Law Schools and the Fourth Industrial Revolution

The digital transformation of a law degree is not simply using technology to teach or assess. Rather, it embraces and embodies key seismic drivers for change: vision, people, and culture. Digital transformation is a journey, not a destination, and so involves the continual understanding of why we are seeking change, who this change will benefit, and how to unlock the value proposition of a law degree as an anchor discipline in stewarding the challenges of the 4IR. Synthesising the chapters presented in this collection, this chapter proposes three strategies to better equip students for the future and steer legal education forward emerge: (i) embedding digital literacies, (ii) developing interdisciplinarity, and (iii) nurturing creativity, collaboration, and communication opportunities. The chapter identifies how law school leaders enable change by exploring a variety of contexts, inputs, and drivers, shifting practices, and exploring enablers for change and offers a new research agenda looking into the future of legal education and becomes an ongoing conversation across the globe, in which we begin to identify a future-ready law graduate and what we can do as educators and education leaders to support excellence in learning. We also hope that this is a start to the conversation and research around what digital literacies and creativity mean within the context of legal education, and also to making a case to establish the role of legal education in influencing and shaping the progress of the 4IR and to position legal education as an anchor discipline in Higher Education.