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Bar News - February 8, 2002 Technology in the Practice of Law ATTENDEES OF THE Mid-Year Meeting technology programs got a chance to glimpse into the future of the law profession – and it’s a future increasingly tied to technology. The programs first featured a demonstration of Casemaker, an affordable online legal research tool that the Bar Association is considering offering its members at a very low or no cost. Casemaker is an online law library established by the Ohio State Bar Association and Cincinnati trial lawyer Joseph Shea. It is offered exclusively through bar associations that pay an annual association subscription to finance the development and operation of state-specific online law libraries, which are then made available to members for a modest annual fee. Massachusetts recently joined the Casemaker consortium, which includes Ohio, Michigan, Nebraska, North Carolina, Connecticut and federal courts. Brad Lagusch, Ohio State Bar Association marketing director, offered Mid-Year Meeting attendees a substantive demonstration of the unique search features of Casemaker. Lagusch demonstrated Casemaker’s ability to search in a variety of ways Supreme Court decisions, federal district and appellate cases, court rules, and other information in the online library, as specified by the particular state. Depending on members’ preferences, New Hampshire may choose to also include First Circuit decisions and the opinions of the NHBA Ethics Committee in its library. Lagusch explained that if NH joins the consortium, Casemaker would be accessed through the NHBA Web site and an online tutorial would walk users through its use. Attendees of the Casemaker demonstration were interested in the software’s features and capabilities, such as hyperlinks that would bring them directly to a case cited and printing capabilities that would enable the user to print a results page without graphics.
Technology: Threats and Opportunities Toby Brown, programs director of the Utah State Bar Association, offered a look at some of the emerging technologies that are likely to impact the practice of law in the future. Brown’s presentation, "Staying Relevant: The Internet & the Practice of Law," focused on utilizing e-commerce in a law practice, and on technologies like digital signatures, on-line CLEs and Internet legal services that play a role in e-commerce. Brown stressed the trend toward businesses using these new technologies to offer a network of services, pointing to recent mergers between large financial services and software companies, for example. He encouraged law firms to follow suit and start using these tech tools in order to stay relevant and maximize services offered to clients. The use of new online safety deposit boxes, for example, would allow clients to keep secure and access important documents on the Internet. "If not, clients will go out and get these services elsewhere," Brown warned. "My advice is to start using these tools, adjust your business model and proceed wisely."
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