Dallas, Texas
The following is the author's draft of a Chapter appearing in Managing Clients and Cases: Procedures and Systems for theFamily Lawyer, which is to be published by the Amercian Bar Association's Family Law Section. It is the updated version of the 1986 publication of the same name. For ordering information, go to the ABA FL Section website.
CHAPTER 5
COMPUTERS IN THE FAMILY LAW ATTORNEY'S OFFICE
By: Kenneth G. Raggio
INTRODUCTION | LAW PRACTICE
MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS AND OFFICE SUITES | COMMUNICATIONS
SYSTEMS | BACK OFFICE | A NEW
MARKETPLACE | CONCLUSION
While writing this chapter, the author reviewed the chapter on
this subject written for the prior addition to this book; it
talked about "dedicated word processors" (CPT and
Wang), and DOS-based programs such as Multimate and WordPerfect.
Not once was "Windows," "Office Suites," nor
"GUI-Graphic User Interface" mentioned. These terms
were not even blips on the family law attorney's "technology
radar" at that time.
Which is precisely the point. The revolution in computer
technology has engendered fundamental changes in our law
practice, some of the effects of which are not fully appreciated
at this time. The trend in law practice in the computer and
information age is for the lawyer's role is to become a
facilitator of communication; the role of technology (including
computers and related tools) is to ease, automate, and make
efficient process and by reducing repetitive tasks and
keystroking, therefore lessening the labor cost of delivering
service to clients. In other terms, whereas the 1986-era computer
merely eased pressure on the law office by having standardized
boiler plate forms by available to lessen repetitive keystroking
and making multiple drafts of a document possible, the
current-era legal automation system is a necessity for a lawyer
to compete place in the market. Products and technology that are
now mainstream for family law attorneys often include: practice
management systems and integrated office suites; communication
systems (fax, voice mail, e-mail, web pages, and remote access)
and back office systems.
LAW PRACTICE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS AND OFFICE
SUITES
The biggest advance in the past ten years (in the strictly
computer technology area) is the integration of
functions that computer software can now accomplish. This
integration allows data, when placed in a document within one
part of a program (say the word processor), to be dynamically
used in another part of the program (say a spread sheet). For
example, changes made in a financial disclosure statement (a word
processing document) can be linked to settlement proposal, (a
spreadsheet), so that changes made in a value in the inventory
are automatically changed in the spreadsheet, which in turn will
automatically change the totals and percentages in the
spreadsheet.
On top of this ability to pass data between applications in an
office suite, there are now law office practice systems
which add functions that are useful to the law office. For
instance, once a client's name, case number, opposing counsel,
etc., is placed into an electronic file, the data is usable by
the practice system to automatically insert information into
pleadings, to print envelopes, to have available in shortcuts for
calendaring, docket control, and conflict checking system and to
help assemble "to do" lists.
Describing such software in written form clearly robs the
reader of any real appreciation of the power of the programs.
Many products are so inexpensive ($100.00 or so) that a lawyer
can risk the purchase price to see their utility; higher priced
programs (especially office management systems) many times have
demo programs available. Listed below are some of the leading
software packages in each area
1. WordPerfect . WordPerfect is still
by far the most used word processing system in small law offices, as it
captured the legal market in the late 1980s. It has innovative
features such as "quick tasks" and others that seem to
be especially useful for lawyers. It still has the "reveal
codes" split screen so you can see how and why a page is
formatted and easily change it.
1a. WordPerfect Legal Edition. WordPerfect, since it
has owned the legal market for years, wants to keep that
ownership. Its WordPerfect Suite 7.0 now includes versions of
HotDocs, Amicus Attorney, NexLaw, CompareRite Full Authority, and
is available quite at a competitive cost. In other words, Corel
to keep its market share, is giving away software that amounts to
a full law office practice system for the prrice of a word
processing suite. An excellent choice for someone converting
systems or opening an office. It will be out in Version 8 by the
time this book is published.
2. MS Office . Microsoft's product is very
tightly integrated and is the clear overall market leader with
well over 75% of the office suites sold in America. Big law firms
are adopting Word because that's what their clients use. The
Excel spreadsheet is regarded as one of the best, and many
lawyers are converting to total Microsoft Offices to get seamless
use of powerful tools such as the Access database.
3. Amicus Attorney. This product is an example of a
tightly integrated practice management system that has calendars,
timesheets, contacts, and phone list, and is designed - - by
lawyers - - to be a "computer assistant" to ease
lawyer's repetitive tasks, as well as to document what's done (or
not done) in a case. It will complete merge documents with its
data transported into WordPerfect or Word, and also works well
with the HotDocs document assembly program. It also exports data
to the most popular time and billing packages in the format
desired by such packages. Many other practice management systems
such as Abacus Law, Software Technology's Case Master, and ProLaw
have similar features. All help systematize the work in a law
office, reduce errors, and increase productivity.
5. Calendaring Systems. Most of these programs are much
more than calendars and become - - at certain price point - -
practice management systems. One is Time Matters . Even the
Calendar Creator Plus for $20.00 is an excellent tool to be able
to print out repetitive visitation schedules to give to clients,
so that they would know the visitation schedule issued by the
court means in as usable format.
6. Outliners. These are powerful organizational tools
that allows the lawyer to organize, re-organize, and look at a
case either globally or focus on one particular part of the case
say, the testimony of one witness. Notemap is a leader here,
and, among other functions it has an excellent calendar and
contact management system. Many of the above suite programs also
have outlining features, but not to this level of sophistication.
Time-N-Chaos, a shareware program available on the Internet from
http://www.tucows.com, is another powerful and easy to use
outliner that can easily become a trial notebook. These tools can
be used with, or in preference to, the litigation support tools
discussed infra.
COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS
1. Collaborative Software. This software, unheard of
the time of the previous edition of this book, allows those
authorized to work on a given case (or project) to access
electronically everything about that project or case. It allows
various versions of documents to be worked on and modified by
several people working on the case or project, but still
retaining version control. It allows the lawyer, when a client
calls, to pull up on the computer the last task accomplished or
conversation notes by anyone doing activity on the case. Practice
management software replicates many of the functions of the
leading collaborative software, Lotus Notes, but Notes allows
retrieval even of image files (scanned in discovery, for
instance) to be pulled up and viewed. This type of software,
where coupled with fast modems and phone lines, make many parts
of a lawyer's job possible to accomplish remotely, except for
court and face-to-face meetings.
2. Advanced Facsimile. The facsimile is an example how
technology changes the practice. Ten years ago, very few had a
fax machine, then six months later, virtually everyone had one
and was sending correspondence, pleadings, etc, by fax and it
became an accepted norm in the practice. Today the fax revolution
is very mature, with broadcast fax that sends newsletters and
other materials to scores of recipients. Many courts now allow
the fax filing of pleadings and other documents in court. Most
rules of courts now allow service (at least to lawyers) by
facsimile. Faxing is being replaced by electronic document
transfer and will slowly diminish in importance. One advantage
facsimile over some other methods of communication is that it is
accomplished by point-to-point contact over private phone lines,
enhancing security.
3. In-Office Network. Ten years ago the leading network
was "Sneaker Net": taking a disk containing a document
from one computer, running to the other computer, loading in the
disk and then proceeding to work in the document. Networks, in
either file server or peer-to-peer configuration, have become the
standard for sharing data between computers and users. Even the
smallest offices can now benefit from computer networks, where
software and data shared among the network users eases the work
involved to schedule activities, to accomplish common tasks, and
to perform back office functions, such as calendar, docket
control and conflict checking. Novell's Groupwise is a leader in
this area. On the "group level", Groupwise manages the
calendars, etc; on the "individual level" it manages
besides the calendar, "to do" lists, deadlines, etc.
for both individuals and the group. Think Outlook now.
4. The Internet has dramatically
appeared in the public's consciousness and to a lesser extent in
family law attorney's offices. Communication by e-mail allows
relatively instantaneous communication with clients and counsel
virtually anywhere. It allows for documents and images to be
easily transported from one locale to another. Despite some
security issues (discussed below) the Internet appears to have
become as ubiquitous a method of communication as a telephone.
Since the upsurge in use of the Internet, through the use of
powerful search engines such as Altavista and Yahoo even the
tiniest website is accessible to anyone where that site was
mentioned in response to a relevant search. The Net, therefore,
has become a tremendous resource of information. Legal seminars
have abounded in the past couple of years showing lawyers how and
what to access in this tremendous resource where the user has
access to data contained on literally thousands of computers.
Since in most instances the information retrieved is free,
perhaps a caveat should be that a lawyer should independently
verify data retrieved on the net if it will be pivotal in a case.
The other communication "service" of the Internet is
the ability of the lawyer to have a "virtual firm
brochure" available to the public 24 hours a day. By setting
up a Web page and loading it with appropriate content allows the
general public, through the use of search engines, to find and
therefore beat the path to the lawyer's virtual door. The use of
this type of law firm marketing will clearly increase in the
future as dial-up networking continues to become a standard of
communication. Whether it will supplant more traditional means of
marketing (reputation, appearance in a publicized case, speaking
and civic activities), remains to be seen. For an example of the
concepts in this paragraph, please visit
http://www.raggiolaw.com; a paper on the subject of technology
for the family lawyer appears at http://www.raggiolaw.com/la.htm.
The author's version of this chapter is
http://www.raggiolaw.com/future.htm. One advantage of publishing
articles on the web is that they can be updated as soon as the
changes are typed into a desktop computer, a far cry from the ten
years that it took to update this book.
5. Remote Access. With fast modems and relatively clean
phone lines, it is now totally feasible for the lawyer, using
remote access software such as PC Anywhere, to work from home (or
anywhere else) and be on the office computer. The advantage of
remote computing is clear: one can access the office's data from
anywhere. For instance, if one is using a previously described
practice management system, the lawyer can pull up the
"notes" of a client's case and be up-to-the-minute in
the case and take appropriate steps.
6. Video Conferencing Software. It is an important part
of many family law attorneys' practices to have face-to-face
meetings with clients and others, such as lawyers and witnesses.
Video conferencing is at an acceptable state of technology at
reasonable cost at this time, and its utility and effectiveness
will continue to increase in the future. Right now a camera and
software are available for a few hundred dollars which can
produce the jerky ten frames per second, whereas full fledged
video costs more and requires dedicated DSL or T-1 telephone lines on
both ends.
Some lawyers find that a client appreciate, and are receptive
to, lawyers working on their cases from the lake house, beach, or
wherever. Others find that such virtual meetings with a client
are a poor substitute for face-to-face meetings and therefore
never place themselves in a situation, such as a vacation, where
such a tool would be useful. Some choose to communicate only by
telephone or in person.
7. Producing Persuasion. Much has been written about
using high tech (or medium tech) to make the point. Presentation
software is embedded in all of the major office suites, and is
extremely easy to use. An attorney is almost remise in going to a
settlement conference, mediation, or to trial without
easy-to-produce graphic depictions of key points of the case. One
is well advised to have a backup "hard copy" of the
screen instead of relying on the vagaries of a computer generated
presentation exclusively. The effect of showing video clips of a
deposition with the document being discussed being superimposed
in the same TV image and shown in the courtroom can be dramatic.
These technologies, pioneered (and development paid for) by our
anti-trust and personal injury lawyer friends, is now available
at a fraction of the cost of just a few years ago.
8. Research. On-line research includes the Internet
type of searches discussed in the previous section, but it also
includes complete treatises on CD Roms and access to databases
that were not available a decade ago. Virtually every publisher
now publishes all or a significant portion of their family law
materials on CD Roms. Besides saving trees, CD Roms allow boolean
searches that allow quickly pinpointing information that is
needed and then being able to "drop" the selected
material into an appropriate pleading or brief. Lexus and Westlaw
have established pricing policies that make up-to- the-day legal
research available for just a few dollars a day. Versus law at
http://www.versuslaw.com offices both a two week's free use and
permits purchase of computerized legal research by the day.
BACK OFFICE
Back office is a term that describes functions that most of
the time do not entail direct client contact, but are essential
of the management and success of a lawyer's practice. If the
office systems described in the previous sections in this paper
are utilized, even a rapidly expanding client base and case load
can be managed without encountering major bottlenecks. Many of
the following "back office" issues and functions will
literally make or break a law office, and therefore should be
given appropriate attention.
1. Security. All attorneys are aware of the ethical
obligation to preserve client confidences. Having an entire
client file being available on the office computer mandates that
the attorney take stringent steps both in house to preserve that
data and to prevent unauthorized outside intrusion. If one sets
up a "back door for remote access" into the computer
system, one must be aware that computer hackers can set up
"war dialers" that do nothing but dial random numbers,
seeking modems and, once finding a modem, attempt to break into
that computer system. Suggested ways of combating this nightmare
is to have the software not answer until the tenth ring or so,
and changing passwords often. Stringent quality control must be
in place to prevent the inadvertent faxing of documents to wrong
party, especially when same is done with only a keystroke or two
from within a word processing program. It is a good idea to have
all employees sign a Confidentiality Agreement which states that
no client data (or highly developed forms and systems) can be
removed from the office without prior authorization. If one has
voice mail system, one must protect the passwords that will
prevent unauthorized access to the voice mail system.
Finally, clients are demanding to keep in touch by e-mail. E-mail over the Internet can go through many servers, any one of which could "steal" the data being transmitted. Even though there are no reported instances in which this has occurred, no lawyer wants to be the first who is popped for the consequences of confidential information getting into the wrong hands over the Internet. The safe approach is to use encryption software, such is PGP, that allows data to be transmitted and received securely. This software operates by both the sender and the recipient having a "public key" for messages, but then privately (over secure phone lines, presumably) communicates a "private key" that the message recipient uses to decode the secure message.
1a. Back-up. Next to the ability of staff and the expertise of the lawyer, the most important asset of an office is the information in the office, which clearly resides in the computers. Hardware fails, and therefore one must have a complete and up-to-date back-up of the systems, both on and off site. An on site daily back-up should be held in a fireproof file or safe, and the remote back-up could even be a remote computer which mirrors the office server. Uninterruptable power supplies are a necessity for key computer equipment (the server), and the telephone and voice mail system, so that a loss of power will not be disastrous. Finally, all the word processing programs can be set up to do automatic back-up of the on-screen document every few minutes so that a system crash will only effect only last few minutes of work.
2. Training. It does little good to have wonderfully
able computer tools available but with the staff being unable to
utilize such tools due to lack of training. Clearly, most
software contains features and power far beyond the expected use
of most family law lawyers and their staff. Training to utilize
some features should be mandatory. In metropolitan areas, there
are now complete training schools whose business is to have
(usually one day) courses to cover specific topics and over time,
classes will cover the complete range of all popularly used
software. There are also legal trainers who specialize in the
legal area and will conduct in house classes, even customizing
the software to peculiar law office functions. Besides books,
there are interactive videos and CD-Roms available for training
in most of the major software packages, with Microsoft Office
having the most available.
3. Document Assembly. With the advent of Windows
ability to cut and paste information between programs, document
assembly has become a high art. In fact, popular document
assembly programs, such as HotDocs 4 and ProDocs, are now integrated with
state-specific boilerplate. . PCDocs, the leading and the defacto standard document assembly package (and document
management package) ships with a version with all the semi-official Texas
family law forms on it. Use of these forms allows one to build a
pleading much more efficiently than the merge documents in the
past. Some programs, such as HotDocs, are fully customizable that
allow the lawyer to create his custom "pop-up" screens,
that could make queries as to what particular information the
lawyer wishes to place into the pleading being built, overcoming
perceived limits of "closed" assembly packages. Most of
these packages now integrate either with the office suites or the
practice management packages allowing a high level of efficiency.
4. Calculation Software. Speciality calculation
software for family law, such as FinPlan and Propertizer, have
been created specifically for the family law attorney. There are
many state specific packages. These software allow the easy
building of financial disclosure statements for both an
individual client and comparative statements. This allows easy
change of values or transfer of assets from one column to the
another and quickly analyzing the results. This software also
does a tremendous job of figuring the proper level alimony and
child support to be paid that optimizes the resources available
to everyone except the Internal Revenue Service. Spreadsheets
like Excel, QuattroPro and Lotus 1-2-3, that come with the office
suites can be programed with a template made by the attorney to
accomplish the same purposes; or the lawyer can purchase
specialty templates (usually state specific) to use with Excel to
accomplish the same thing.
5. Litigation Support. Software such as Summation, and FolioViews can be used by the family law lawyer in the "big case" so even a small office can compete with the big boys. Litigation support is included in back office because most of the work is pre-trial. The major software packages include efficient management of scanned documents as well as simultaneous and effective retrieval of text documents, such as pleadings and deposition transcripts. There are outside services that do the scanning and coding of images quite at a reasonable price, but virtually every law office has a need for a scanner. It allows the opponent's written request to be quickly translated into electronic form and manipulated as need be. Litigation support and document management are topics deserving of their own books and are only mentioned here in passing.
6. Billing and Accounting. Products such as Timeslips
Deluxe and Quick Books Pro have lessed the aggravation of both
internal accounting for the law practice and in getting paid for
services performed. Many law practice packages are based on time
and billing systems that integrates with the rest of the office
practice systems, allowing for a high level of "type once,
use many times."
7. Voice Recognition Software. IBM and Dragon Dictate
have come out with software that allows even us keyboard -
impaired attorneys to dictate memos, correspondence, and other
documents and have our words appear on our computer screen with
over 95 % accuracy. This is the equivalent of the accuracy of
scanners reading scanned documents. The ability of a lawyer to
produce drafts easily of his own pleading, even if keystroke
impaired, could lead to even more efficiencies in the entire
office system.
8. Hardware. Hardware has relegated to the last, even
though since it is visible, it is what many of us think of first.
There is no excuse now not to have Pentium - class desktop
computer systems as their price has dropped below $1,000.00 - -
even with monitors. Even notebook computers with modems, large
hard drives, and good screens are available for less than
$2,000.00. A full blown network server is now commonly sold for
less than $3,000.00, and running cabling between computers in as
simple as wiring for telephones. Scanners with document feeders
and top of the line scanning OCR software is available for under
$1,500.00. CD-Roms recorders - - used to make a back-up of the
computer system or to load an entire client's information base to
take to a deposition or trial in a notebook computer - - are
commonly available for $500.00 or less. In essence, there is a
finally a reason to dump all the office's prior equipment and go
through the learning curve getting the powerful tools described
in this chapter up and running and productive.
A NEW MARKET PLACE
The tools and technology that is described in this chapter
make it possible for small law firms - - even solo practioners -
- to have the tools formerly only available at premium prices to
large law firms, available to help manage cases, conduct trials,
catalog discovery, prepare for litigation and to resolve cases
either by settlement or trial. These tools allow the family law
attorney to facilitate a team approach to cases or other projects
and to take necessary information wherever it needs to go. Use of
technology, after the installation of same and getting fairly
high up on the learning curve, tends to decrease the direct
resources (time) necessary to produce product for clients. None
of us are interested in automating ourselves out of business, but
we all must recognize that while strict time based billable
events, such as court appearances, depositions, and client
interviews, may remain a very profitable portion of the law
practice, that the efficiencies that computer tools allow will
create pressure on fees, leading both to value billing and flat
billing for specific procedures. Therein lies the dilemma.
Assuming a similar product, would a client prefer to pay $2X for
the product, for which $X is charged by a more automated lawyer?
Conversely, does an automated lawyer want to have to work twice
as hard to make the same income as pre automation? What about
cost recovery of automation and training?
CONCLUSION
The reality is that computer tools and automation are being demanded by clients. Automation is being used as a deciding point for savvy clients in choosing services of one attorney over another attorney. As our clients become more sophisticated consumers, the demand for such services with the attendant cost savings will increase. Whether the family law lawyer will meet these challenges, or watch a path being beaten to his competitor who does meet the challenges, is up to each individual attorney. NB: This was written in 1997; it's funny how so much has proven to be true.
12/20/06http://www.raggiolaw/future.htm