Digitalisation of law: studies, exams and career in cooperation with the law firm Fieldfisher

In the winter semester 2018/19, the Institute for the Law of Digitalisation hosted its first lecture evening under the motto 'Digitalisation of Law: Studies, Exams and Profession'. In contrast to the inaugural conference in August this year, the lecture evening was primarily aimed at students of the Faculty of Law at the Philipps-Universität Marburg. A large number of students accepted the invitation, and the packed auditorium provided a great stage for the invited speakers.

PD Dr. Alexander Stöhr opened the event with a talk on the impact of digitalisation on legal studies. Dr. Stöhr explained the intersections between the traditional content of legal studies and advancing digitalisation. Special attention was given to case scenarios, which will be part of legal education in the future and will therefore increasingly appear in degree programmes and state examinations.

Pia Figgei then presented her work at the Federal Office of Justice and explained how increasing digitalisation is also finding its way there and what challenges need to be overcome in this context. Examples of this were discussed in the context of social media platforms such as Facebook or Twitter and hate speech on the Internet.

The last speaker to take the stage was Kai Ebert, co-founder and chairman of the Munich LegalTech Student Association. His presentation gave an overview of the LegalTech sector and its development. A particular focus was on developments in the German legal sector. In addition, the presentation showed how students can get actively involved in order to have a voice in current legal debates. To illustrate this, Mr. Ebertz ended his presentation with an insight into the activities and goals of the Munich LegalTech Student Association.

At the end of the evening, Mr Thilo Danz, Partner in the Frankfurt office of the law firm Fieldfisher, spoke briefly to the students and introduced the firm and its future-oriented focus. Mr Danz emphasised that digitalisation will play an increasingly important role in legal practice in the future and that well-trained graduates are therefore needed in this field.