Interesting article, but frankly the idea of an "innovative legal system" is quite frightening. The whole point of the legal system is to be a predictable backdrop against which human activity can take place. I don't want to be able to predict what Silicon Valley will do 10 years from now. I do want to be able to predict what judges will do 10 years from now!<p>It's not a sign of decay when the legal system uses principles that are 200+ years old, it's a sign of the fact that the heart of the legal system, dispute resolution, involves the same issues today that it did hundreds of years ago.
This is a case where I think Cal Newport's arguments are on point: it's not about your passion, it's about your skills. Or as a lawyer friend put it to me when we were working together on a late night at an elite NYC law firm: "Law is only good when you can write your own ticket."<p>All of the OP's statements are true but also not true. For example: law is about authority, computers reject authority. What is authority? In some sense, it's just network effect. A sufficient number of people have agreed on an argument, therefore it won't be disturbed unless there's a very good reason. Same goes with computers.<p>Innovation vs. Applying past wisdom: The law's not so myopic to only look to the past. It considers the accumulated wisdom of the past to determine what to do now. In fact, the law is changing rapidly in part in response to technological innovation (and the increasing complexity of government and modern life). The question is whether past rationale makes sense under current conditions. Under that frame, innovation and disruption happens in the law -- consider the law & economics movement, for instance, or critical legal theory.<p>The question isn't whether law or programming is inherently more innovative, it's where you're situated.<p>If you're arguing cases before the Supreme Court, you are dealing with the cutting edge of law and you are constantly looking at new cases that come out and analyzing how their rationale opens up new arguments and reflects new ways to attack existing decisions. The problem is that to do that, you have to be the best of the best.<p>If you're a programmer at a huge corporation working on maintaining a legacy system, you probably think you have the dullest job in the world in a field where nothing changes.<p>No doubt, real differences exist between law and programming, although they are remarkably similar. Nevertheless, I think Newport is on point when he talks about just how important excellence is to appreciating and enjoying your craft.
I know this is anecdotal, however after topping out salary-wise in the programming field after 11 years, I often wish I would have gone the law school route. Don't get me wrong, it is a good living. Its just not on par with an I.P. lawyer or general council with an equal amount of education and tenure.<p>I just don't see many options available to a tenured programmer beyond the obvious (stop programming) and the extremely risky (join a start-up w/ equity). Whereas a decade of dedicated service in the right law firm can lead to partner status which often times is a lucrative engagement.
OT: Am I just being an idiot, or is it very non obvious what one has to do to see more than a couple of lines of Google Plus posts on an iPad?<p>I finally figured out that hitting the share icon brings up the full post and an edit box so I can add my thoughts, but that seems unintuitive to me. I would not normally hit a share link until after reading something. Is that really the way they intend it to work?
Mannnn, back when I was a law student I had similarly <i>deep</i> and <i>profound</i> notions about how Lawyers Just Didn't Get It.<p>Turns out, good lawyers are kinda smart. Like doctors, obnoxiously so.<p>In Common Law jurisdictions, the law is an evolved complex system.<p>It is complicated because the problem domain -- <i>everything humans do</i> -- is sorta kinda complex, guys.<p>Don't think of law as a fixed entity, which "is an ass".<p>Think of law as a <i>discovery process</i>.