Recent Slaw posts talk about Blackberry's, the ABA Techshow, social media, online ADR, and online legal resources. Richard Susskind talks about how technology is fundamentally changing the practice of law, and how we will provide services in the future. One point he makes is that this is not a big bang change, but a creeping change.
That's quite true. As I think back, I entered law school after being a computer science major. That was before computers were used in law firms (except perhaps for accounting purposes), and before the Internet. At the time, most people thought it was truly strange to go from computer science into law. There was absolutely no perceived connection between the two.
Fast forward to today. My practice focuses primarily on technology companies and technology issues. The tools I rely upon every day didn't exist then. The concept of communication through a blog wasn't even on the radar screen a few years ago – let alone the topics listed above being relevant to lawyers.
I knew back then that technology was going to lead to fundamental changes in the way business was done, and the way we communicate. In hindsight I wish I had taken those thoughts further at the time – but then I guess its never too late to do that.
The timing of this post is perfect, David, to point out a survey released last week by Lexis Nexis. It explores the use of technology in law firms and measures attitudes towards the use of particular tools (hardware and software). Analysis of the results is against the age of the respondent. The generation gap and the technology gap are both in evidence in the results.