One of the most interesting – and, let’s face it, terrifying! – aspects of the legal profession is that the learning never stops.
If you’re an engineer, metals will pretty much behave the same way under stress as they did when you were a beer-drinking, rugby-playing undergraduate. Acts of Parliament won’t make one bit of difference to the knowledge you’ve accumulated.
But the law is a very different beast. Over the course of a year it can change its appearance more often, and more spectacularly, than Lady Gaga on concert night.
This means, if you want your legal career to fly rather than falter, you need to keep on top of these changes.
It’s important to be ahead of the curve: keeping up to speed not just on proposed changes to legislation but also how the politicians and public react to the headlines caused by those changes.
This is especially true when it comes to legislation that must keep pace with technology.
Consider data protection law which, ever since the introduction of the 1998 Data Protection Act (DPA), was a rather flimsy effort at covering whatever those funny computer things were going to become in the future – and how we could best regulate what was going to be kept on them.
Of course, even the most farsighted legislator couldn’t have predicted the fact we can now keep our entire personal life on a sliver of glass and metal the size of a fat credit card – a single gadget with more computing power than an army of Nineties PCs.
So this is one area where the tech has evolved faster than legislation. And the good news is that’s just the kind of situation that allows a smart young lawyer like yourself to make case law.
One note of caution to all those dusting off their wig and gown and grabbing a copy of Wired before their next court date.
Don’t forget to also get your teeth into Freedom of Information (FoI).
The FoI act was applied to Scotland in 2002 and is inextricably linked under Scots Law to the DPA.
Become well versed in both and you’ll discover there’s a buoyant market for the more tech savvy of the legal profession – and more roles than ever for those who can occupy the middle ground that mixes law and technology.
Think you can guide an SME through the thickets of their DPA and FoI responsibilities? Then OMG, there really is an FAB job out there for you.