That question is pretty wide open, but scroll through some of the Attorney Spotlight features on this site and you’ll...
That question is pretty wide open, but scroll through some of the Attorney Spotlight features on this site and you’ll see that several lawyers point to two key areas in which technology is vitally important: research and communications.
For starters, legal research has come a long way in recent decades. It moved online in the 1970s and gradually migrated from dedicated terminals in a few exclusive firms to near ubiquity in most law offices today. Gone are the days spent poring through books in a law library. Thanks to the digital age, lawyers are able to quickly search for and retrieve legal documents, check citations, research judges and even harness artificial intelligence to uncover hidden insight. Ergo, it’s fair to say that online legal research technology is important to lawyers.
In terms of communication technology, attorneys often reference mobile phones (specifically their ability to text and email) as a relatively new, yet essential part of their workflow. With these evolving communication capabilities comes the ability to transport files, review/sign documents and much more. Communications technologies are also enabling lawyers to work from anywhere, link multiple offices within a single firm and collaborate with remote teams.