David Wilkins on Globalization, Technology, and the Legal Profession

At the ABA annual meeting on Monday, Professor David Wilkins (Harvard) delivered a fascinating, far-reaching lecture on legal-profession trends, including globalization and technology.  While he only briefly mentioned "tort," the changes he discussed are already appearing in the increase in cross-national mass tort litigation.  In the United States, the growth of mass tort litigation stemmed from increasingly national products, national advertising, and nationally dispersed injured victims.  As markets go global, so too do the problems that lead to mass torts.  The rise of Western-style legal cultures and lawsuits in Asia will likely increasingly turn those mass torts into mass tort litigations -- which will in turn mean that plaintiffs' lawyers will coordinate not just nationally, but internationally; and companies will increasingly turn to defense lawyers as lead counsel not just nationally, but internationally.  (For background, see my 2005 article on litigation networks in the U.S.)  Here's Professor Wilkins' address:

BGS