Who takes responsibility?

Legal reform only matters if it helps people enforce their rights, get redress, and know who is supposed to do something when things go wrong. Technology is changing products, employment relationships and even the way legal advice is delivered, and those questions are getting harder to answer. 

Our interview with Richard Susskind (p48) puts the profession itself under the microscope. He revisits predictions he made thirty years ago and draws a useful distinction between simply automating existing tasks and using technology to offer services that weren’t possible before. The real challenge, he argues, isn’t faster research or cheaper drafting. It’s the business models, institutions and assumptions that shape how legal expertise reaches people. His line that “the competition that will beat you won’t look like you” should make firms of every size sit up.

What’s interesting is his optimism about smaller practices. AI could give them new capabilities, and their ability to change direction quickly may turn out to be an advantage over larger competitors. But the most important point he makes concerns people who currently get no legal help at all. If AI lets them understand and assert their rights, the profession will have to help set reliable standards for these services and ask whether our existing dispute systems can cope with the extra demand.

The feature on product liability reform (p32) brings the issue of responsibility into sharper focus. The Law Commission’s provisional proposals would bring software and AI expressly into the regime, rethink some of the evidential hurdles and widen the pool of potential defendants. When a product can change through updates, spotting a defect, tracing its cause and working out who controlled the relevant change becomes genuinely difficult. The central problem is how to improve access to compensation without unfairly loading risk onto one part of a complex supply chain.

Gemma Motion’s piece on 3D-printed firearms (p36) takes a different angle on technological change. Existing offences can still apply, but the evidence needed to prove them has changed markedly. Digital blueprints, download histories and messages may now be central to showing who did what. Proper disclosure, careful attribution and close attention to the digital timeline become essential to a fair trial. Familiar legal duties simply acquire new practical demands.

Employment arrangements raise similar questions about the gap between formal labels and actual responsibility. Razia Begum’s analysis of Employer of Record structures (p40) looks at the risks when the legal employer and the business that benefits from someone’s work are different entities. Alongside it, the feature on the Government’s employment status consultation (p44) examines proposals on substitution rights, a presumption of worker status and protections for the self-employed. Both pieces underline the need to test contractual arrangements against how people actually work day to day.

Francesca Reason’s contribution on public inquiries (p56) shifts the focus from identifying past failures to making sure something actually happens afterwards. A compelling report doesn’t guarantee that its recommendations will be carried out. Clear ownership, meaningful measures of progress and ongoing scrutiny are needed if an inquiry’s work is to produce lasting change. The question she raises has relevance well beyond public law: who remains answerable once the initial attention has faded?

Inside firms, responsibility also determines whether innovation actually works. Ivy Grey (p64) looks at the professional judgment and verification that AI-assisted research still requires, while Michelle Howard (p66) argues for leadership that prepares and supports people through the process of adoption. Their pieces connect the possibilities Susskind describes with the practical decisions partners need to make now about competence, supervision and trust.

Across our November issue, the real test is whether new rules and new tools lead to better outcomes for people. Solicitors have a central part to play in making that happen by clarifying obligations, questioning assumptions, and ensuring that the promise of change comes with a clear responsibility to deliver it.