At Real Lawyers Have Blogs, Kevin O’Keefe relates a story from former ABC News reporter, now Mashable editor, Andrea Smith about the Today Show :
It’s not OK to know nothing about social media or the Internet anymore. It’s especially not OK if you are an anchor for a major network TV news program.
This happened after a segment about Randi Zuckerberg’s private family photo being shared publicly. Today’s Willie Geist, Savannah Guthrie and Natalie Morales — three TV journalists at the top of their profession — laughed about their lack of knowledge about Facebook, Twitter and privacy on social media.
It was meant to be cute, but it came off as plain dumb.
As Kevin notes, the same is true for lawyers. While Kevin may be a tech evangelist, I’m a tech curmudgeon, and yet there is absolutely no doubt that he, and Andrea Smith, are correct. Five years ago, “grown-ups” laughed about kids texting and their silly acronyms. or their incessant checking of their Facebook page as if those friends were real friends. We were so much more mature, and they were so childish.
For many, lack of knowledge is a badge of honor, to be above fads and trends. And indeed, there remains no human reason why writing “u r kewl, roflmao” should ever be part of the lawyers lexicon. But ignorance of the tools of the trade, or a deeply entrenched element of modern society, isn’t cute, or funny, or a badge of honor. It’s just ignorance.
The internet is here, and its pervasiveness in our society is both certain and growing. I may not care for much of it, and find fault with many of its pieces, but by no means does that suggest I deny its existence, importance or relevance.
The problem is that for many who have chosen to ignore it over the past decade, trying to understand it now is extremely difficult. It may be intuitive for digital natives, but it’s nearly incomprehensible to someone who shied away from touching a keyboard up to now. The problem is that your one-time cute reluctance now marks you as not merely a Luddite, but a moron. Seriously, the kids think you’re brain dead. More importantly, your clients do too. It’s just not funny.
There is a huge middle ground between the person who waits on line for the next iteration of the iPhone and the person who won’t use a phone without a coiled cord. You don’t have to be cutting edge, but you do need to have a clue. Not only for your professional existence, but as a matter of ethical responsibility, as clients are entitled to expect you to be sufficiently familiar with the tools of your profession to use them to the clients’ advantage.
At The Legal Whiteboard, Bill Henderson had a similar epiphany when it came to lawprofs, where he asked the question “How Do Law Professors Learn About the Intersection of Law and Technology?”
Here is my best guess: We show up at the intersection and we listen to lawyers, judges, regulators and vendors talk about the issues of the day.Don’t just turn your head and spit whenever eDiscovery is mentioned. This is one of the problems with being on the outside looking in, only seeing the small part of the problem that someone else put in front of your face. To appreciate the big picture, one has to live the big picture. If the only glimpse one gets is through a tiny window, myopia is to be expected. But at least Bill is trying.
Earlier this month, there was a major conference in Washington, DC on developments in the world of electronic discovery…Lawyers and clients can no longer cope with the rapidly growing volume of electronically stored information (ESI). Going forward, technology and nonlegal expertise are a permanent part of the legal industry.
Nearly 10 years ago I showed up at the Indiana Solo & Small Firm Conference. I was there to gain some basic insight for a course I was putting together called “The Law Firm as a Business Organization.” As the organizers will tell you, a law professor had never before ventured into their conference. What was their reaction? A very kind, “It’s about time!” I was immediately drafted onto the organizing committee and in subsequent years conducted two major surveys for the ISBA Solo & Small Firm Section. To this day, the lawyers I met at that first Solo & Small Firm Conference remain an important part of my professional network. Ironically, several years ago the small firm crowd was issuing a clarion call on the importance of law and technology — for them, it was all about survival.
Bill goes on to suggest that anyone interested in technology should consider attending LegalTech in New York. Before you rip him a new one for suggesting a banal trade show as a learning opportunity, bear in mind that Bill is one of a handful of lawprof evangelists seeking to push the professoriate out of the Ivory Halls and into the real world in the hope of teaching law students what they really need to know to function as lawyers. And they need to know more than how to text and update their Facebook status.
For those who have studiously ignored technology for the past decade, in the misguided expectation that it would go away and we would be back to looking up precedent in ALR 3d, those days are gone. Sorry, but they are. Society has moved on. The law has moved on. And if you haven’t paid attention, you are working at significant deficit and doing yourself and your clients great harm.
The problem is that lawyers, as much if not moreso than TV personalities, haven’t paid attention, and were proud of themselves for their refusal to follow the trend. Now, catching up is going to be terribly difficult. There are a zillion things to learn, and few of them will come easily. But you have no choice.
The internet and the digital world is here to stay, and only going to become increasingly complex and entrenched in our profession and society. You can pick and choose which tools you consider viable and necessary, but you have no choice to remain cute and “plain dumb.” If you haven’t started yet, start now. It’s only going to get harder, and you will only find yourself farther and farther behind, until you finally realize your desperate need to catch up.
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“The problem is that lawyers, as much if not moreso than TV personalities, haven’t paid attention, and were proud of themselves for their refusal to follow the trend.”
Yes. That’s part of the problem. But there’s a reason – it’s not the tech, it’s the messengers.
Lawyers didn’t, and still don’t understand the requirement of following the trend. They are receiving messages that the trend will make them oodles of money – not that it’s necessary for other reasons.
I would feel like a moron sitting at a discovery conference with a prosecutor showing me texts, Facebook wall posts and tweets and not knowing what they were. The “necessary” part of understanding technology and social media is how it helps you 1. help your clients 2. help you network and communicate, and yes 3. create different ways to market your practice.
When lawyers are being screamed at from the rooftops from former and failed lawyers who have never used the tech or social media in their practice, they turn a deaf ear. They are not being told that these things are necessary for all three reasons I mention. They are being told it’s all a money maker, and so if they’ve been doing it a while and are doing “fine,” they see it as snake oil.
I’ll never forget (and neither will the internet) when one of my former lawyer tech evangelists was touting this great, wonderful, awesome app for trial lawyers to use on their iPads. After stammering a few times at my question of “have you used it in trial,” the answer was of course “no.”
I’ll go to a restaurant because you went there and liked it. The fact that you heard people went there and they liked it, eh, maybe.
Unfortunately, many of the tech “evangalists” are schemers and scammers, not only turning off lawyers with their claims of fabulous wealth and prestige, but offering misinformation that leaves them no better off for having tried to learn.
This was one of the core issues I had with Bill Henderson’s suggestion, that lawprofs can get up to speed on the tech needed to teach law students by going to a trade show like LegalTech, where it’s all about selling the latest shiny crap rather than educating. He will learn what’s out there, but not what’s used and needed. As you say, it’s like going to a restaurant because you heard unknown, unnamed people liked it rather than someone you trust.
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Ha, this topic hits close to home for me. I do a lot of “court watching”, mainly in family court, but also sometimes in criminal and general civil court . . .
I am a bit of a technologist by trade and know a little about this so-called “computer stuff”. I often sit in court, alternately chuckling, gasping, and face palming at what the other side’s counsel (and many of the judges, for that matter) let get entered into the proceedings as Internet-based “evidence”, without any objections or challenge whatsoever. Page after page of printouts of alleged Facebook posts, Twitter feeds, blog comments, email messages, text messages, you name it . . .
In my head, I’m screaming, “Objection, hearsay with no foundation and lacking any authentication!!” Many of the professionals who are defending their clients’ most important rights need to buy a clue. Seriously. It is especially bad in family court, for some reason or another . . .
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It’s reminscent of the infancy of forensic science, where all sorts of junk was allowed and the players were to ignorant to realize what was happening. But then, once allowed, it became reality, and efforts to rid the courts of junk science (like dog sniffs) continually hit a brick wall.
I don’t care if other lawyers or law profs don’t know how to use tech to market or run a practice. But when they are too stupid about technology to be able to explain dangers to clients, that is an enormous problem. But law professors never think about clients, so it is no surprise that many are in the dark.
True. Despite the millions of words murdered by lawprofs in the search for truth and relevance, the word “client” is rarely, if ever, mentioned.
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Junk science?? Yeah, I’ve seen a few bushels of that dumped into the courtroom . . .
Mainly by psychologists who spout all sorts of nonsense under the guise of “science”. Recent example?? I saw a forensic psychologist testifying as to the implications of the results of a defendant’s Rorschach Ink Blot Test like it meant something. The reality is that particular test is almost no better at predicting personality traits and future behaviour than a coin flip. True justice for that defendant, I guess . . .
We should bring divining rods and phrenology back into the courtroom while we’re at it . . .
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Psychs ain’t nuthin. Let me know when you get a duct tape expert on the stand.
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Speaking of duct tape experts, I happen to know one – my 14-year-old daughter. She’s been making these most amazing and beautiful purses and wallets out of only duct tape for years now. I believe she would qualify as a duct tape “expert” . . .
In fact, if you ever need such an “expert” to get one of your clients acquitted Perry Mason-style, you might want to consider her. She’s a bit young, yes, but she’s in college and very articulate and, if necessary to prove her expertise but also to charm the judge, I’m sure she’d make him a nice duct tape purse right on the witness stand . . .
How many ways can you spell N.O.T. G.U.I.L.T.Y.??
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Should the expertise required be how to make objects of duct tape, I will keep her in mind. Unfortunately, most duct tape experts would opine on another facet of the sticky stuff. But thanks for the info.
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In the famous words of Emily Litella, “Oh, that’s very different . . . Never mind.” . . .
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I’m one of the few law professors who teaches e-discovery, largely because I spent most of my career as a law librarian so I have some knowledge of storage and retrieval technologies. The fact that I never practiced law is a disadvantage, but at least I’m stuck in the past, drawing all my knowledge of law practice from a couple of years in a firm twenty years ago–I’m forced to try, as well as I can, to pay attention to current trends in law practice.
Technology in law practice is not the future–it’s here now. But as William Gibson said, “The future is here–it’s just not evenly distributed.” A year ago I was talking with a name partner at one of the largest personal injury firms in Buffalo, and he had never heard of e-discovery. I really don’t know the prevailing level of technology adoption in the Buffalo legal market.
EDiscovery doesn’t play a role in all niches of law practice, and so those who need not confront it (whether because it doesn’t touch them or they have someone else to handle it) wind up ignorant. It’s not a good thing, and certainly nothing to be proud of.
For most criminal defense lawyers, eDiscovery has nothing to do with their practice and mention the words predictive coding and you get a blank stare. Until they get a case a nice white collar case with a few million digital docs, and then they find themselves completely incapable of sorting it out. It’s hard, maybe even impossible, to catch up since the world keeps moving forward, whether with us or without us. As you say, it’s here now, and no amount of argument or excuses is going to change that reality.