The Legal Kaffeeklatsch

Given the primal necessity of survival, our current focus is on ordering our societies to cope with the critical health issues of Corvid-19. The jury is still out on whether we will manage to do this without being overwhelmed by agonizing, staggering costs in human lives and and suffering. We have seen what happens or looms in densely packed populations in epicenters ranging from Wuhan to Italy to Spain to New York. What threatens to emerge in countries shut by walls of silence, or refugee camps and prison populations, does not bear thinking about...too painful. But we are human. No matter what else is happening, we need water, food and shelter. And to the extent not struck down by personal disaster, we need to try to order as best we can the modalities of our everyday existence. In the world of law, that is those who administer justice, or deliver legal services, or educate those whose job it will be to do this in the future. All of these must--with great urgency--adapt. In part,...

Here's where I had been meant to be today...but that was pre-Coronavirus plan. I was going to Switzerland for Convo3, the third in a series of informal though deep conversations about the future of legal practice I've helped organize. The street is Zurich's Muenstergasse last Saturday afternoon; normally teeming with people, converted by the virus into a near post-apocalyptic scene. We will do a virtual version of Convo3, with folks from Europe to the United States to Australia participating. That part is ok. Working virtually across continents isn't a big deal--especially for those of us who have had the experience of working with Law Without Walls. What is a big deal, however, is the ongoing impact of the virus which has just in the last days shown a major impact on the global social systems and economy. And thus, I think, the likely thrust of our Convo3 will shift. Shift into a darker and more urgent direction: how does one mitigate disaster?  Some good m...