ECTA: society needs creative lawyers, not ‘skilled’ machines

Lawyers must unlearn some of their adversarial thinking to ensure they play a role in human society in the future, says Mladen Vukmir of the European Communities Trade Mark Association.

Lawyers must unlearn some of their adversarial thinking to ensure they play a role in human society in the future, says Mladen Vukmir of the European Communities Trade Mark Association.

Once contemporary society, by the end of the 20th Century, had realised that disputes arise at the moment when communication between the parties breaks down and that the disputants thus hold control over the outcome of their disputes, users of the legal system started having second thoughts on the very role of law. 

If the disputants are willing and ready to tackle their lack of communication and re-establish it with the goal of solving their dispute themselves, they may realise that lawyers are, in many instances, not indispensable.