When it comes to technology, there have been some absolutely amazing advances for law firms. Technology has helped to improve billing practices, gather data, reach out to new clients, and generally speed up practically every mundane and time-consuming issue.
Natural Language Processing
One fascinating area where technology has helped out law firms is seen with something called Natural Language Processing (NLP). This allows a software program to take a document and quickly scan it and decide whether or not that document would be useful to a case an attorney is working on. On the other hand, the artificial intelligence that works within NLP is not going to replace a Pasco criminal defense attorney.
Replacing Lawyers
An article in The New York Times points out that even though technology is definitely helping law firms, it’s unlikely that anyone will be seeing a robot replace a Pasco County criminal defense attorney. While it has reduced the amount of time spent reviewing documents, it has also freed up the attorneys to focus more of their staff’s attention on other areas of a specific case. This allows the attorney to spend more time working the actual legal aspects of a case and delegate the less important aspects to their assistants and to available technology.
Record Keeping
Thanks to technology, law firms have more freedom when it comes to record keeping than ever before. Gone are the days when law offices had massive rows of filing cabinets and entire rooms dedicated to storing legal documents and reams of paperwork. Thanks to the advances in scanning technology, what once might have encompassed thousands of square feet of law office space has been reduced to solid state hard drives and cloud storage.
Security Improvements
Technology has also created vast improvements when it comes to privacy and security concerns. When physical files are kept in a law office, there is always the risk that someone without the right credentials might be able to gain access to the information contained in the files. When those files are kept either in specially encrypted computer storage areas or even off-site in the cloud, the risk of any unauthorized person getting to that information is greatly reduced. As pointed out by the American Bar Association Journal, many cloud storage corporations have state-of-the-art cybersecurity teams working 24/7 to ensure no data breaches occur.
Improved Client Relations and Communications
More than anything else, a good defense attorney wants to do everything possible to help the client. Technology creates a positive flow between attorney and client such as has never existed before. Thanks to the advanced algorithms found in today’s search engines, for example, information that might assist the attorney in building a case for the client can be accessed at any time and from any location. Facts which once required numerous man-hours to verify and chart can be done with greater efficiency and more accuracy.
In the end, despite the view of technology that movies such as THE TERMINATOR and THE MATRIX have presented, today’s attorneys are seeing improvements in technology as valuable assets for their practices, helping clients more than ever.