Technology as Business Model Breaker

Ringing in the new year is a great
article by a Cisco law department member on how technology can change
and dramatically improve the ways lawyers practice and the business
relationship between lawyer and client. 

Laura Owen, a lawyer who is director, worldwide legal services, at Cisco Systems Inc, suggests in The Tech Evolution: Change or Die
((Law Technology News, 1/4/05) multiple ways that lawyers can work more
effectively. Her advice is directed at both law departments and firms.
Many of her suggestions relate to appropriate use of technology.

She
enumerates nine specific measures, including commoditizing routine work
by deploying document assembly, e-signatures, and contract management
systems. (On contract management, see my recent prediction on this topic and how Cisco uses contract management.)

Evans
also suggests consortia to share needed work and using technology to
perform routine work. As an example of the latter, she cites
McGuireWoods ContractBuilder. (I maintain a list of online legal services and will add this one soon.)

She
concludes that “Just like the industrial revolution, technology has
revolutionized the way businesses work. But it’s not enough to have
BlackBerrys and knowledge management systems. We all need to embrace
these advances to change the way legal services are delivered.” I could
not agree more; in fact, much of this blog is directed at that very
idea.  [Strategic Legal Technology]