Dean's Address

While the new innovations are important, and improve our production immensely, we need to find a way to keep them in perspective and in harmony with our personal interactions. We need to back away from the data, from the pressure, from the toys and from the insidious trap of speed. We need to remember how to think, plan, maintain relationships and enjoy the process. We need to hone our skills of personal communication in this electronic world. We need to help teach the young people how to keep the humanity in the practice of law.

I have to keep reminding myself that the young lawyers of the twenty-first century grew up differently. A huge change in my life in the early fifties was when radio gave way to TV with 2 or 3 channels! Our toys were cap pistols, bikes and dolls. I spent summers reading a couple of books a day (of course it was 125 degrees outside). We helped Dad dig a bomb shelter and learned how to crawl under our desks at school (to protect ourselves from the nuclear blast and radiation, of course). When I was eleven I worked for the Civil Defense Network for two years. We lived near the Mexican border and two hours a week I manned an observation tower peering at all planes with high‑powered binoculars ‑ recording all observed flights and calling in all planes that looked anything like the outlines we were given of the big Russian bombers. Visualize ‑ little Jimmy Bostwick ‑ single handedly saving the world from the communist peril. We got Boy Scout merit badges too. The powers that be actually thought the Russians would come over the Mexican border and bomb us. Pearl Harbor had only been just over ten years before.

The kids of today can't relate to that. They have 200 channels, video games, interactive toys instead of dolls ‑ and the Web ‑the Lord only knows what they learn on the Internet. In the third grade now my daughter does research projects on line. Today's kids barely gave a passing glance to the recent addition on the International space station ‑ if they noticed at all. These are the new trial lawyers of today and tomorrow. They understand electronics in the office and they use it like we used our bikes. They prepare for trial thinking technology.

Have you seen a lawyer try a case using all these new toys? It's fascinating ‑ but I sometimes think there's something missing. A modem electronic trial is like the movie version of a novel. Invariably people come out of the movie version complaining that it wasn't as good as the book. Why? Because watching rather than reading or listening, has the potential to lose the human interaction, the dimension of imagination. It can be the same with trial. To paraphrase Thomas Wolfe's newest book, "Hooking Up":

"The professional revolution of the twenty‑first century, if true trial practice is to survive, will need to have "content". It must retain life, reality, and the pulse of the human beast. In short, it will need to retain its humanity."

In the modern legal case there is so much data the uninitiated are tempted to think that technological tools provide the necessary elements to win. Many young lawyers don't realize to be winnable a case should be reduced to a concise theory and no more than 5 pieces of paper. As seasoned trial advocates we understand it is important to winnow your case down to its essence and develop a theme. You have to watch the jury, connect with them. These were the skills of a great trial lawyer before the new millennium, and remain the skills of a great trial lawyer today.

It's not that these new devices are not useful. If used judiciously they can greatly enhance presentation. One of the most important things we have all learned about the courtroom is that it has rhythm, it has spontaneity and it has a life of its own. All of us have been in trial and experienced that searing instant when the psychology of a case changes irreversibly. We know that a trial has a spirit. That spirit can be lost. Misused or over‑used, technology has no soul, and it has the capability to destroy the personality of a trial.

I believe it is essential for all of us assure that the skills we brought with us into this new age are passed on, at every level. Our children/grandchildren should be taught interpersonal skills to balance with the technology they take for granted. We must maintain the personal culture of office and home, using technology in moderation solving problems as a team ‑ interacting with clients, experts and other lawyers on a person‑to‑person level. Young lawyers must be taught simplification of theme the benefits of carefully using and blending technology to enhance.

Let's take a look at what is happening right now in technological trends in the Law. These trends apply more broadly as well:

Soon "paper lawyers" will be outside the mainstream. Electronic documents and online data are going to be the rule (Colorado became the first state to allow civil e‑filing not long ago ‑ many areas are following suit). More and more law offices are using internal electronic documents, email, electronic folders for faxes instead of printing them out, and scanning mail for distribution, filing and calendaring. We are sharing evidence and pleadings on line. Today depositions can be obtained by email, read on computer and sent to the expert by email attachment.

Many firms are using on‑line billing and payments. Mobile computing is becoming wide spread. Speech recognition is fast becoming a practical reality (even my car has voice activated phoning!). You can meet clients, experts and take depositions without leaving the office using high‑end video conferencing. New technology is allowing video and voice‑interaction with real‑time electronic sharing of documents. Today, if the case supports the investment, we can do virtual reality ‑ a 3‑D reconstruction of a scene or event. We will soon maintain case notes and client data in an online database. No paper! With proper "fire‑walling" client information should be kept confidential. That, by the way, is a subject for an entirely separate discussion. Even good firewalls can't prevent an accomplished "hacker" 'with the newest software from invading your database, stealing your secrets and even using microphones on your computers to listen to conversations in your office ‑ I saw that discussed on a CNN news report just last week!

The usual online Website is not enough anymore; the best sites now have content that offers self‑help resources to clients and gives basic information about areas of law in which the host specializes. There is a new world of clients out there; many are connected and they know a lot more than the typical client of a few years ago. One brief example is interesting . This father had a new baby with a complicated case of  hyperbilirubinemia (jaundice at birth causing serious brain injury if not promptly diagnosed and treated). After exchanging a few emails, with scanned medical record attachments, I knew I was interested and called him. He had researched the medicine on the Web and was very conversant with the medical condition. When I mentioned experts I proposed retaining, he already knew their names and had obtained and read papers they had written on the subject. This is more and more common.

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