The Lex Lata 2075 Project

Dr. Kaspar Rosager Ludvigsen is Assistant Professor in Medical Law, and Co-investigator on the Lex Lata 2075 Project. Guanqun Qin and Fengyi Jiang are both PhD students at Durham Law School at Durham University and are Research Assistants on the project.  The grant was financed by the Security, Privacy, Identity, Trust, Engagement, NetworkPlus (Sprite+), which overarchingly received its funding from the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC) Digital Security and Resilience Theme (grant reference EP/W020408/1).

The Lex Lata 2075 Project

1.0 Introduction

What will Law look like in fifty years? This is the central question for this interdisciplinary research project, which was made possible by the Sprite+ and its fifth Sandpit. The Principal Investigator is Dr Tash Buckley, who is Lecturer in Cyber Security at Cranfield University. The other Co-investigators are Professor (Digital Business) Niki Panteli of Lancaster University Management School, Dr. Kaspar Rosager Ludvigsen, and Professor (Cyber Security) Oli Buckley of Loughborough University.

Firstly, we picked law as a theme because of its role in society. We cannot have regulation of technology, predictability in business, fundamentals rights, or anything, without rule-based systems of understanding and reasoning behind them. Sprite+ focusses on TIPSS – Trust, Identity/Authentication, Privacy, Security and Safety. Law controls all these areas, and indirectly technically through standards, especially in jurisdictions like EU Law, and law as a case study therefore aligns very well with the goals of the network. Discussing the future of Law is not unique, but doing it through an interdisciplinary lens, and through qualitative narrative-focused research is novel.

1.1 Background

Secondly, we picked law because it is a profession and a fundamental part of a society. In the original proposal, we suggest the idea of seeing law as “societal resilience”, and this continued to be a guiding line throughout. Uncovering where a professional identity is currently placed is a well-established technique within Business Studies and other sciences, and the perception where someone is now, and job proposals as artifacts of a given period and time. Professional identity, either by those that are “it”, or those that become “it”, is a continuous process, which can be seen in three stages; becoming, doing, and being. This has coloured the experimental choices.

Thirdly, fifty years is a period that is within what the students of law today will start retiring by. Fourthly, uncovering and discussing the future, in the context of future studies, is another well-established concept, whether empirically or otherwise, and since workshops and interviews can be facilitated either quantitatively or qualitatively, we decided on the latter. Qualitative assessments of the future may sound very biased, but like fiction, at times individuals or smaller groups may be able to pick up or quite accurately predict things that may happen. We saw this as an aspect of “fictional determinism”. While there is not necessarily a correlation between fiction authors or other individuals predicting the future, observing and describing these initial considerations and imaginaries may end up being central. This we have seen with various technologies and ideas being described in detail throughout the first part of the twentieth century, for them to be realised towards the end of it, and into the twenty-first.

Resources for facilitation of both of the workshops is available and freely accessible. For the section below, the scenarios are freely available to download from this site too.

2.0 Scenarios

Below is a description of the scenarios.

2.1 Scenario 1

Scenario one works with the idea of the role of data subjects. Currently, especially in an EU Law centric manner, data protection is central. In fifty years, this may not be the case, and humans have instead become prime sources, and are fully harvested in a data subject sense. We imagine that neurological to immunological data, and everything in-between, is collected and analysed by corporations and states. The first type of data is central to the scenario – what if predictive analysis could reveal our thoughts in the moment, we do something? It centerers around an “Absolute Right to Delete Neural Data”, which would diverge from the existing frameworks in this hypothetical future and would clash with the consequentialist arguments for the data gathering and usage (lower crime, increased health etc.).

2.2 Scenario 2

In the second scenario, we envisage that by 2025, the idea of law will have disappeared. Society runs on the basis of behavioural directives, which are rules generated by algorithms. Initially, lawyers supervised and calibrated the AI system. Machines gradually learned what they needed, then the human intermediaries disappeared. The legal industry no longer had a formal function. For most people, the disappearance of lawyers was the result of progressive optimisation of societal development. At first glance, this system seems to be highly efficient and accurate. However, in the face of social upheaval and instability, people lack a legal foundation on which to rely. In responding to emergencies, there is a lack of measures that are developed through sustained deliberation and that can effectively harness collective intelligence. A machine-made web of directives that may or may not adjust over time.  If the law no longer existed, would you trust a system that is invisible, unchallengeable, and unable to be effectively influenced? What would keep a community together when everything falls apart?

2.3 Scenario 3

In scenario three, technology companies overtake the functionality of law over the next fifty years. People’s lives will be closely linked to the jurisdictional clouds controlled by the world’s dominant technology companies, and we no longer talk about citizenship, but rather describe individuals as platform members. Each platform will play a role in a full-spectrum governance provider. People’s rights and duties will not be determined by law, but through algorithmically optimised governance protocols. If these rules are violated, people’s membership tier is downgraded, which will result in restrictions on their freedom of action, communication rights, and access to resources. Disputes will be resolved in each company’s compliance hub, which is a fully automated tribunal. Decisions are made instantly but are not transparent. People usually have multiple platform identities, but the rights they enjoy on these platforms are not the same. Technically, switching platforms is allowed, but doing so means abandoning data histories, social networks, and medical records, as these assets belong to the platforms rather than individuals.

The law has become fragmented into multiple private legal systems, each of which is oriented towards corporate strategy rather than public interest. People’s rights depend on membership determined survival, whilst access to legal redress hinges on the platform’s internal algorithms. Everyone lives under a company dominated governance system that they cannot design, challenge, or fully understand. Who governs these governors remains an open question.

3.0 Workshop Descriptions

Below are brief descriptions of the workshop setup, which again mirror those that can now be accessed freely online.

3.1 Experiment Details for Workshop 1

The first workshop was facilitated by Tash and Oli Buckley. It made use of law students from universities they are affiliated with, were done in-person without recording, and used specific prompting, directing and a direct co-creative approach. As such, the qualitative materials for later analysis are note-based, which deliberately contrasts the second workshop.

3.2 Experiment Details for Workshop 2

Building on Part One, the rest of the research group conducted three workshops with undergraduate students at Durham Law School and carried out a qualitative analysis of the participants’ discussions. The workshops focus on the theme of ‘jobs of the legal professions in fifty years’.

In each workshop, participants completed four tasks. Firstly, participants read three scenarios and thought about how the dispute resolution mechanism, regulation, power, and people's expertise might change in fifty years, and what new problems might arise. Secondly, participants discussed what these scenarios mean for legal professionals. For example, which legal professionals will still exist, and which roles will disappear? What expertise will legal professionals need? Who are they accountable to, or who will employ them? Thirdly, participants created job adverts for legal professionals in 2075. Fourthly, based on Task Three, participants reflected on how the identity of legal professionals may be reshaped by 2075.

4.0 Preliminary Results

The results below are preliminary and are mostly to illustrate the overarching themes. As above, the initial parts are divided into the three scenarios as above. For further details, please read the upcoming journal article when it has been released.

4.1 Scenario 1 Context

Discussions revealed sustained scepticism around neural data governance arrangements. Participants generally did not view future scenarios of neural data collection as purely speculative, but rather as a continuation of existing trends in personal data extraction. A central concern was the erosion of meaningful consent. Participants noted that accepting data collection practices is often a condition of accessing both public and private services in the current digital age, raising questions about whether consent could be considered voluntary. This concern was extended to the future, when the widespread use of neural data sensors may further normalise surveillance. Participants also expressed concerns that the mass collection of neural data could threaten people’s freedom of thought, as neural data can reveal preferences or intentions prior to linguistic or behavioural expression.

4.2 Scenario 2 Context

Similar scepticism shaped participants’ views on fully AI-driven legal systems. Although automated systems were frequently acknowledged for their potential to improve efficiency and expand access to justice, uncertainty remained over their reliability. Some participants questioned whether such systems, trained with historical data, would be able to respond to new situations, while others noted that these systems would face difficulties in contexts requiring interpretive flexibility or ethical reasoning. These concerns suggested that judgments made without human involvement may struggle to gain public trust.

4.3 Scenario 3 Context

Discussions regarding the potential for businesses and platforms to assume the role of the state in the future also generated concerns. Participants generally expressed worries about governance mechanisms driven by cost-benefit logic rather than public interest. Some pointed out that shifting the basis of rights from citizenship to platform membership would significantly reshape the relationship between individuals and social infrastructure. Those unable to participate or afford such platform membership costs may find themselves excluded from resources and protections that were once considered universally accessible.

4.4 General Observations

Participants generally took a forward-looking view of the future of the legal profession. While some anticipated a gradual decline in entry-level positions such as paralegals, there was a consensus that the legal profession itself would not disappear but would instead evolve into a form that integrates computer technology. Roles centred on simple information processing, such as document review, were seen as vulnerable to automation, while those involving legal interpretation and interpersonal communication were viewed as more resilient and harder to automate. Participants repeatedly emphasised the value of interdisciplinary expertise that combines legal and technical knowledge. They suggested that the future legal profession will play a crucial role in bridging the gap between automated systems and the individuals affected by them, serving as interpreters, translators, and challengers of algorithmic decision-making. Some participants noted that the current education system would need to adapt to these changing demands.

4.5 Other Comments on the Workshops

As the first workshop was far more steered and micromanaged, and had a different group structure and participant type, the results also differed. Generally, an expectation of major negative changes to law was observed. Delegation to automation, in the form of AI or systems we cannot yet imagine, was expected, as was a minimisation or severe reduction of the profession.

Unlike first workshop, everything in the second one was recorded. We therefore have 65.000 words of transcriptions from the students to study.

Participants identified a range of future possible job positions that law could possess, both based on all three scenarios, but also on their own perceptions of where the world would be in fifty years. These include Legal Technology Experts, Innovation Lawyers, AI Calibrators, Data Risk Advocates, Data Litigators, AI Influencers and Specialist Judges. What is central to all of these, is the intermediary or influential nature that the law is still perceived to have over the technology it exists in. Of special interest in the scenario two setting, is the idea of AI Calibrators, where they may no longer be lawyers as such, but professionals that steer the AI models still need to understand the now long-gone discipline of law. In this sense, even when law has disappeared in the form we know it now, its knowledge based and logic may still be retained. This is not unlike other professions we have lost in the last century due to automation. The rest follow existing positions and are in this sense not too surprising.

5.0 Conclusion

Law as a profession will change. It may have already done this due to other technological, political, or other societal changes in the past, but the next steps seem to trace what technologies will change society in the first place.

The next step for this project is one of the final outputs – a journal paper that combines the qualitative findings from both workshops and sets up how the future of law in fifty years can both impact the profession, and potentially the world as a whole, and how these types of futures can be prevented.

5.1 Acknowledgements

We thank all the participants in all the workshops. Taking time off for in-depth questions, considerations about yourself, your profession and the world in general, is not easy, and we were especially satisfied with the quality of all the answers, and the divergence. While narrative tools are generally strong in many research areas, law is not exactly a science that employs these techniques traditionally, and the expectation did therefore not match the bountiful results.

We would like to thank the Sprite+ Network for the funding and support, not much would have been possible without it. The opportunity to even participate in the Sandpit activity in 2025 was great on its own as well, and the project would not have existed without it.