The purpose of this project was to lay down the first bricks of a digital mindset in order to be able to work with law in new digital ways and to be able to identify challenges towards rule of law and due processes under the influence of digitalisation. Designed to match the needs of the current job market, the course enabled the students to gain an understanding of the context and practice of using digital methods in the field of law.
In recent years, Danish employers have increasingly demanded lawyers who have insight into and understanding of the digital agenda. Often, however, the employers have not been particularly clear about what they are looking for, and therefore it has been difficult for the Danish universities to equip students with the skills and competencies that an increasingly digitised labour market is looking for. Based on discussions and interviews as well as observations of other professions’ desires, we designed a course for the law programme at Aarhus University last semester that aims to build the foundation for a digital legal mindset for the lawyers of the future.
Examples shown of different programming languages
Microsoft Excel
The aim was to establish a foundation of a digital mindset based on a fundamental understanding of how computers work, data quality etc., not to teach specific technologies.
According to Leonardi & Neely, you need only to understand 30% of each of the three Cs to have a digital mindset that can be further developed to be able to contribute to the work of the digital transformation. Though we may have only reached 10% with this course, the feedback from the students indicates that we have succeeded in laying the first foundation for a subject specific digital mindset. In addition to an understanding of the technical digital Cs, the students attending the course seem to have achieved an understanding of the mental, professional-social and professional context that is part of the digitisation within the field of law. Furthermore, they have achieved an understanding of the principles behind data protection, but also how these challenge the digital opportunities. As a bonus, the students themselves also indicate that they have gained a fundamentally better understanding of the rule of law due to the discussions about effective digitisation versus rule of law and due process. Thus, they feel better prepared to be able to assess advantages, disadvantages, and the tension between efficiency and legal certainty.
The teaching model was based on Leonardi & Neely’s The Digital Mindset (2022), which works with three focal points in the form of three Cs:
In addition to Leonardi & Neely, three legal subject-specific focal points were added that centred around three Us:
The students got a fundamental understanding of these focal points through:
In developing a digital mindset, the Leonardi & Neely model takes away the pressure of thinking that you should know everything and instead establishes a frame of expectation for realistic goal-setting.
Teacher: Per Andersen & Bettina Lemann Kristiansen
Faculty: Department of Law, Aarhus University
Course: The Lawyer's Task in a Digitalised Society – Law, Technology and Ethics
Level of study: MA
Teaching method: Lectures, small class teaching, teaching by student teachers
Number of students: 23
Duration: Entire course (40 hours)
The purpose of this project was to lay down the first bricks of a digital mindset in order to be able to work with law in new digital ways and to be able to identify challenges towards rule of law and due processes under the influence of digitalisation.