How Is Technology Affecting the Practice and Profession of Law
![handle is hein.journals/text22 and id is 1127 raw text is: HOW IS TECHNOLOGY AFFECTING THE
PRACTICE AND PROFESSION OF LAW?
by William T. Braithwaite*
According to a 1990 survey by the Legal Technology Resource
Center of the American Bar Association (ABA), nearly sixty
percent of lawyers in small firms (twenty or fewer lawyers) use a
personal computer or terminal located in the firm's office.' Practi-
tioners' periodicals abound with ads for software, two-way video,
cellular phones, fax machines, high-speed copiers and other office
technology. Recent theme issues of the ABA's monthly periodical on
practice management include Practical Applications of Systems and
Technology and Future Trends in Technology.'2
But what will be the long-term effects of computers (and other
office technology) on the practice of law? One searches the literature
in vain for an answer. So swiftly, almost imperiously, did the
computer sweep into the law office that little time was left, or taken,
for steady deliberation about the consequences.
This is especially true of the computer's use for storing and
retrieving text, a uge that hag entered the legal profession in just the
past ten years or so. In 1979, when I left the practice to teach, legal
research was generally still done manually with digests, encyclopedias,
and other printed books. But for several years now, first-year students
at my school have been getting a required introduction to Lexis and
Westlaw.
Also still in the profession's future, in 1979, was the impressive
capacity 6f the computer to store and retrieve non-legal texts. These
include newspapers, magazines, and business reports, as well as useful
* Associate Professor of Law, Loyola University of Chicago; B.A., Virginia Military
Institute, 1961; J.D., Washington & Lee University, 1964. Some of the points examined in
this essay also are touched on in the author's On Legal Practice and Education at the Present
Time, in 1989 THE GREAT IDEAS TODAY 63.
I. The precise figure is 590. ABA LEGAL TECHNOLOGY RESOURCE CENTER, OFFICE
AUTOMATION IN SMALLER LAW FIRMS: 1990 SURVEY REPORT iii, at 2 (1990) [hereinafter SURVEY].
According to the Center's Director, David Hambourger, firms with 25 or fewer lawyers account
for 82076 of all lawyers in private practice and 960 of all law firms. Hambourger & Noble,
Automation: Path to the Future, A.B.A. I., Mar. 1990, at SD2.
2. A.B.A. J., May 1991, at 95.
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How Is Technology Affecting the Practice and Profession of Law
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