Associate, Insurance & E-commerce Appleby Spurling & Kempe The technology revolution has only just begun in the legal business, which has traditionally been slow to embrace and adopt change.

My firm's introduction of an online incorporation facility in March, for example, was considered ground-breaking. In the legal business, Appleby Spurling & Kempe is considered one of the few firms that is proactive, rather than reactive, to technology.

All that is set to change.

Law firms everywhere are being dragged into the "Information Age'' by clients who seek from those firms the same level of service that they traditionally offer their own customers.

Today, that means efficient, instantaneous, cost-efficient service.

This, of course, has turned the legal business on its head. I am amazed at how much the practice of law has changed in the last three years, mainly due to developments in computer technology, and the corresponding demands that such developments place on law firms and lawyers.

When I began practising seven years ago, the only members of staff who had access to computers were secretaries, and even then they only had access to a word processing system.

As a result, lawyers managed their files and workloads in a manner much different than is the case today.

Lawyers adapt to new technology A fax sent three or four years ago might take half a day to reach the desk of one's client, but today I would be considered inefficient if I did not send the same information by e-mail. As a result, my client receives the information or advice he or she needs quickly, and tends to respond just as quickly.

The result is that a matter that might have spent a day or so off my desk three or four years ago -- and a couple of weeks off my desk in the days of "snail mail'' -- now arrives back on my computer within the hour.

Not all firms are created equal, of course. The very largest New York monster firms such as Shearman & Sterling, or Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison, are different in management style, and staffing, from Appleby Spurling & Kempe. Similarly, AS&K is different from, say, Milligan-Whyte & Smith.

All, however, face similar challenges.

Non-lawyers frequently tease me that lawyers charge by the paper inch. We don't, of course, but the unhappy truth is that law firms are drowning in mounds of paper -- and our overheads increase as we hire staff (secretaries, managers, mail room, copy staff etc.) to process and manage the paper trail.

This inefficient, paper-based approach is under threat by advances in technology and by increasing pressure on firms world-wide to maintain their profit margins in an increasingly competitive business.

Today, my firm and others like it in Bermuda and elsewhere face global competition for clients. We compete with the likes of Maples & Calder in the Cayman Islands, as well as with Shearman & Stirling in New York.

Competition is everywhere. To remain competitive, firms like mine must reassess the way they conduct business and capitalise on the advantages offered by the Internet in order to remain competitive. The process of harnessing technology will be expensive, but the alternative is not worth considering.

So what is the future for law firms, which are paper-driven, overhead-heavy and generally wary of technological change? First off, I should point out that the future is already here. Firms that deny that change is already upon us will be doomed to fail in their bid to compete successfully for clients.

I can quite clearly imagine a day when the piles of paper that now clog law firms will be replaced by a paperless office. Documents will be scanned into the system, and stored in directories and sub-directories on a lawyer's computer.

Voice recognition technology will develop further and allow lawyers to prepare correspondence, e-mails and other documents simply by talking to their computer. There may even come a day when keyboards themselves become redundant, as lawyers navigate their files and sub-directories by giving verbal instructions.

This has implications for the labour pool, of course, as secretaries and other support staff become equally redundant.

Even billing and administration, which today are the bane of any practising lawyer, will one day be completely automated.

I can see a day when my computer will recognise that I am doing a particular task in relation to a specific file, and update my client's bill automatically.

Such a system could produce detailed daily and monthly bills quickly and efficiently. That would free up lawyers to focus on what they are trained to do -- provide legal advice.

Video-conferencing technology will soon allow lawyers to "meet'' via their desktop computer, rather than in some faraway place, saving time and money for all concerned. Documents under discussion can be amended while the conference takes place, with each participant having access to the document.

Even today's office environment is under threat as technology forces us to reconsider the traditional business model.

If I can communicate with my client via the Internet, and if I already work in a paperless environment, why do I need to be in a formal office space? Surely, I could just as easily do the work from my home, or my boat, or the beach.

As the legal profession moves forward, it will be the firms that successfully harness technology that will thrive in the increasingly competitive global legal market.

Those firms that ignore technology, or which simply cannot afford to keep up, will fall off the pace.

The future is here. Law firms must deal with it, or face the consequences.

David Lines, Jr. Associate at Appleby Spurling & Kempe. They are proactive to technology.

N.B.

This is the exact same Law Matters supplement that ran in The Royal Gazette on 20th September, 2000. However do the printing problems that affected the quality of the print, it was pulled from the circulation and did not appear again until the 9th October, 2000.