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Technology and the Practice of Law

5/20/2015 | Commercial Litigation Blog

echnology has dragged the practice of law into the 21st century, mostly kicking and screaming….

The internet has vastly improved commercial litigation, though the relationship between technology and lawyering still has a number of bumpy spots.

The amount of government information now available on the internet, free, or at a modest cost, is staggering.  Land records, court files, state and local legislation and pretty much everything else that used to require a trip to the courthouse (or a dozen phone calls to various offices trying to figure out which one had the records you wanted) are now immediately at hand. 

Third-party vendors have made it possible for even small, remote counties to offer the same level of access to their records as the larger counties do. 

With the improvement in imaging quality, fax machines are nearly a thing of the past.  Everyone still has one, but they don’t get very much usage any more.

Internet video has made it much, much easier (and much more economical) to depose witnesses in faraway places.  Service providers have networks of video rooms nationwide, so the deponent can appear at a convenient local site, the quality is excellent, the video and audio is real-time, and each attorney participating can connect from his or her own office if desired, saving travel time and aggravation.

The Court rules are slowly making their own transition.  Some jurisidictions still have archaic rules on the books, requiring all depositions to be taken within the county, or worse, at the county courthouse itself.  Needless to say, the courthouse facilities generally aren’t equipped for remote video, and — while portable equipment can make it possible to take a video deposition there — doing so is generally considerably less convenient.

We have a conference room wired for sound and video, and I’ve taken two remote video depositions within the last few weeks.  It is a truly remarkable marriage of law and technology.

We’d be happy to discuss your individual legal issues, and to show how our technological capabilities can help to keep a lid on litigation costs.

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