Given that I'm the publisher of TechnoLawyer, I probably shouldn't say this, but sometimes it seems like the same legal technology predictions make an appearance every year, but nothing really changes. In fact, you could probably whip out a predictions article from 2004, change the date to 2007, and republish it. Ha!
For example, legal technology prognosticators have long predicted that corporate counsel would demand that their outside counsel become more technologically adept. These soothsayers have also issued advisories about e-discovery.
Cliches? Up until this year, maybe. But in 2007, these predictions might actually come to pass — according to a Law.com article entitled Legal Departments Tell Firms: Get on the Tech Train.
The article discusses the gaining momentum of electronic billing whereby law firms must buy and maintain a billing system that can deliver electronic invoices to their corporate clients in a standardized format.
The article also discusses the very real problem of managing email and other potentially discoverable electronic data.
These trends certainly exist. I met with both e-billing vendors and e-discovery vendors at LegalTech earlier this year. They're all growing like gangbusters.
But in the aggregate, do these trends represent a tsunami, a trickle, or something in between?
Please discuss your own adoption rate of e-billing, e-discovery, and other technologies as well as your thoughts on the legal profession as a whole.
(A tip of the blog to Dennis Kennedy for the article link.)
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A TechnoEditorial is the vehicle through which we opine and provide tips of interest to managing partners, law firm administrators, and others in the legal profession. TechnoEditorials appear first in TechnoGuide, and later here in TechnoLawyer Blog. TechnoGuide, which is free, also contains exclusive content. You can subscribe here.
