The Practice Management and Technology Practice Portal is intended to be a timely, digital resource for BC lawyers for finding and sharing valuable and useful information on practice management, technology and related topics. Guest bloggers will share new ideas, key resources and personal perspectives on law practice management and technology topics and developments.
The democratization of information and forms on the internet, client demands for more cost effective solutions and the increasing encroachment on the profession by non-lawyers using new technologies are all driving significant changes to the legal profession. Lawyers, in addition to keeping current with their practice areas, increasingly must also keep up to date with new developments in marketing, management, technology, finance, knowledge management, strategic planning and similar topics in order to effectively compete in a rapidly evolving and competitive legal marketplace.
Independent of concerns of profitability and business survival, it is also important to note that innovations in practice management and specifically legal technology are not peripheral to the fundamentals of legal thought and practice. Rather, commentators have harkened back to Marshal McLuhan’s aphorism that “the medium is the message” and noted that changes in the structure and delivery of legal information are also changing the legal mind.
Abraham Lincoln in a 1858 letter offered advice on how to become a good lawyer: “get books, sit down anywhere, and go to reading for yourself. That will make a lawyer of you quicker than any other way.” Today, we are drowning in information, with no time or desire to process it. The idea that a young lawyer in private practice would have the time and focus to sit down and read scholarly texts deeply to become a proficient practitioner seems as much a luxury as an improbability. Today legal authorities are usually found via strategic key word searches of data bases such as WestLaw and Lexis. Legal practice is increasingly less about learning and creating and more about editing existing electronic precedents, managing e-discovery and mining for information held in private and public knowledge management systems. Add the ever presence of social media, and the assault on legal independent thought and reflection is magnified.
A recent report by the Law Society of British Columbia entitled “Report of the Cloud Computing Working Group” states that “technological change tends to outpace the law.” This creates not only regulatory challenges but also professional obligations for lawyers. Professional responsibility in the context of new technology is often discussed in reactive terms, for example ensuring the preservation of confidential and privileged information in the use of cloud computing. There is also a pro-active professional responsibility in regards to technology, specifically a duty to keep abreast of innovation to ensure that you are delivering the most cost effective, timely and high quality legal services possible. This practice portal will delve into both professional responsibility perspectives.
Law, while an honoured, ancient profession, is also an evolving business sector facing increasingly competitive pressures. The goal of the Practice Management and Technology Practice Portal will be to provide timely and valuable information to help you meet these challenges and power you and your firm’s success.