The trend of more than a few decades (if not over a century) has been toward replacing human activity - human work in particular - with technological innovation. Innovation is largely invested in automation. While that's not necessarily a bad thing, it does come with inherent risks and possible losses.
In the field of legal services, several inventions have served to make our work more profitable not only for lawyers but also for clients. Long gone are the days when recreating a legal document required painstaking calligraphic skill, and preserving the only original signed copy was a vital aspect of preserving evidence of one's rights, title and interests. It was not so very long ago, after typewriters had replaced quill pens, that carbon copying was replaced by photocopying, and that, in its turn, was replaced by the scanning we all now utilize with the result that an "original" document might now include a digital copy of the signed page, or even a digitally signed document.
All these and many other technological innovations have increased the speed and accuracy of legal work, and, thus, have also reduced some of the cost of particular legal activities (though we are sure it doesn't seem that way when you look at some lawyers' bills). They also allow lawyers to serve a greater number of clients, and to spend more time on learning, analyzing and applying law rather than exercising clerical skills in producing its representations on paper.
But working in this way requires some additional efforts. Digital documents are not necessarily easier to preserve than paper ones. Digital copies can be erased by an accidental slip of the thumb on a hand-held device. If proper back-ups are not retained in multiple locations and accessible formats, the entire history of a transaction can be lost forever. Working through email and other electronic forms of communication also raises concerns about the protection of personal information. (One need only look to some of the incidents relative to the 2016 US presidential campaign to see how easily email-related issues can undermine credibility and confidentiality.) But perhaps the most significant potential loss arising on account of technological innovation in legal services, is the possible loss of the human touch.
Today, lawyers have available to them various programs that seek to make their work in particular areas of practice more efficient. There are multiple forms of law practice management programs, from the old standard, Amicus Attorney, to the newer players including Firm Central, Jarvis Legal and Abacus Law; but of more direct impact on legal processes (rather than practice management) are specific practice area programs such as: Conveyancer, which will produce all of the documents needed to carry out and complete a residential real estate transaction; LienRight, which is intended to make condominium lien processing more accurate every time; and Dynamic Legal Documents with its "Will-o-matic Wizard", which they advertise with the slogan, "Why pay $400 for a simple will from a lawyer?" Why indeed? Well, to answer that particular question, I'll turn you toward our Estates Nutshell blog, in which the intricacies and various considerations necessary for ensuring the will you make is right for you are discussed in some detail.
The fact is that whatever programs are used, there is never enough information available through current artificial intelligence to match or replace the insights that one-to-one dialogue with a living lawyer can provide.
Our office uses Conveyancer, for example, to simplify our real estate transactions; but the documents it produces by default are almost never the ones we prefer to use. Any experienced real estate lawyer or clerk will tell you that every transaction is in some ways unique, and every time we produce documents for one of them, we have to consider what changes should be made to suit it.
Likewise with condominium liens. Though we handle numerous liens for many condominium clients, we have not bought into any lien processing software. Although much of lien work is somewhat automatic, there is always an element of reasoning that has to be involved. Otherwise, there is a significant risk that lien processes can be initiated in improper circumstances, such as where the basis for the lien is not actually a legal common expense, or in cases where there are other more viable and appropriate means of resolving the situation in the best interest of the client condominium and its unit owners that, at this stage in history at least, only human intelligence may be able to perceive.
It might seem stylish to advertise an automated process - it might even give clients a sense of security or confidence, but that is based on the illusion that automation ensures accuracy every time. For our part, we prefer to practice law on the personal level. We think it makes our practice better, and our experience is that it makes it more likely that the outcomes we achieve are the most appropriate for the people we are serving.
In the field of legal services, several inventions have served to make our work more profitable not only for lawyers but also for clients. Long gone are the days when recreating a legal document required painstaking calligraphic skill, and preserving the only original signed copy was a vital aspect of preserving evidence of one's rights, title and interests. It was not so very long ago, after typewriters had replaced quill pens, that carbon copying was replaced by photocopying, and that, in its turn, was replaced by the scanning we all now utilize with the result that an "original" document might now include a digital copy of the signed page, or even a digitally signed document.
All these and many other technological innovations have increased the speed and accuracy of legal work, and, thus, have also reduced some of the cost of particular legal activities (though we are sure it doesn't seem that way when you look at some lawyers' bills). They also allow lawyers to serve a greater number of clients, and to spend more time on learning, analyzing and applying law rather than exercising clerical skills in producing its representations on paper.
But working in this way requires some additional efforts. Digital documents are not necessarily easier to preserve than paper ones. Digital copies can be erased by an accidental slip of the thumb on a hand-held device. If proper back-ups are not retained in multiple locations and accessible formats, the entire history of a transaction can be lost forever. Working through email and other electronic forms of communication also raises concerns about the protection of personal information. (One need only look to some of the incidents relative to the 2016 US presidential campaign to see how easily email-related issues can undermine credibility and confidentiality.) But perhaps the most significant potential loss arising on account of technological innovation in legal services, is the possible loss of the human touch.
Today, lawyers have available to them various programs that seek to make their work in particular areas of practice more efficient. There are multiple forms of law practice management programs, from the old standard, Amicus Attorney, to the newer players including Firm Central, Jarvis Legal and Abacus Law; but of more direct impact on legal processes (rather than practice management) are specific practice area programs such as: Conveyancer, which will produce all of the documents needed to carry out and complete a residential real estate transaction; LienRight, which is intended to make condominium lien processing more accurate every time; and Dynamic Legal Documents with its "Will-o-matic Wizard", which they advertise with the slogan, "Why pay $400 for a simple will from a lawyer?" Why indeed? Well, to answer that particular question, I'll turn you toward our Estates Nutshell blog, in which the intricacies and various considerations necessary for ensuring the will you make is right for you are discussed in some detail.
The fact is that whatever programs are used, there is never enough information available through current artificial intelligence to match or replace the insights that one-to-one dialogue with a living lawyer can provide.
Our office uses Conveyancer, for example, to simplify our real estate transactions; but the documents it produces by default are almost never the ones we prefer to use. Any experienced real estate lawyer or clerk will tell you that every transaction is in some ways unique, and every time we produce documents for one of them, we have to consider what changes should be made to suit it.
Likewise with condominium liens. Though we handle numerous liens for many condominium clients, we have not bought into any lien processing software. Although much of lien work is somewhat automatic, there is always an element of reasoning that has to be involved. Otherwise, there is a significant risk that lien processes can be initiated in improper circumstances, such as where the basis for the lien is not actually a legal common expense, or in cases where there are other more viable and appropriate means of resolving the situation in the best interest of the client condominium and its unit owners that, at this stage in history at least, only human intelligence may be able to perceive.
It might seem stylish to advertise an automated process - it might even give clients a sense of security or confidence, but that is based on the illusion that automation ensures accuracy every time. For our part, we prefer to practice law on the personal level. We think it makes our practice better, and our experience is that it makes it more likely that the outcomes we achieve are the most appropriate for the people we are serving.