In my initial article about SXSW 2025, I talked about why it’s vital for legal professionals. Whereas there was a restricted legally associated monitor, that’s definitely NOT why I spent over per week in Austin. I’m going as a result of I imagine conferences like SXSW and CES provide insights into the place our career is headed—or must be.
As you may inform from my posts about SXSW, that was the case. So, in no explicit order, listed below are the teachings discovered.
1. All of us want social contact and human interplay to be blissful and productive. That may counsel that return to workplace mandates must be good. Which may be correct, however not if the return doesn’t present time and house for these contacts and interactions to occur. Having authorized professionals return to the workplace simply to be there received’t get it. Right here’s my post.
2. Our privateness is underneath siege from all instructions. What little privateness now we have is being misplaced. Authorized professionals want to grasp the threats for the sake of their purchasers and themselves. Right here’s my post.
3 If you’ll give a presentation about Gen AI to a bunch of legal professionals, don’t simply talk-show. Exhibit what the instruments can do. Present how Gen AI may also help them and enhance their day-to-day lives. Skip the pc communicate and overcomplicated diagrams. Don’t make Gen AI sound too difficult to ever be helpful. Right here’s my post.
4. The longer term for authorized isn’t nearly adopting new and glossy expertise instruments. It’s about strategically making use of expertise to unravel actual day-to-day issues. Right here’s my tech-at-sxsw-what-it-means-for-legal/”>put up.
5. Whenever you have a look at the long run and authorized expertise one factor is obvious: don’t fixate on the obstacles. (Obstacles are just like the proverbial stone in your shoe). When adopting a expertise or revolutionary strategy, look extra at what modifications will happen because of the expertise. And ask a number of what-if questions in regards to the modifications that will happen. Right here’s my post.
6. The attitudes and values of these in rural America present an perception into what it’ll take to unravel the dearth of legal professionals in small cities. I used to assume tech alone might remedy the lawyer scarcity in rural America. It seems it’s not that easy. Seems we most likely can’t that do because of rural of us’ robust neighborhood worth system. When you’re not bodily there, you ain’t a part of the neighborhood. Right here’s my post.
7. When you use tech that can assist you persuade, you should first think about the story, not the tech. It is advisable to assist your viewers really feel like they’ve skilled one thing. You must set up an emotional connection. And it’s a must to make it private. Right here’s my post.
8. We reside in attention-grabbing instances. Like all of us, SXSW is coping with change. The Austin Conference Heart, house to most SXSW occasions, is being torn down after this yr’s convention and received’t be accessible for the subsequent three years. In the meantime, most of the themes this yr, like local weather change and DEI, are underneath assault. However SXSW didn’t throw up its fingers. It accepted that change is inevitable and understood that adaptation is essential. It’s true for SXSW. It’s true for authorized. Right here’s my post.
9. We will be taught from one another. In all places I went, individuals throughout totally different disciplines had been speaking, making connections, and sharing concepts. Discovering out how one thing one self-discipline did or knew could possibly be utilized in one other. SXSW opens up the doorways to new views and concepts.
10. Final however not least, the vitality. Carry collectively some 300,000 vivid, enthusiastic, and galvanizing individuals and that vitality rubs off. Simply when my “P doom” rating was steadily rising, SXSW gave me renewed optimism and hope.
So, what did I take away from per week in Austin? Optimism. A perception that regardless of all the things, we nonetheless have an opportunity as a species to do nice issues. We do as authorized professions. We do as individuals.
Thanks, SXSW, for the inspiration. Thanks for having me.
Stephen Embry is a lawyer, speaker, blogger and author. He publishes TechLaw Crossroads, a weblog dedicated to the examination of the strain between expertise, the regulation, and the observe of regulation.
