The future is moulded by the conversations we have today.
Artificial intelligence, digital courts, declining institutional trust and changing skills could fundamentally reshape South Africa’s legal and justice system over the next decade, said Ian Andrews, Chief Executive Officer LexisNexis Southern and Eastern Africa.
“Law, and the rule of law, is heading into what could be one of its most consequential periods of change in decades,” said Andrews. “Artificial intelligence may be dominating conversations about the future of work, but technology is only one of several forces that could fundamentally change how South Africans access justice.”
It could also alter how lawyers practise, how compliance and broader governance are approached and how regulatory and institutional environments, including academia, respond.
Andrews said the legal environment of 2035 could look substantially different from what South Africans know today. “There is no denying that conversations must be had, and quickly,” he said. “Agility and adaptability are key, but the conundrum is whether entire sectors can gather enough momentum to respond quickly and meaningfully enough.”
Whether the legal system can keep pace with the forces already reshaping it will drive debate at the LexisNexis Future of Law conference on 3 November 2026.
“We have seen digital justice accelerate rapidly since the pandemic and gain fresh momentum as AI has made greater inroads into the legal profession,” Andrews said. “But we need to look at short-, medium- and long-term horizons to understand the potential trajectory of a system that is one of the fundamental pillars of both the economy and civil society.”
“Technology is not waiting for regulation, institutions or professions to catch up,” Andrews said. “That is why we need to dissect the future of law now. We need to understand what is already changing, what we know and, perhaps more importantly, what we have not yet considered.”
The Future of Law will examine four forces that could shape the profession and the society it serves. Trust, skills development, digital democracy and agility will form part of discussions as the rule of law, the justice system, regulation and institutional and public trust intersect with cybersecurity, data breaches, privacy, corporate accountability and growing public expectations.
“Legal systems designed largely for a physical world may also come under growing pressure as more aspects of the law move into digital environments,” Andrews said. “There is enormous potential to reduce costs, improve efficiencies and lower barriers to legal processes, but this raises its own questions around digital ownership, intellectual property, human rights and how people participate in the justice system.”
Andrews said that in future anyone working within a legal or regulatory environment would require a different combination of skills, with judgment, critical thinking, communication, collaboration and relationship management becoming increasingly important alongside technological capability. “The question is not only what technology will be capable of doing,” he said. “It is what organisations will need to be capable of doing differently as a consequence.”
“We will not endeavour to predict the future,” Andrews said. “Instead, the purpose of the Future of Law is to understand the forces shaping it so that the profession can make better decisions about what comes next.”
