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40 ¦ AUGUST 10, 2020 EXPERT OPINIONS

The Future of Justice:
Is Court a Service or a Place?

By Mark Dubois

I Former state Chief Disciplinary Counsel Mark Dubois.

“ s a court a service or a place?” That’s a question you talk to) in the wheels of justice. Susskind pub-
posed by Richard Susskind in a recent article in lished a new book last November, Online Courts
The Practice, a publication of The Center on the and the Future of Justice. He urged that we plan

Legal Profession at Harvard Law, which devoted ahead and use technology to reform and reimag-
its July/August issue to the topic of remote courts. ine our civil and criminal justice systems. Little
Susskind is a technology advisor to the Chief Jus- did he know that within six months the world’s
tice of the UK Supreme Court and a prolific author, courts would jump into the maelstrom virtually
speaker and thinker on the intersection of technol- overnight, with all sorts of remote justice schemes
ogy and law. necessitated by the COVID 19 mess.
Susskind is not always right. His 2008 book The Adapting centuries-old processes to a virtual
End of Lawyers was either way ahead of its time or environment overnight is akin, as Susskind notes,
way off base, as me and my kind continue to per- to changing a wheel on a moving car. As expected,
sist as either sand or grease (depending on whom there have been successes and failures. I recom-

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