Always-engaging Rees Morrison asserts that in-house lawyers woefully underuse computer capabilities:
Lawyers barely scratch the surface of what accomplished users – not experts, just lawyers who have learned how to make the most out of a program such as Word, Excel, or Outlook – can perform.
I’d like some facts to back up the argument that this underutilization of technology is unique to in-house counsel. I once practiced at a law firm that was using mag cards when the rest of lawyerdom had migrated to the word processor.
Then Mr. Morrison bites the hand that feeds him:
Law departments maintain F-16s for the bi-weekly crop dusting of Mom’s tomatoes[.]
I think most lawyers underuse technology. While lawyers aren’t blameless if they poorly define their needs, a good deal of the fault lies at the doorstep of the hardware and software vendors. They act like they understand the real needs of the lawyer, but their products are too hard to use and are not well integrated. Heck, the ever-savvy Microsoft is running an ad campaign that depicts its customers as dinosaurs. Rather offensive from a company that delivers a new operating system every five years or so.
I’ll use a digital PDA when one is tangibly better than this one. Until then, its 3 x 5, baby…
Thanks to the ever-vigilant Ron Friedmann for spotting this one.