ABA's Techshow '95

By Alan Gahtan - May 1, 1995

I recently attended the Ninth Annual ABA Section of Law Practice Management's TECHSHOW 95 in Chicago. The theme this year was "Leveraging New Technologies". The show included more than 50 sessions designed for all members of the legal profession, including lawyers, MIS directors, law firm administrators and managing partners. These ranged from the basics to cutting edge technology including computer animation, lawyering on the Internet, video conferencing, courtroom technology and the electronic law student.

The ABA formally announced its new virtual address on the Internet (http://www.abanet.org/). Each section of the ABA will soon be represented. The home page will contain links to continuing legal education information, legal research sources, legal technology, catalogs of ABA products and services, and more. The ABA will also be examining how to provide an ability to look up electronic addresses of lawyers. It will be asking its 370,000 lawyers for their e-mail addresses on their renewal form this spring.

There has been growing interest in the use of new technology by litigators. This interest has been fulled recently with the media attention given to the O.J. Simpson trial where both sides are making full use of state-of-the-art tools. These include use of high-powered computers by the lawyers to access specialized databases of case-related information, use of multimedia capabilities to present evidence and use of real-time court transcription software.

TECHSHOW 95 capitalized on this trend by including a track designed especially for the automated litigator. Included were programs focusing on new advances in discovery, multimedia, litigation databases and the paperless trial.

The last day of TECHSHOW 95 was kicked off with a presentation by Daniel S. Hoffman on "persuasion in the automated courtroom". Hoffman was lead trial counsel for Michael Jackson in a 1994 copyright infringement claim. Hoffman discussed and presented some of the computerized music and graphics that were used at trial to compare Dangerous to other songs.

Another one of the more interesting sessions was a presentation by David Johnson and Fred Bartlit, Jr. on their vision of the future. Johnson described how we can construct a new type of Executive Information System for our clients using the model of a radar screen as a method of representing legal risks. The dimensions of the screen can be used to show immediacy, likely size of consequences, source of risk, etc.

For example, the radar screen can be divided into sectors to indicate the area a legal risk is coming from (ex. government, competitors, customers, employees, etc.). Colour and size can be used to show the type of risk and the level of the risk. If such a model is constructed on a computer screen then double-clicking on an incoming object could drill down to show a greater level of detail. A more complicated model could utilize animation to show trends.

Johnson also focus on how communications will change things. Physical location will become less important and the practice of law will become more global in character. Clients will increasingly shop for counsel on the net. Corporate counsel will find their co-counsel on LEXIS Counsel Connect and similar services.

Bartlit followed with a description of the changing legal environment he saw being created by new technologies. Video conferencing can reduce travel time. Whiteboarding can allow a lawyer and client to view a copy of the same document on their computer screen. Wireless communications can allow a lawyer to call up a firm database or reference information from a court room. Annotations can be attached immediately to real-time transcripts or they may be used to search prior recent testimony for impeachment purposes. Voice recognition can reduce the transcription workload on office staff or allow a lawyer to make changes to an electronic document while away from the office.

In Barlit's world fewer associates would be required to perform manual time-consuming tasks and this would lead to a transformation of the existing pyramid structure in law firms into one which more closely resembles a diamond. This diamond would include a small number of experienced senior counsel at the top and a small number of associates at the bottom. A larger number of experienced lawyers would fill out the middle bulge.

Overall, the quality of the speakers and presentations was very good. I highly recommend next year's show to MIS directors and lawyers with technology responsibilities.

© 2005 Alan M. Gahtan. All Rights Reserved | Use is subject to these Legal Terms
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