Technology

Things That Didn't Happen In 2015

A lot has happened in the legal technology world in 2015; legal tech columnist Jeff Bennion discusses what hasn't shown up this year.

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The year is coming to a close. A lot has happened in the legal technology world. This year, we’ve seen a new version of Windows, a new version of Office, a new version of Adobe Acrobat, some great hardware, and some great innovations from legal service providers to help us work more efficiently. I’ve written over 50 articles this year about all the great tools you can use to enhance your law practice; now I want to focus on what has not come out this year.

Web-Based Legal Services That Replace Lawyers

There was a lot of buzz this year about companies on the internet that provide cheap legal services to the masses, like Avvo or LegalZoom. The way they work is someone goes onto the site with some legal question, and they can pay for a quick consultation. Maybe they can get their question answered if it’s something like “What’s the statute of limitations in my state for filing an auto accident case?” If it’s something like “I just got arrested for insider trading. What should I do now?” you are obviously not going to get an answer. Most of the time, the client gets just enough information to make a more informed next step in the legal process.

Avvo Advisor, for example, works as follows: You log in with your question, pay a $39 fee, and then a lawyer in their network calls you in about 10 minutes for a 15-minute consult. Avvo’s (or anyone else’s) internet legal consultation business is not destroying the legal profession anymore than WebMD is destroying the medical profession or the tax return kiosk by the escalator in WalMart is destroying the CPA profession. Some legal questions are big and need a lawyer in a suit who goes to court multiple times and engages with the judge and an opposing counsel. But there are also legal questions that do have quick answers. Just because there is a service that caters to small problems and quick answers doesn’t mean that fewer clients are going to need their larger, more complex problems solved. Unless your whole business model revolves around overcharging people for answers that can be reached in 15 minutes, the web is not going to suck away your business.

Wearables That Are Game Changers

This year has seen a lot of movement in wearables. The abysmal failure, Google Glass, went away. The Apple Watch was released in April; Android-based watches grew in popularity as well, with a steady growth of apps in the Android Wear app store. I am a huge fan of the idea of wearables. I have had three generations of Samsung Android watches. In fact, just yesterday, MyCase posted on their blog an interview I did at the Above the Law Academy for Private Practice with fellow columnist Niki Black about how much I love and use wearables in my law practice to stay connected while I’m in meetings or in court and can’t take my phone out to check email or texts. Just as it’s hard for some to imagine life without always being connected to a cell phone, a wearable device can fill in the gaps where we can’t always take our phones out to be connected.

But, unfortunately, that is all they can do now. When Google Glass comes out with its next iteration of face wear, it will have to find some way to overcome the pretentious dork factor. Both watches and other wearables are going to need to up their game in the app market to be able to be useful. That is where it gets tricky for wearables. Since they have small, inconvenient screens, there are not a lot of apps that you could or would want to put on your wearable device. Not yet anyway. I was pleased earlier this year with my Myo armband that used the muscles in my forearm to control my PowerPoint presentations. Maybe 2016 or 2017 will see some advancements in innovative ways to interact with small screens to provide easier instant interaction with the world.

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An iPad That Can Replace A Laptop

I think iPads are pretty okay devices. As a PDF or Word doc reader, they are expensive alternatives to cheaper Android tablets. As business machines, they are less capable alternatives to devices like the Surface 3, which runs full versions of Adobe Acrobat and Office 2016. But iPads do have several great legal apps that make them useful, easy tools for lawyers to review files. iPads are jack-of-all-trades devices that are pretty middle-of-the-road in all categories, except apps.

But the app situation is what is also holding the iPad back as a full laptop replacement like the Surface Pro line. Although Windows does have an app store for their Windows tablets, you don’t need any app versions of programs because you can just run the full versions. Several Windows programs, such as Office 2016, TrialDirector, and Adobe Acrobat, have tablet modes that space the icons out a little more and give you an easier interface to operate with an index finger instead of a mouse. Although having mostly-functional versions of Word is better than nothing, if you can’t prepare a Table of Authorities in it, is it really a replacement for your desktop or laptop?

This year, we saw the release of the iPad Pro, which still uses the iPad operating system, iOS, instead of the Apple desktop operating system, OS X. The main difference is that iOS cannot run full versions of programs. Users are limited to apps from the app store. It also has a limited ability to open multiple apps at the same time, something that has been present in PCs since Windows 95 and has been present on every Windows tablet since. So, while the iPad Pro is an even better mediocre device for lawyers than what we’ve seen in the past, it’s just not as functional as other tablets and cannot replace a full working computer.

I am anxious to see what 2016 will bring us. Happy holidays!

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Jeff Bennion is Of Counsel at Estey & Bomberger LLP, a plaintiffs’ law firm specializing in mass torts and catastrophic injuries. Although he serves on the Executive Committee for the State Bar of California’s Law Practice Management and Technology section, the thoughts and opinions in this column are his own and are not made on behalf of the State Bar of California. Follow him on Twitter here or on Facebook here, or contact him by email at jeff@trial.technology.

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