Vol. 31, No. 5, #4. From the President.

• Author: Author: Rick Lavery

Wyoming Bar Journal

2008.

Vol. 31, No. 5, #4.

From the President

Wyoming Bar Journal Issue: October, 2008 Author: Rick Lavery From the President . . .

The world is flat Not literally and especially not here in Wyoming. It's the title of a book by Thomas Friedman. I just finished reading it, and the title represents the concept that technology has changed the world and anyone has the ability to compete. . .anywhere. In other words, the world is quickly becoming a level playing field. Five years ago I would have told you that such a notion had no implications for the members of the Wyoming State Bar. Today, however, I have reason to think that my first inclination was "flat" wrong. Forty-some years ago, I sat daydreaming in Sister Miriam Jude Agnes Catherine Margaret Agatha Ann's fourth grade class at Our Lady of Sorrows - Perpetual Pain, Suffering and Guilt Catholic School and dreamed about the future. The race to the moon in full swing, NASA's transition from the Gemini to Apollo space crafts, jets traveling faster than the speed of sound and pondering travel at the speed of light (at the time I thought light was just on or off). My view was that someday we would all be living like the Jetson's. Life would be so much easier as we traveled around in our flying luxury space cars, never having to walk without some fancy form of conveyance - a jet pack or conveyor belt, robots for all the heavy lifting and gourmet meals by just adding water. Of course my daydreams always ended with a jolt of reality - rosary beads rattling behind me and the dull thud of the wooden pointer gently (although it didn't feel so gentle) rapping the top of my head.

The practice of law for today's Wyoming lawyer is much different than the practice I entered 27 years ago. The future about which I daydreamed is not today's reality. You might say the changes we have witnessed, and will continue to witness, are just as exciting and amazing. Life didn't get easier, it got faster. In fact, it's lightning fast! We live in a digital world. Video, audio, photographs, documents can all be digitized, and thanks to the worldwide web, satellites and fiber optic cable, they can be viewed, heard, read and copied anywhere in the world in just seconds. We are connected, for better or worse, in ways we could not have imagined, even ten years ago.

There is a web-based presentation called "Did You Know/Shift Happens." Some of you may have seen it, and if you have not, Google it (yes, "Google" is now a verb) and check it out on YouTube. It was produced by Karl Fisch, Scott McLeod and a company called Xplane, for an Arapahoe High School (Centennial, Colorado) faculty meeting. It has made the...