Here are my picks for the 10 most important legal technology developments of 2013. What am I missing? What would be on your list?
The numbers are not meant to indicate priority. They are all important, in my mind.
1. Lawyers’ use of social media became yesterday’s news.
OK, lawyers blog. They use Facebook. They’re on Tumblr and Instagram and Twitter. Big deal. We’re over it. This year marks the first year that everyone isn’t going bananas over the fact that lawyers use social media. That’s not to say that social media is not important. But it’s no longer stop-the-presses news. Participation in social media is now part of the mainstream of law practice.
2. The cloud came into its own.
Even just a year ago, lawyers remained wary about cloud computing. No doubt, some still do. For the most part, however, cloud-based platforms have become essential parts of our daily lives. And ethics opinions from 17 jurisdictions have unanimously said that cloud computing is ethical. Earlier this year, the ABA Legal Technology Survey Report said that the percentage of lawyers who say they use cloud-based software and services jumped from 21 percent in 2012 to 31 percent this year. I’m willing to bet the percentage is even higher and will continue to go nowhere but up into, well, the clouds.
3. Competence in technology turned from dalliance to necessity.
In August 2012, the American Bar Association voted to amend the Model Rules of Professional Conduct to make clear that lawyers have a duty to be competent in technology. Specifically, the ABA voted to amend the comment to Model Rule 1.1, governing lawyer competence, to say that, in addition to keeping abreast of changes in the law and its practice, a lawyer should keep abreast of “the benefits and risks associated with relevant technology.” During 2013, we saw several states follow up on the ABA’s action. Delaware became the first state to formally adopt a duty of technology competence and it created a Commission on Law and Technology to help lawyers comply. Massachusetts is considering adoption of this rule. And in Pennsylvania on Nov. 21, amendments took effect to that state’s professional conduct rules to comport with the ABA model rule.
4. Mobile became the driving force in technology development.
5. Lawyers realized that computer analytics are allies, not enemies.
The warning bell came with the 2011 New York Times article, Armies of Expensive Lawyers, Replaced by Cheaper Software. Some lawyers started to believe that advances in artificial intelligence and computer analytics were a bad thing, threatening to displace lawyers from their hard-earned jobs. Some still believe that, but 2013 marked a turning point, from lawyers seeing “smart” computers as their enemies to understanding them as their allies. Computers cannot and will not replace lawyers. But they can make their lives much easier and help reduce the time and the cost of performing legal tasks. Nowhere is this more true than in the e-discovery arena, with predictive coding and computer-assisted review providing efficiencies that directly translate to time and cost savings.
6. Technology helped fill the shortfall in access to justice.
7. Visual law emerged as key trend.
I just finished writing an article for the ABA Journal about one of the most significant trends to come out of 2013 — the emerging importance of “visual law,” the use of visualization tools and design concepts to help lawyers, law students, consumers and scholars make sense of the law. I’m not sure when the article will appear in print or online, but it won’t be for a couple of months at least. In the meantime, a good place to dip your toes into this stuff is via Stanford’s new Program for Legal Tech + Design, started by ABA Journal Legal Rebel Margaret Hagan and Stanford research fellow, lawyer and engineer Ron Dolin.
8. Law schools discovered legal technology.
9. Practice management went mainstream.
The start of 2013 marked the fifth anniversaries of Clio and Rocket Matter, the first two cloud-based practice management platforms. The year also brought the launch of Firm Central, Thomson Reuters’ entrant in this increasingly crowded field; saw LexisNexis roll out a dramatically improved version of its Firm Manager; and brought multiple enhancements to MyCase. Sure, there have been desktop practice-management applications for years. But these cloud platforms just continue to get better and better. More importantly, they seem to have spurred greater use of practice management software among lawyers and greater understanding of why it is important to do so.
10. Security got slippery.