I cheer the University's forward thinking. Change is inevitable. Technology and the Internet have left well-established, market-dominating companies scrambling to find ways to compete. These dramatic shifts in marketplace paradigms have directly and dramatically impacted the practice of law. One needs look no further than the Microsoft anti-trust case, FBI hacker investigations, or the AOL/Time Warner merger to see how the daily life a lawyer might be effected by technology and the Internet.

Technological innovation forces workers to continually learn and adapt to maintain maximum employability. Try to get a job if you don't know how to use the Internet, and you will see the importance of technological knowledge in the work environment. Business guru Tom Peters puts it this way, "The world is adjusting to the challenges that massive technological and sociological shifts have pushed forward. Individuals, not groups, have become the new unit of business. As the workplace has progressed from Pre-Industrial through Industrial and into the Informational era, we have seen the ideal of the worker progress as well. Individuals have progressed from a worker doing a job, to a person pursuing a career, to a professional establishing a brand. As the information age produces white-collar robots in greater number, white-collar professionals will have to justify their existence in the job market through the demonstration of their unique economic distinction."

The Internet and technology have radically changed the environment in which we live and in which we are employed. Again, I cheer the University of Chicago Law School's curriculum update, and imagine that other law schools will soon have little choice but to follow U of C's lead.

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