Written By: Jay Fremont
Although lawyers in the United States have been somewhat slow to embrace technology as a professional tool, they seem to be making up for lost time in recent years. This increasing acceptance of technology and the benefits it offers is seen on a number of different fronts within the legal profession.
In its 2013 technology survey report, the Legal Technology Resource Center of the American Bar Association said the percentage of attorneys using online-based software had nearly doubled to 30.7 percent in 2013 from 15.5 percent in 2011. The percentage of online software users was highest among solo practitioners, with 40.2 percent of that group reporting that they regularly use cloud-based software programs.
iPhone Beats BlackBerry
A year earlier, the center’s 2012 technology survey also shed light on a wide array of technology-related developments among American law firms.
Among its many findings, the survey showed that after years of BlackBerry dominance among lawyers using smart phones, iPhones moved into the lead in 2012. Among all survey respondents, 49 percent said they were using iPhones, compared with 31 percent for BlackBerry, and 18 percent for Android-based smart phones.
The 2012 survey also showed that U.S. lawyers were increasing their use of technology in a number of other areas.
Roughly one-third of all attorneys responding said they regularly used tablets for work-related matters when they were away from the office. The highest percentage of tablet users was found among lawyers who worked for large law firms, those with 100 to 499 attorneys.
More Using Social Media
Lawyers also increased their use of social media in the realm of client development.
Of those active in social media, most said they had found their greatest success in blogging. Of those who reported that they had blogged, 39 percent said they had retained a client either directly or by referral as a result of their blogging efforts.
In one of the most telling statistics to emerge from the center’s 2012 survey, 39 percent of respondents reported that their firms’ technology budgets had increased, compared with 34 percent reporting budget increases in the 2011 survey.
Technology in the Courtroom
Despite the initial hesitance of lawyers to fully embrace technology, a growing number of attorneys are taking advantage of technological advances to improve their courtroom presentations.
Computer-based animations, PowerPoint-type slide presentations, and other digitized presentations are rapidly replacing the unwieldy easel-supported pads on which lawyers traditionally sketched out their summaries of the evidence for jurors.
Likewise, more lawyers today are taking advantage of litigation support software.
This software is designed to make it easier to deal with the paperwork associated with caseloads and to help develop digital presentations based on the documents reviewed.
However, the 2012 survey of the Legal Technology Resource Center showed that thus far, most attorneys using such software are relying on it primarily for document review and full-text searches.
Advanced Capabilities Underutilized
Such software is also designed to perform more advanced tasks, such as identifying common concepts within a set of documents reviewed and then grouping those concepts together for further study.
The center’s 2012 survey showed that most respondents were less enthusiastic about this aspect of the software’s capabilities, with only 5 percent reporting that they took advantage of concept grouping or clustering.
In a move calculated to encourage broader use of technology within the legal profession, the ABA House of Delegates in August 2012 approved technology-related changes to the association’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct.
Under these changes, lawyers “have a duty to keep abreast of the benefits and risks associated with technology,” according to a report in the ABA Journal.
The ABA’s move acknowledges that technology will continue to play a growing role in the practice of law, making it essential for all attorneys to avail themselves of the benefits it provides and to guard against some of technology’s pitfalls.
About the Author: Jay Fremont is a freelance author who has written extensively about personal finance, corporate strategy, business education, and business degree careers.