Program to examine the profession's challenges.

When President Eugene Pettis launched the Vision 2016 Commission a year ago, he noted the legal profession is going through evolutionary changes, and the commission's job is to identify the challenges that lie ahead and set out a framework for meeting them. "We can't miss the future," Pettis said, as the 68 members set out on its three-year mission to focus on four broad areas --technology, the future of legal education, Bar admissions, and the delivery of legal services--that will greatly impact how lawyers practice in the decades to come.

A year into the study, members have an opportunity to learn where the commission is with its study and the challenges ahead.

"A Transforming Legal Environment: Setting a New Course for Success"--a Presidential Showcase event--will be held Friday, June 27, from 2-5 p.m., at The Florida Bar's Annual Convention, at the Gaylord Palms Resort & Convention Center in Orlando.

Jordan Furlong, a lawyer, consultant, and legal industry analyst who forecasts the impact of the changing legal market on lawyers, clients, and legal organizations, will provide the keynote address: "Deep Impact: What the Legal Profession Can Learn From the Chicxulub Comet."

"Sixty-five million years ago, the cataclysmic impact of a comet off what is now the Yucatan Peninsula changed the course of our planet's history. But there's more to the story than what is widely believed, and hidden in that story is a lesson for the legal profession. The legal market is entering a period of upheaval unprecedented in its history, changing the business environment completely, and creating tremendous challenges for lawyers. This presentation will explain the forces transforming the legal market and their impact on attorneys, map out the evolution of that market over the coming decades, and provide lawyers with strategies and tactics to emerge from this time of disruption stronger and better able to serve their clients," according to Furlong.

Furlong has delivered dozens of addresses to law firms, state bars, law societies, law schools, judges, and many others throughout the U.S. and Canada on the evolution of the legal services market.

Furlong, a Canadian lawyer and consultant to law firms on strategic and tactical issues with Edge International, told the commission in January that the biggest issues the profession will face in the next three to five years include:

* Technology that performs a legal or lawyer function;

* Online dispute resolution;

*...