As we close out another decade, it’s always fun to look back on the things that were once cool, once absolutely necessary, to the existence of a lawyer that are now relegated to the junk heap.  Bruce Carton, who has taken over Legal Blog Watch from Carolyn Elefant and uses his wonderful sense of humor to offset the very serious Bob Ambrogi, runs through a list from New York Magazine.

   1. Answering machines (haven’t seen one in 5 years)
   2. Lickable stamps (haven’t licked one in 5 years)
   3. Foldable road maps (still have a couple, sorry)
   4. Cathode ray tube TVs (have several littering my home)
   5. Incandescent light bulbs (huh? I have many of these in my home)
   6. Paying for pornography (ummmm …)
   7. Smoking in bars and restaurants (good riddance)
   8. Fax machines (these relics have not gone away in the legal world, hopefully they are on their last leg)
   9. Hydrox cookies (Oreos rule)
  10. Cassette tapes (Ha. Those barely made it into the 90s, let alone the 00s)
  11. The French franc, and every other former currency in the Euro zone (It’s all about the Euros, baby)
  12. Floppy disks (now used only for drink coasters and in bad movies)
  13. Phone books (one just arrived in my mailbox, so too early to declare these dead)
  14. Polaroid photos (way dead)
  15. Bank deposit slips (still alive in my bank)
  16. Subway tokens (way dead)
  17. The Rolodex (I haven’t had one in 5+ years but still on the desk of many 50-something lawyers, no doubt)

How do you deposit a check without a deposit slip?  Obviously, I missed something.  But then, I have no plans to get a flat screen TV until my Sony Trinitron dies, so what do I know?

Bruce then cuts to a “more focused” list for lawyers:

I won’t bother with paper time sheets, since I’ve never used one in my life.  But the others?  Am I that out of touch?

Checks:  I do not like electronic transfers.  I want something in my hand that shows that I’ve paid for something and that the other side received it.  What’s making me nuts these days is that my bank no longer returns all my original checks, despite my instructions not to pay anyone who doesn’t tender a physical check. They laugh at me.  Check 21, they say.  Bite me, I respond, and they laugh some more.  It’s legal proof of payment, I’m told, and I don’t doubt that it is, but they are my checks and I want them back.  The most annoying part of the process is that the copies they return in lieu of the real checks are on a different size paper, so that I can’t make nice piles of old checks as I’ve done for the past 25 years. I hate that.

Courier Services:  I suspect that courier services will go away as a simple matter of economics. There just won’t be enough people using them to justify their continued existence, since we can now send packages overnight anywhere in the world.  But if you need to get someone’s signature on a piece of paper today, you’re going to miss having them around.  And for those who think signatures are old school, and that facsimile signatures are just as good, wait until someone disputes that they signed something.  Then you will miss couriers.

Desktop Computers:  Like most people nowadays, I use multiple computers.  I have three laptops and one desktop. No matter how you spin it, the desktop is more powerful.  And when it starts to drag, throw in a few more Gigs of RAM and it works like a dream again.  Laptops are convenient, but there’s no substitute for a desktop computer when you feel the need for speed.

I’m not a total curmudgeon.  I happily gave up my wet paper copier back in the ’80s, and reluctantly let go of my IBM Selectric III, though I regretted it when I had forms to fill in.  But I’ve still got my land lines, and refuse to believe that cellphones will have the sound quality and reliability necessary to replace them. 

And I happen to prefer Hydrox to Oreos.  I just do.  So sue me.