If there were some way to state numerically the power of computers as used by a skilled lawyer in, say, word processing, searching databases, and e-mailing; and if we could find a representative sample of corporate counsel and test their actual use of their laptops and desktops against that potential power, the results would be woeful. Perhaps 20% of the capabilities are used?
Lawyers barely scratch the surface of what accomplished users – not experts, just lawyers who have learned how to make the most out of a program such as Word, Excel, or Outlook – can perform. Powerful ways of working languish (think of macros, search and replace, and pivot tables); productivity-boosting tricks and approaches remain undiscovered or unused (think of tables of contents, grammar checkers, and graphs); computer firepower that is expensive to train and maintain, protect from hackers and spam, and troll through for discoverable material, gathers dust.
Law departments maintain F-16s for the bi-weekly crop dusting of Mom’s tomatoes