Litigation research: Market challenges, technology, and the advantage of GenAI
Editor
With case complexities and data volumes on the rise, litigation teams must find new ways to manage, (...)
“Agentic AI” is on the cards
Editor
It's been two years since ChatGPT enamoured the world. When ChatGPT first launched, everybody was am(...)
Lately it seems as though everyone has gone cloud crazy. For today’s Legal Technology Observer post, I had the opportunity to speak with Jeff Brandt, editor of the PinHawk Law Technology Daily Digest and renowned IT consultant and asked him why everyone’s head is suddenly in the cloud. According to Jeff, the cloud is not really anything new, but the craze is. For years companies have been using cloud systems for many peripheral services like spam filtering and individuals have been using Gmail and Hotmail, which are cloud-based services.
We can only imagine how hectic an average work day for a practicing lawyer can be. How can a lawyer effectively become an expert in legal technology with so little time to spare? To find out, we spoke to Bob Ambrogi, a practicing lawyer, writer and media consultant, who has written two books, a column and a newsletter about legal technology and the Internet. “I’ve always been a geek at heart,” explains Bob, “so tinkering with technology is fun to me. But what also drove me to learn about legal technology was simple practicality."
Knowledge Management or “KM” has always been a term that seemed hard to get a handle on, so I decided to talk to Mary Abraham, Counsel in Debevoise & Plimpton LLP’s corporate department, whose primary function is to provide KM support to the firm’s US-law corporate and tax practices. Mary describes her job as helping to bring the learning of the firm together so no one has to reinvent the wheel. If two practices within the firm are tackling similar issues, she can help synthesize and share the learning so both practices benefit from each other’s knowledge more efficiently.
Many professionals I have seen at a keyboard seem stuck at the Beginner level – even the “power users” among us. So rather than recommending specific tools or tips for legal technology beginners, I want to encourage an overall mindset of learning and improving. I will guess – and I suspect this is conservative – that most professionals spend at least 100 hours per month working at a computer. If you can save a few minutes here and there by working more efficiently, those savings add up. So why not take 30 minutes each month to improve your personal productivity – that’s one-half of a percent of your time.
To blog or not to blog – that is the question. We take some poetic license to apply Hamlet’s questioning here since it applies to many legal professionals who are deciding whether to start a blog. Wanting to get answers from a subject matter expert in the legal blogging arena, we interviewed Kevin O’Keefe, CEO and Publisher of LexBlog, Inc. to get the lowdown on what the business of blogging is all about.
A couple of months ago I wrote about the important things to know before you invest in a practice management package. Let’s assume you made the leap and purchased a system. Now what? Aside from the set-up and obvious learning curve I want to let you in on 10 post-purchase secrets to make that investment work for you. Here are the first 5 for you to digest.
Remember the “I’m a Mac and I’m a PC” ad campaign? We all do, probably, but in addition to being memorable, its slogan brought up an interesting point about how the technology devices you use impact your personal identity. Legal professionals are no exception – but to what extent are today’s legal professionals saying “I’m a Mac” and what impact is that having on the IT personnel supporting them? I had the opportunity to talk with Brett Burney, author of the MacsinLaw blog, founder of Burney Consultants and expert on the use of Apple products in legal practices.
When you hear the term computer forensics – what comes to mind? Hackers typing out codes late into the night and CSI-like teams poring over computer files to foil their plots? I wanted to find out if computer forensics was really as dramatic as I imagined, I spoke with expert Craig Ball, a seasoned trial lawyer, certified computer forensic examiner and eDiscovery guru, who gave me some great insight into the field.
Featuring Josh Poje, Program Specialist at the ABA LTRC
Legal technology can seem obscure, confusing and remote for lawyers – and yet their lack of access to information means their practices unnecessarily suffer from inefficiency. Fortunately the ABA provides a Legal Technology Resource Center (LTRC) for lawyers and other legal professionals to gather useful information. Since the mid-80s, the LTRC has helped lawyers learn about the benefits of technology and how they can better use it in their practices. LTO had the opportunity to have a Q & A with Josh Poje, Program Specialist at the Center. – Christy Burke
With technology changing so fast, it’s difficult for lawyers to maintain the level of competency required for their field especially on matters of Electronic Discovery (nicknamed “eDiscovery” by those who know it well). Even though people have been emailing and creating documents digitally for over 20 years now, there are still some lawyers that have not had to face eDiscovery – but they will eventually because it is starting to figure into all kinds of cases, large and small, corporate or personal, you name it.
Impressively, all but one of the respondents to our Social Media 101 Snap Poll currently use social media! We concede the point, though, that this number may be a bit skewed considering avid blog Legal Technology Observer readers are probably more social media conscious than the average bear. The one respondent that did not use social media yet replied “Don’t really understand it” when asked “what is the main reason you did not use social media?”
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