!
If you are a professor or intend to organize your own legal studies based on objective questions, there are basically two options. You can use some question platform (such as Qconcursos or Other competitors ) or you can follow an already prepared workbook, usually a printed or pdf material prepared by a course you attend.
In my view, the advantages offered by question platforms are very significant. After all, depending on the plan you subscribe to, it will be possible to set up mock exams, consult teacher comments, search based on filters, etc. And this is especially important if you are in a competitive environment, as is the case with preparation for public exams.
Aware of these advantages, I decided to strive to offer my students the possibility of preparing for the test (mine or other legal tests) with the help of these tools. Anyway Question platforms are an inexhaustible source of free content and they just needed to be adapted for my purpose.
The first step is naturally to copy and paste the questions from the platform of your choice, organizing this collection in some way.
The problem is that it is not enough to have the question bank. I also needed to have an environment in which I could take notes and plan the preparation of the tests. In addition, I needed a search tool to easily retrieve a question and the notes on the template. In other words, it was necessary to create a knowledge base. After trying several solutions, I ended up adopting the app Bear .
While the app is advertised as a generic tool built for the user to take notes (right column), ordered by a list (central column) and organized around tags (left column), my use had the following goal: to label each alternative of the questions so that I would be able to know exactly which articles of law would be charged in the entire test. My Bear was organized like this:
The best part about this organization is that it makes it possible to expand, in a tree format, the entire list of cited articles. Thus, I am sure that I am covering the content well, both in the correct and incorrect alternatives.
In summary, as a law professor, I chose to organize objective tests for students of all the subjects I teach. I think it's a very fair way to evaluate students, especially in subjects with dogmatic content. On this journey, I realized that the stage of organizing the questions was a critical phase for my planning.
I also discovered that there are a number of tools (for example, the note editors in the style Zettelkasten ) that help solve this problem. The one that most adapted to my way of working was the organization around tags, which is precisely the vocation of the Bear app. By the way, all the features I use are covered by the app's free plan.
Finally, even if you don't have the same demand as mine, I think it's worth trying, because creating the habit of taking notes in an organized way helps solve a series of other typical problems of those who work with the organization of information and the writing of texts.
PS1: Bear is a note-taking app for Mac, designed around an advanced nested tagging tool ( nested tags ). Although it seems simple, it is a very complex and unique solution, which allows you to create a hierarchical navigation on the subjects of your interest.
Unfortunately, because this is a Bear-only approach, the Windows user will need to find their own way of organizing it within the other available options: OneNote , Evernote , Boostnote , and so on . None of them have nested labeling.
PS2: New post on how to correct objective tests by cell phone.
Text presented at the VIII International Congress of Labor Law, held in October 2018.
Rephrasing the question
Honestly, I don't know how to answer the question that was proposed to me: "What skills will the worker of the future have (or need to have)?"
In any case, it is a question that intrigues me and, therefore, I would like to at least answer a related question, but less comprehensive. So I will take the liberty of reformulating the problem, facing the subject within what seems pertinent and possible to be answered: What are the skills that the jurist of the future will have (or will need to have)?
This is a little confused with an exposition of what I have been doing academically and what is happening in the world as a whole, so to speak, of the legal industry. I know that this name is not ideal, but at least it seems faithful to the fact that Law exists as a field of culture, at the same time that it exists as a branch of professional activities. After all, it is with the practice of Law that the jurist earns his living.
In my view, as professors, we put a lot of energy into introducing bachelor's students to the world of legal knowledge, but we practically ignore that the undergraduate student also needs to think about how he will exercise his professional activity.
Aware of this fact, Harvard professors organized the Center on the Legal Profession , whose mission is stated as follows: to provide a richer understanding of the rapid changes that are taking place globally in the legal professions. Although this center offers a very rich reflection on globalized advocacy, this trait is also limiting, given that it proposes to evaluate precisely the advocacy that serves global companies.
In view of this, the future of local law - as a market totally different from the globalized one - demands its own reflection. And, in the same way, all legal professions that do not fall within the legal profession need to be observed from other points of view.
Brazilian history since the first colleges
With the invasion of Portugal by the French in 1808, the Portuguese court was transferred to Brazil. As a result, there were a series of local evolutions, for example, the opening of ports, the construction of factories and the foundation of Banco do Brasil.
In 1822, Brazil became independent, which stimulated the creation of two law courses in 1827, so that the elite residing in the country would be able to study without returning to Europe. In this scenario, it is possible to imagine that the legal professions have been quite different from what we have today, basically organizing themselves around the mission of structuring a young independent country. Thus, the first law schools were responsible for providing the elite that would occupy the political and administrative positions in Brazil.
It was only around 1930, with the growing process of industrialization, that the organization of business law began. Until then, matters related to property, family and succession were the most important for legal practice. With the Second World War, the growth of the industry was even more accelerated, demanding the legal organization of banking, contractual, export affairs, among others.
Another relevant aspect is that, also during the Vargas Era, there was a growth in the role of the State, creating demand for the evolution of public law, especially administrative law. However, even in the face of the demand for a more specialized technical performance of legal professionals, this has not overshadowed the presence of legal training as one of the essential characteristics of Brazilian politicians.
Only after 1964, with the establishment of the Military Regime, the scenario would change. Although civil liberties and human rights have been neglected in the period, some more technical legal branches have undergone considerable evolution. Milestones of the period are the creation of the Central Bank, the National Monetary Council, as well as developments in the fields of tax and corporate law.
Throughout the 70s and 80s, the number of Brazilian lawyers who complemented their training in the United States increased. And, in the 90s, with the advance of globalization, this type of service became even more demanded. Such demand occurred on two fronts, both by the expansion of the operations of Brazilian companies abroad, and by the arrival of foreign investments, especially as a result of privatizations and new concessions in progress.
From that moment on, the Brazilian legal market began to have a truly organized workforce oriented to meet the demand of a globalized economy.
But this part of the Brazilian legal profession has always been a minority, given that, at the same time, the offer of vacancies in law courses has grown enormously. And most of these professionals would come to provide services in an internal dynamic that has nothing to do with globalization and that is often a resistance to the advancement of their culture.
Especially in the last decade, when some foreign firms arrived in Brazil (e.g., Mayer & Brown and DLA Piper) faced strong resistance. The biggest opponent of the foreign onslaught is the Center for the Study of Law Firms (Cesa), which includes large Brazilian law firms. The OAB's response to Cesa's demand, although it did not end the operational partnerships between the aforementioned foreign firms and their respective Brazilian partners, led to the end of the duo Lefosse and Linklaters, a British firm with activities in Brazil since 2001.
There is, therefore, a tension that has not completely dissipated between foreign firms and local law firms. Each strand represents a culture and demands professionals with different profiles. This is one of the reasons why we cannot think about the future of the legal professions in Brazil only based on findings and reflections promoted by foreign study centers.
Skills for those who are already in the market
A large firm, for example, with more than a hundred lawyers, is marked by two characteristics: the first is that its competitive advantage consists in keeping its client sheltered in all their needs; the second, closely related to the first, consists of each lawyer acting according to his specialization. There is, therefore, a relevant degree of impersonality in the dealing.
Because of these characteristics, a lawyer from a big law firm must respond to the firm's culture and their progress is relatively predictable within the organization, based on the agenda of these values. Nowadays, large firms try to convey an image of innovation, not just tradition. This is due to the fact that the form of organization of big law is facing enormous threats worldwide.
While it is understandable that large firms do not demonstrate their vulnerability publicly, it is easy to verify their existence from a line of research by the Center on the Legal Profession of Harvad , called " The reemergence of the Big Four in Law ”. This means that large accounting firms, which are much larger and more efficient than any law firm, are aggressively advancing on the market.
In view of this, in my view, the competencies of a future partner of a large law firm need to include: knowledge about the current business model of law; knowledge about alternative business models; and knowledge about how to integrate legal services with support services.
I think that no technological competence is relevant to appear as a lawyer in this market, given that the great threat derives from a business issue.
The business model of international law firms is under threat and, in my opinion, the partners who know how to promote the defense of their organizations will be rewarded.
In contrast, for the national market and for smaller firms, I believe that the jurists of the future need to invest in another list of skills. Since its market is not exactly threatened by the big accounting firms, there is no risk of maximum magnitude against it.
However, this type of law will need to deal with adversities: the potential increase in legal technologists, which tends to reduce margins in lower value-added services; and the increase in local competition, given that electronic process platforms will allow national competition in any litigation market.
As a consequence, smaller law firms will tend to operate in increasingly determined niches, but without territorial limitations. So, in my view, the future belongs to the specialist. I suppose that the generalist will also lose space due to the maturation of the platforms that should serve information about the quality and reputation of each firm, so that the specialist can be more easily found.
Everything leads us to believe that the cost of finding a good lawyer at a fair price will be reduced through virtual platforms that will promote the balance between supply and demand for such services.
I suppose that small offices will gain from this, as they will be more efficient in providing the work directly, without facing the large costs of maintaining a luxurious office or one aimed at maintaining business relationships based on appearances.
Finally, as for the public sector, there is an even more different dynamic. I suppose that the public service will go through times of budget restriction, which will demand greater productivity from the manager. From the point of view of the boss, more productivity will require learning about team management in an agile and results-oriented way. After all, the public manager will need to do more with less. This demand seems to have intensified in recent months.
Still regarding the public environment, from the point of view of the subordinate public servant, complementary skills to those of the head will be valued, for example, the ability to set up a low-cost computer system from services provided via the cloud. This would not require the ability to write in computer language, but it would certainly require a more analytical mind than the one traditionally oriented by verbal and communication skills.
I imagine that the era of valuing eloquence and the ability to express itself has reached a point where such virtues will compete with other desirable skills. Under this approach, the traditional qualities of a jurist will become less valuable. Above all, memorized and unreflective knowledge will have less value than it already has today, because information retrieval systems tend to be improved.
While the private sector naturally has more agility to adapt and modify the profile of its workforce, the public tender has a rigid and legally imposed format. Thus, the government tends to maintain an outdated format for selecting civil servants, and it is desirable that it invests in solutions to improve the skills of its workforce already in activity.
Skills for those who are yet to enter the market
The Ministry of Education recently published, through Resolution 05/18, new National Curriculum Guidelines for the Law course. Among the novelties are the concern with the strengthening of consensual forms of conflict settlement. In addition, the MEC understands that it is desirable that graduates of the Bachelor of Law degree be able to work in an environment of diversity and cultural pluralism, developing the ability to work in groups and in an interdisciplinary context.
From a technological point of view, the MEC established that the Law course should enable the formation of skills so that the bachelor understands the impact of new technologies in the legal area. I think it was right for the MEC not to list what these technologies would be, because the scope of the Curricular Guidelines is really to generically guide the elaboration of the Pedagogical Project of the Course.
With regard to younger people, whose training will take place under the current Curriculum Guidelines, the impact of innovation will be even greater on their careers. The recognition, on the part of the MEC, that technology will play a leading role in the legal professions appears, in my view, as a conservative diagnosis.
With a bolder stance, Richard Susskind (Susskind, 2017) proposes a series of new activities, which would be performed by new lawyers, in a future in which they should be endowed with less professional prestige. They are: legal advice performed by lawyers in extremely specialized cases, in which the professional has a strong relationship of trust with the client; as well as technological support activities for this consultancy.
In addition, Susskind maintains that new professions will be created, summarized here in free translation.
The Legal Knowledge Engineers It would be the lawyers responsible for analyzing and parameterizing the language and legal concepts so that they can be incorporated into computer programs. Already the Legal Technology Engineers would be a profession that until today has been performed by people from one of these two areas: Law or Technology. Its mission would be to enable the consumption of legal services independently of the mediation of a lawyer.
They would also come into existence Hybrid Lawyers , also versed in two areas of knowledge, whose mission would be, for example, to create a negotiation strategy or act as psychologists. The author recognizes that, in some way, this practice already exists, but what he proposes is that the lawyer does not only have a notion of the area of knowledge in a secondary way, showing solid training on equal terms with his legal knowledge.
A variation of these professionals would be the Legal Data Scientists . They would need to have a strong background in mathematics, statistics, and programming. In other words, such a description is not that of a lawyer who operates ready-made computer systems, because, for the performance of this activity, it is necessary to capture, analyze and manipulate large amounts of data with great technical resourcefulness.
Just as today the electronics and pharmaceutical industries have innovation laboratories, Susskind points out that there should be Research and Development Professionals in Law. They would be responsible for designing services and solutions based on experimental techniques, acting with much more freedom than the professionals allocated to the operational part of offices and companies linked to the legal area.
Susskind also mentions that another profession would be that of Legal Project Analysts . Such analysts would not be confused with mere operators of ready-made systems, their practice consisting of the decomposition of tasks to be distributed to various suppliers. Its function would be to disaggregate the tasks of a project, outsourcing the execution, whose management would be in charge of another type of professional, the Legal Project Manager .
Just as accounting giants have built a consulting business out of their initial auditing businesses, Susskind believes that law firms should evolve in a similar direction, creating the conditions for the establishment of auditing services. Legal Management Consultants .
Although, for example, team management and instruction activities already exist within legal departments, they are usually provided in a non-specialized manner. Other services that would be covered by this professional performance include: value chain analysis, organizational structuring, recruitment of professionals, information management, etc.
There is also a very specific part of this type of service, concerning the identification, quantification, monitoring and prevention of risks. This would be the field of action of the Legal Risk Analysts . His role would be to assist the Legal Directors, on a front in which there is a huge deficit of professionals.
Finally, apart from services provided by online platforms, the author points out that there should be the Online Mediators .
Conclusion
In a scenario of so much uncertainty and lack of analysis about the particularities of the legal professions market in Brazil, it is really very difficult to know what are the competencies of the jurist of the future.
In view of this, regardless of the moment of the interested party's career, the most prudent thing seems to be to get deeply involved with the labor market in the state in which it is. From the understanding of their current state and their weaknesses, each one will be able to organize themselves to take advantage of the opportunities that will present themselves.
Without getting involved with the real market, opportunities cannot even be perceived as real opportunities, because everything would be in the field of conjecture. So being aware of the changes is the best recommendation I could give, at least the most honest.
It is true that, for those more focused on technology, it may be convenient to seek formal instruction in some field of exact sciences. In contrast, for people with more commercial and relationship skills, it is advisable to remain attentive to the changes related to the business model of providing legal services.
However, the most interested in the answer to this text seems to be the student who has not yet found himself in any of these extremes. It is most likely that a good Brazilian Law School is oriented to transform its graduates into people capable of performing an activity of judicial representation, through personal service, working passively according to the cause that the client may present to him. In other words, this is the traditional definition of a lawyer.
On the other hand, Educational Institutions seem to invest little in the development of skills aimed at teamwork, as well as in the hybrid instruction of a legal and also technological profile, strongly oriented to meet market demands and aimed at working according to the needs of the corporate world.
I imagine that the student's effort to fill such gaps in his education will be rewarding, if the premises assumed in this text are confirmed. Well, at least that's my reflection for today.
Bibliography
ABREU, Arthur Leal; FERRARI, Juliana. The training of the legal professional of the future. Available at: https://www.jota.info/carreira/diretrizes-curriculares-profissional-juridico-10052019 . Accessed on: May 11, 2019.
FEFERBAUM, Marina. Understand the future of law courses and professions. Available at: http://revistaensinosuperior.com.br/futuro-do-direito . Accessed on: May 11, 2019.
CUNHA, Luciana Gross et al. The Brazilian Legal Profession in the Age of Globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316871959 . Accessed on: May 11, 2019.
HARVARD LAW SCHOOL. Center on the Legal Profession. Web site. Available at: https://clp.law.harvard.edu . Accessed on: May 11, 2019.
MAHARG, P. Transforming Legal Education: Learning and Teaching the Law in the Early Twenty-First Century. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2007.
ROBINSON, N. When Lawyers Don't Get All the Profits: Non-Lawyer Ownership, Access, and Professionalism. Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network, 27 Aug. 2017. 2014. Available at: https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=2487878 . Accessed on: 12 May. 2019.
SUSSKIND, R. E. Tomorrow's lawyers: an introduction to your future. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.
SUSSKIND, R.; SUSSKIND, D. The Future of the Professions: How Technology Will Transform the Work of Human Experts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
WILKINS, D. B.; FERRER, M. J. E. The Integration of Law into Global Business Solutions: The Rise, Transformation, and Potential Future of the Big Four Accountancy Networks in the Global Legal Services Market. Law & Social Inquiry, vol. 43, no. 3, p. 981–1026, 2018. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/lsi.12311 . Accessed on: May 11, 2019.
To deal with such a complicated subject, I would like to start with a very simple notion: a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. So, if you are looking to build (or join) a legal data science laboratory within your university, you need to investigate how strong each of the following steps is:
- You have Previous research that have already made it possible to understand the legal context of a delimited field? In other words, do you already master the area of the business?
- Your previous search has been exhausted or was limited by the absence of data? In other words, is it only possible to reach a new scientific level after exploring this horizon?
- After confirming the limitations of the previous step, you have formulated problems whose answers can be obtained from data?
- In addition to the problems, you have already formulated Chance testable with this data?
- It is possible to obtain the data Demanded by his hypothesis? Is this data available at least in an unstructured way?
- If necessary, you have Structuring conditions these data?
- Once you have structured the data, you will be able to Keep updating and Evolve in modeling of the data? In other words, how disposable is your research?
- In addition to you, there is already a team with Data culture who can understand the challenges of this type of research and is willing to move in this direction?
- Your team has a Work routine and Knowledge Management that allow relatively simple individual plans to be carried out in parallel (for example, some TCC), guided by milestones that support more sophisticated research in the future (for example, a doctoral thesis)?
- Have you ever documented a Training cycle minimum to embark new researchers? Are there more cost-effective alternatives to a training cycle that depends on you? For example, is there already a data science training course that is regularly offered and accessible to potential team members?
- In addition to your subordinates, you have people with knowledge of other areas who are able to confirm viability of his ambition?
- That is, with the objective of conducting empirical research in law (applied social science), you have a Network to evolve in partnership with knowledge of technological support (exact sciences)?
- Are you open to accepting and guide your planning From this feasibility analysis, combining immediately viable research projects and a horizon of innovation to be explored?
- The results of the research can be incorporated into products that have value for the market ? You already have a plan to have Market access ?
Of course, this is not a single path. There are several types of laboratories, especially when it comes to the university context, in which a large part of the resources of the laboratories are demands for teaching or basic research activities. But if you're involved in building a laboratory that has a legal purpose and works with data, you may want to take certain precautions. After all, technology is not his main area.
In conclusion, Building a laboratory is not the same as buying equipment . A laboratory is built around problems to be solved. And these are not small problems, as they require collaboration from different areas to be overcome. The work environment and culture of this group of people are the foundations of the laboratory. In fact, it is something quite intangible.
In a world in which technological infrastructure has started to be consumed as a service (cloud computing), having physical resources is no longer an absolute competitive advantage. The real challenge is to develop a work that reconciles research and innovation with the urgency and pragmatism demanded by the market.
After all, in this area, without the market, there is no funded research. And, without money, the other conditions to create and maintain a laboratory of this type will not be present. My recommendation is that you don't go shopping on the first day, because first you need to answer the list of questions listed at the beginning of the post.
PS: While writing the post, I learned that the CNJ, by Ordinance 25/19, created a laboratory (called Inova PJe) and an Artificial Intelligence Center. I don't think the reflections in the post are fully applicable to institutional laboratories. In fact, I see the CNJ more as a decision-making body than an operational one. The operation itself would take place, for example, in an agreement with an academic laboratory, whose operation I described in the post.
To deal with such a complicated subject, I would like to start with a very simple notion: a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. So, if you are looking to build (or join) a legal data science laboratory within your university, you need to investigate how strong each of the following steps is:
- You have Previous research that have already made it possible to understand the legal context of a delimited field? In other words, do you already master the area of the business?
- Your previous search has been exhausted or was limited by the absence of data? In other words, is it only possible to reach a new scientific level after exploring this horizon?
- After confirming the limitations of the previous step, you have formulated problems whose answers can be obtained from data?
- In addition to the problems, you have already formulated Chance testable with this data?
- It is possible to obtain the data Demanded by his hypothesis? Is this data available at least in an unstructured way?
- If necessary, you have Structuring conditions these data?
- Once you have structured the data, you will be able to Keep updating and Evolve in modeling of the data? In other words, how disposable is your research?
- In addition to you, there is already a team with Data culture who can understand the challenges of this type of research and is willing to move in this direction?
- Your team has a Work routine and Knowledge Management that allow relatively simple individual plans to be carried out in parallel (for example, some TCC), guided by milestones that support more sophisticated research in the future (for example, a doctoral thesis)?
- Have you ever documented a Training cycle minimum to embark new researchers? Are there more cost-effective alternatives to a training cycle that depends on you? For example, is there already a data science training course that is regularly offered and accessible to potential team members?
- In addition to your subordinates, you have people with knowledge of other areas who are able to confirm viability of his ambition?
- That is, with the objective of conducting empirical research in law (applied social science), you have a Network to evolve in partnership with knowledge of technological support (exact sciences)?
- Are you open to accepting and guide your planning From this feasibility analysis, combining immediately viable research projects and a horizon of innovation to be explored?
- The results of the research can be incorporated into products that have value for the market ? You already have a plan to have Market access ?
Of course, this is not a single path. There are several types of laboratories, especially when it comes to the university context, in which a large part of the resources of the laboratories are demands for teaching or basic research activities. But if you're involved in building a laboratory that has a legal purpose and works with data, you may want to take certain precautions. After all, technology is not his main area.
In conclusion, Building a laboratory is not the same as buying equipment . A laboratory is built around problems to be solved. And these are not small problems, as they require collaboration from different areas to be overcome. The work environment and culture of this group of people are the foundations of the laboratory. In fact, it is something quite intangible.
In a world in which technological infrastructure has started to be consumed as a service (cloud computing), having physical resources is no longer an absolute competitive advantage. The real challenge is to develop a work that reconciles research and innovation with the urgency and pragmatism demanded by the market.
After all, in this area, without the market, there is no funded research. And, without money, the other conditions to create and maintain a laboratory of this type will not be present. My recommendation is that you don't go shopping on the first day, because first you need to answer the list of questions listed at the beginning of the post.
PS: While writing the post, I learned that the CNJ, by Ordinance 25/19, created a laboratory (called Inova PJe) and an Artificial Intelligence Center. I don't think the reflections in the post are fully applicable to institutional laboratories. In fact, I see the CNJ more as a decision-making body than an operational one. The operation itself would take place, for example, in an agreement with an academic laboratory, whose operation I described in the post.