Fight with (not against) the machine.

• Author: Furlong, Jordan
• Position: Special Issue: Technology & the Practice of Law

Right now, small business owners in the U.S. can download to their iPads and tablets an application called Shake. They can use it to create binding legal agreements including buy/sell arrangements, NDAs, and freelance work contracts, along with many others, in seconds, for a small fee or no charge at all.

This is not the biggest technology issue facing the legal profession today.

The Unemployed Benefits Hearing Coach is an automated program that gives people guidance on how to prepare for a benefits hearing and assists claimants and employers in understanding their rights, online, in minutes. It was designed by students at Georgetown Law School using software by Neota Logic, and it is free.

This is not the biggest technology issue facing the legal profession today, either.

LegalZoom and Rocket Lawyer have sold interactively created, low-cost legal documents to millions of Americans over the past several years. They have either defeated or settled with organized bar groups that have challenged them under UPL laws; LegalZoom has recently settled a lawsuit it brought against the North Carolina Bar, a settlement that will allow the company to provide its services in that state.

Nor is this the biggest technology issue facing us today.

It was not long ago when lawyers would routinely say to each other, "We have nothing to fear from technology. A computer will never learn to do what we do." The foregoing examples suggest that that statement is no longer true, and the frequent updates from the legal technology frontlines, detailing new and evermore powerful programs and applications, indicate computers are, in fact, learning to do more and more tasks that we once thought only lawyers could perform.

Here is the biggest technology issue facing us today: Lawyers are continuing to perform tasks that computers can now perform. We are continuing to create products and deliver services the way we always have, performed manually and billed hourly, when our clients can access realistic and reliable online alternatives quickly, conveniently, and for a fraction of what we charge. These products and services improve every year. Lawyers who do things the old way are becoming horse-and-buggy drivers offering rides in the first days of the automobile.

Does this mean we should give up, quit the practice of law, and throw away our shingles? Absolutely not. It means we need to learn to use these tools ourselves, to combine our skills in client relations, issue...