The Role of Technology in the Legal Profession

I entered the legal profession in 1952. Though I have watched with great excitement the technological improvements that have happened since then, I've watched with great sadness the decline in the esteem in which society holds the legal system and the legal profession. And at the same time, I have watched with some concern the decline in collegiality and overall happiness I have seen among fellow lawyers.

I am sure all of you have heard the complaints: Our legal system is inaccessible to most except the wealthy; even relatively prosperous people and businesses are often nearly bankrupted by litigation; lawyers too often disserve their clients with shoddy work; lawyers are by and large unhappy people, crushed by an unreasonable work load and unable to maintain both a successful work life and happy family life. These criticisms are by no means universally true. But there's enough truth in them that we should take them very seriously.

I think-I hope-that technology, creatively applied technology, can help us solve this problem. It certainly can't solve it by itself. It can't make litigation free or even very cheap; it can't make a foolish lawyer into a sensible one; it can't reform an unprincipled or rude or unethical adversary. But it can help.

Historically, the surest way to greater productivity has been technology. All of us have already adopted much labor-saving-and therefore money-saving-technology. From PC's to voice-mail systems to faxes to car phones. But there are other