Techs and balances: modern technology revolutionizes the courtroom.

AuthorSpendlove, Gretta
PositionFocus - Conference notes

Paperless law firms, law blogs, law professors teaching with movie clips and instapolls, trial lawyers instantaneously locating and displaying witness' prior conflicting testimony, illustrate the new, bold technology legal professionals utilize despite their popular image as traditional and conservative attorneys. But every aspect of the legal profession relies on technology from office-to-office correspondence to managing data to attracting new clients.

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New Communication

"Last year, I was a speaker at an international law conference in Zurich," says Paul Durham, a corporate and real estate lawyer and former managing partner at Durham Jones & Pinegar. "By day I attended the conference and at night I sat in the hotel's empty restaurant, which had a wireless connection, and used my laptop to work on documents and email clients in Utah. I had complete access to my firm's document management system and an iPhone with which 1 could make calls anywhere in the world."

Durham describes other high tech tools that make his business life efficient. He has Bluetooth technology in his car, so answering the phone requires no headphone and is as easy as pushing a button. His firm has dual wireless connections, including a secure system linking firm attorneys and all firm data, and a separate, courtesy system for visiting clients and opposing attorneys, which does not allow access to the secure data. Durham anticipates using wireless connections on airplanes.

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His brother, Cole, who is a law professor at BYU, frequently travels around the world working with leaders of various countries on constitutional issues. "When he's away from Provo, Cole sometimes gives lectures to his BYU students by means of his laptop and videoconferencing technology," Paul Durham says. "He can see and hear his students and they can see and hear him even though he's thousands of miles and eight to 12 time zones away."

Managing the Barrage of Paper

"One continuing challenge for law firms is the proliferation of electronic data that is overwhelming the practice," says Ray Etcheverry, managing partner at Parsons Behle & Latimer. "We are putting systems in place that efficiently catch, sort, review and retrieve data."

Parsons Behle is moving towards a paperless storage system, although, as Etcheverry acknowledges, "The reality is that, a few years ago, we had everything on paper with some electronic storage, and now we have everything in...

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