Rise of the Digital Lawyer

• Author: Adam Newhouse
• Pages: 85-85

85

PART FOUR

Rise of the Digital Lawyer

Overview of Part Four for the Busy Lawyer

The Great Recession jolted the profession into facing new business and

cultural realities many of us had ignored for too long. In the blink of

an eye, we entered a world where almost anyone with access to the

Internet could become, there and then, our potential competitor. As the

digital age dawned and clients busily populated the new cyberspace

frontier of global commerce, many of us felt obsolete, irrelevant, and

culturally unfit.

The digital revolution reshuffled society’s values, sending unmis-

takable signals to ambitious lawyers on how to do well in the new eco-

nomic environment: Become digital and follow the business virtues of

the age. Move your center of operations online. Let cyberspace become

your new frontier of professional growth and development.

Amid the ongoing shift of business identity online, a new mind-set

is coming of age, a mind-set that no longer distinguishes between online

and offline realities. In such an extended realm of consciousness, many

traditional values fade into insignificance. A new borderless, global Dig-

ital Mentality is born that impels us to share and stay always connected,

living in the glowing ambience of our online communities. Collabora-

tion, contribution, and connectivity are the new bywords of personal

fulfillment and business success.

By acquiring a Digital Mentality, traditional practitioners evolve

into Digital Lawyers, for whom cyberspace and traditional reality are

but one aspect of their business identity. Their law firms, Digital Law

Firms—conceived and residing in cyberspace—connect them with cli-

ents and attract fresh digital recruits around the clock. Their websites

come to life, no longer serving merely as their online calling cards. The

websites, emerging digital technologies, and our digital networks of

connections are now at the heart of our legal identity.

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