Over time there have been numerous advances in technology. While advances in technology do not take away all the administrative work that is done in the legal field, it surely lightens the load of work. Let's approach this from the view of a private in-person law firm. One administrative task that I do find crucial that technology cannot take over is a welcoming face when you enter the door of a firm. Depending on the situation, walking into a law firm can be overwhelming and having someone there when you walk in can take off some of that stress. However, the use of technology advancements in other areas of the practice can enable the lawyer to have the time to be the one that personally greet the client at the door.
What I mean by that is the use of technology in other administrative areas of a lawyers practice will allow them to better manage their time for more face-to-face interactions with their clients. Rather than spending their time on administrative tasks such as filing case documents, scheduling appointments, entering notes and documents pertaining to other cases of clients who have called, the lawyer can have technology take over those tasks and focus on the client interactions taking place in the firm.
Another thing that I think technology can help with is documenting the events and conversations that occur in client meetings. When meeting with an attorney they are going to be taking notes on what is said. While this is an important part of meeting with a client, it can sometimes lead to spending more time going back over information to ensure everything was written down correctly. This is an area that note taking technology can take over. Imagine going into a law firm and being able to have the full and undivided attention of an attorney who is not also focusing on writing down notes the whole time. This would be possible if note taking technology was analyzing and recording the conversation for the attorney and client to both have access to in note formation following the meeting.
Riley,
ReplyDeleteI haven't had the opportunity to test it for accuracy, but I have seen plenty of advertisements for AI-powered notetaking / meeting software. I'm wary of the accuracy claims, and would still (if I had the resources) prefer to hire a competent and capable human, even if it was just on a trial basis while using said software.
You're right about needing a human face at the front desk though. Even having a person on the other end of a computer screen in real time lacks the same impact as having them in the same physical space.