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Law Office Technology

Law Office Technology. Kenneth Hirsh Director of the Law Library and Information Technology and Clinical Professor of Law, University of Cincinnati College of Law Wayne Miller Assistant Dean for Academic Technologies, Duke University School of Law David Whelan

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Law Office Technology

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  1. Law Office Technology Kenneth Hirsh Director of the Law Library and Information Technology and Clinical Professor of Law, University of Cincinnati College of Law Wayne Miller Assistant Dean for Academic Technologies, Duke University School of Law David Whelan Manager, Legal Information, Law Society of Upper Canada Why it Needs to Be in Your School’s Curriculum and How to Get it There

  2. David Whelan The Last Ten Years

  3. Slow Start Early promise of Application Service Providers goes bust with Silicon Valley Windows XP Pro debuts in 2001 and ends up the significant business desktop OS for the decade Typical lawyer has a Dell desktop running Windows 98 and either Microsoft Word or Corel WordPerfect

  4. Document Driven 2009 Lawyer Usage 95% Microsoft Word 30% Corel WordPerfect 1% Open Office 2001 Lawyer Usage 55% Microsoft Word 44% Corel WordPerfect Open Office 1.0 Open Office 2.0 Open Office 3.0 Microsoft Word 2000 Microsoft Word 2002 Microsoft Word 2003 Microsoft Word 2007 Corel WordPerfect 9 Corel WordPerfect 10 Corel WordPerfect 11 Corel WordPerfect 12 Corel WordPerfect X3 Corel WordPerfect X4 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Source: Wikipedia.org, 2009 American Bar Association Legal Technology Survey

  5. Same Old Swiss Army™ Knife Contacts E-mail Calendaring Customer Relationship Management Practice Management Anti-Spam Encryption Source: 2009 American Bar Association Legal Technology Survey High adoption of Microsoft Office has led Microsoft products to dominate in other areas Microsoft Outlook top product for:

  6. What about legal technology? • Industry has matured in the 2000s • Fewer products, higher product versions, except in niche or emerging areas • Increased focus on enterprise versions • Increased curiosity about “legal vertical” • Acquisitions by larger companies focusing on professional services workflow • Software-as-a-Service model gains traction

  7. Consolidation Elite Netdocuments CourtExpress TimeMatters Livenote LexisNexis Thomson Reuters PCLaw ProDoc HotDocs DealProof LexisNexis Westlaw CaseMap Findlaw Juris Financials ProLaw PlumTree Portals FinPlan Divorce Planner Applied Discovery Global Securities Information (GSI)

  8. Large Firms are Enterprise Business About 40% of law school graduates go into a firm with 101 or more lawyers About 33% of law school graduates go into a firm with 2-10 lawyers Source: National Law Journal, NALP National Law Journal Top 250

  9. Enterprise IT Microsoft Centric Network OS, Desktop OS, E-mail Server, Virtual Server, Sharepoint Business Apps Integrating complex business applications as well as custom legal applications International Help desk sourced for 24 hour coverage, data centers co-located with in multiple sites Cost Recovery Developing apps for resale as services to clients, licensing to vendors Budget Firms with more than 500 lawyers are budgeting an average of $14.8 million on IT Source: 2007 ILTA Technology Survey

  10. Tech and the Solo or Small Firm Source: 2007 ILTA Technology Survey2009 American Bar Association Legal Technology Survey • Simpler but not necessarily rudimentary • Solo and small firm lawyer usage similar to 100+ firm lawyer except • Less likely to use a smart phone with wireless e-mail • Less likely to have a server-based environment • More likely to use a thumb drive • Typical lawyer will have a Dell desktop running Windows XP, Office 2007 and Internet Explorer, and have broadband Internet.

  11. Opportunities Source: 2009 American Bar Association Legal Technology Survey • Adoption of legal technology continues to lag • Ignored in purchase of “consumer” technology • Law office technology with lower adoption: • Metadata removal tools • Document management • Practice management software • Conflicts checking

  12. Opportunities As soon as [you] open your doors. Practice management software is mission critical. Source: February 27, 2009 survey of 90 solo lawyers on the Solosez discussion list hosted by the American Bar Association “When would you recommend that an attorney begin using practice management software?”

  13. Enable the Evolution Law Student Lawyer Laptop Windows Microsoft Office Web Browser Facebook E-mail Desktop / Laptop Windows Microsoft Office Web Browser Practice Management Productivity Communication Wireless device Ubuntu / S-a-a-S E-Filing Web Browser Web 2.0 Marketing Practice Management Productivity Communication

  14. Kenneth Hirsh The Law Office Technology Course at Duke Law School

  15. Wayne Miller Lessons Learned

  16. Know your audience Survey students, before and after Engage their summer experience in class Read your evaluations!

  17. Be prepared to make changes It’s difficult during the semester– plan ahead Identify the most important changes and concentrate on those (maybe a “theme” suggests itself?)

  18. Plan for Succession Of three founders, two are no longer available Invite potential co-instructors to sit in The content is more important than the individual

  19. We started “small” We started the course designed for a small firm or an individual Covers all the essentials Addressed ourselves to basic software Large firms insulate lawyers from tech issues, we thought!

  20. We retooled for large More emphasis on concepts (conflicts checking, for instance) More abstract discussion of software categories But – how to engage students in class?

  21. Assignments • Exercises: • Meta-data scrubbing • Negotiation at a distance • Business research • Presentation

  22. Assignments • Final Project (60% grade) • Students work in groups of 2 or 3 • 30% for in-class presentation • 30% for final paper

  23. Sample topics • Extranets • Technology in law firm disaster planning • Attorneys & blogging – tools, ethical issues, as attorney advertising, role in high-profile trials • The Blackberry and similar devices - legal implications of the technology; social issues for lawyers. • More to be posted on Blackboard…

  24. Grading for Final Project • Graded by the following criteria: timely completion, thoroughness, creativity, appropriate use of technology in the presentation, relevance to and reflection on issues facing the legal profession, and appropriate selection and documentation of sources.

  25. Videoconferenced guests • Law librarian – history of technology in law • Ediscovery attorney & an economics consultant – ediscovery concerns and current business practices • Courtroom 21 – future of courtroom and assistive technologies

  26. Midsized firm tech comm. Helps me – I can be IT director rather than a partner of the firm We discuss what the approach should be for our firm Changed course dynamic, helping (along with a morning slot!) with the engagement of students in the class Helped focus guest speakers, our exercises and in-class discussion

  27. Next: full-scale sim? No, too much to undertake Exercises are the easiest element to focus narrowly on a simulation Might help with final projects, too

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