Technology and the Lawyer in the Trenches

I continue to be struck by how little the wealth of technology has penetrated law departments. Sure, everyone uses e-mail and many create their own documents. But as for matter management or extranets or other applications (dictation software, document assembly, graphics in PowerPoint or Excel), there is almost nothing penetrating. And this despite years of preaching about productivity, huge amounts of marketing by vendors, and a rising sense of awareness generally that goes with younger lawyers.

I think the core problem is that, for most in-house lawyers, they know what’s on their plate, they don’t care much about outside counsel cost control, and words are sufficient (compared to text and other abilities such as hypertext). Stated differently, there is no killer app.