CHAPTER 16

LAW IN THE AGE OF

COMPUTERS
INTRODUCTION
Any person preparing to become a paralegal must look into the
future.Opportunities for employment and advancement will be driven by
economics and performance. The aspiring paralegal should be sensitive to
needs of the profession and the requrirementd for paralegal jobs.The
uncertainty of the future is compounded by rapidly developing
technology,primarily in the future computer field.Much of the paralegals
work is decidedly technical,and the techinicians who do not prepare
themselves for changes in technology can become as absolete as the
machines that are sent to the junkpile each year. Although paralegal
employment is projected to increase through the end of the century,the
number of paralegal training programs has
already multiplied
significantly . There will be many oppurtinities,but the competition will be
stiff. In this context,those with the most credentials will have the
advantage. It behooves the paralegal-in-training to keep abreast of
developments in the field and in office technology.

FUTURE TRENDS OF PARALEGALS

In her book,paralegal,Barbara Bernardo predicted ten future trends in
the paralegal field. Several of these warrant discussion :
1. Greater emphasis will bw placed on education.The paralegal field
appears headed inevitably toward recognition as a profession ,and
professional status inevitably requires educational credentials.This is
supported by the fact that lawyers have both a bachelors degree
and the fact that legal problems reflect the full diversity of our
complex society. Paralegals will be educated professionals. In the
recession of the earyly 1990s, numerous reports surfaced of new
law school graduated accepting positions as paralegals. The general
economy affects law firms as well. A paralegal student should

2.

3.

4.

5.

consider whether it is betterto take a course o bankruptcy or

construction(building) law.
More sophisticated and subtantive legal work will be performed by
paralegals,Anyone who has been in the legal field over the past
two decades cannot help but have noticed a radical change in
lawyersattitudes toward paralegals.Twenty years ago,most lawyers
doubted that a person without law school training could adequently
conduct legal research or draft legal documents. Tens thousands of
paralegals have convinced them otherwise. Many lawyers now see
paralegals have convinced them otherwise.Many lawyers now see
paralegals as essential members of the legal team who perform
most of the same tasks as lawyers-and perform them just as well. As
legal specialization increases,paralegals specialization increases ;
the results is that paralegals become virtually indispensable.Imagine
an attorney specializing in workers compensation with a paralegal
who has assisted for five years and understands every facet of the
field,as well as the attorneys work routine and strategies.Losing
that paralegals is like athe term increased status for the
paralegal,but increased compensation as well.
Recognitation of the paralegal profession by the general public will
continue to increase.Twenty years ago,very few people, even some
lawyers,were familiar with the term paralegal. This has changed
dramatically ; paralegal is a commonly considered career choice for
those seeking careers and is known to every career counselor. Tens
of thousands of legal clients have dealt directly with paralegals and
have gained repect for them. Some business have begun the
questioons high legal fees with.Couldnt this have been done by a
paralegal?
New career alternatives.In bussiness andgoverment ,a great many
tasks call for an understanding of the law.In many cases,hiring a
paralegal is cost-effective when hiring an attorney would not be
feasible.Those with paralegal training are employed as in surance
adjustors,real estate appraisers,bank trust department employees
,office managers,and the like. As the field becomes more
appreciated, employers of all sorts will come to consider paralegals
as valuable alternatives to those with more general education.
More paralegals will start their own business.The California
movement toward permitting or licensing indeendent paralegals has
spread to all regions of the country.Given the bars stated mision of
providing legal services to all sectors of the society,the inevitable
cnclusion is that some services can be provided economically only
by paralegals who can charge less and keep overhead down.
Rosemarry Furman proved that a variety of legal services can be
provided at minimal cost to clients ; perhaps she was simply ahead

of her time the problems her activities raised could have been
minimized by licensing and regulation. As far as paralegal are
concerned,unauthorzed practice of law is crrently being redefined.

The New Technology of The Law

Office
Because lawyers excel in the art of verbal dialogue,persuasion,and
negotation,It is not surprising that this profession was slow to
acquire the new technology that has proliferated in science and
business. Today tye degree to which alaw office is electronic
depends largerly on the economy of scale a law firm with 200
emloyees can efficiently run systems that would be utterly
extravagant for five person firm. Of course the most important
change in the modern law office is the proliferation of the computer.
The following list describes the advantaes with which computers
have provided the modern law firm :
1. Computers can store vas amouts of data and information in a
very small space and can access that information very quickly.
Something as retrieving a file can be done with a few keystrokes
instead of searching a file cabinet.Although this may mean five
seconds as opposed to a minute,when multiplied over and over
again,the savings in time and convience becomes very great.The
coorporation of CD-ROOM drives is revolutionizing law libraries;
one CD can replace a bookcase full of books,and search time is
reduced to a fractions of the time it takes to look through printed
material
2. Computers can conduct searches with lightining speed. Two
dramatic examples of this are WESTLAW and LEXIS,two
legaldaabases that contain all the reported appellate decissions
of American corts as well as the federal district court opinions . In
an actual search , in less then two minutes WESTLAW searched
every state and federal case for the terms homosexual
marriage and same-sex marriage. The speed was partially
due to the extreme rarity of cases-there were only three but such
a research conducted manually would take hours for even the
most dept researcher.intraoffice files that are on disk can likewise
be searched with comparable time savings.
3. Computers eliminate many human errors .With unusual
exceptions,computers o not make mistakes,though the human
beings who program them and the users who enter information
and data on them can make mistakes.More and more,computers
are being programed to anticipate human error in data entry. A
simple example is spell checking some programs will check the

spelling of each word as it is typed . There are also programs to

check wether the legal citations in a document are in the correct
form.Ultimately computer software will check to see if a named
case and the citationn that follows is are correct (i.e,.. a case
dictionary that includes the correct citation for the case).
4. Computers as word processors are now indispensable in the law
office.Long time cepractitioners can remember when letters and
documents were constantly retyped because of typographical
errors or the need to change a phrase or a sentence after
reading. Editing software now has so many features that few
users are even aware of all the things that can be done. Indexing
and outining can be done with speed and accuracy.
5. Standard forms have taken on a new meaning with computers
and word processors.Lawyers have always relied on forms for
drafting simple documents,but now the forms can be complished
by filling in the blanks . In other cases ( for example,drafting a
will ) programs have been devised in which the atorney or
paralegal may simply run hrough a set of questions and enter
information into the computer,which can then print out a will.The
will can be printed immediately,including even relatively comp
free,the result is erro free,the result is errolex wills if the willdrafting programs is truly sophisticated.When the program is
error-free,the result is error-free,elminating mistakes that might
inadvertently occur otherwise