As some of you know, for a few years I have been collecting my articles on legal technology topics in the form of an “online book” as a method of organizing what is now approximately 100 articles. I’ve referred to that online book as “The Legal Technology Primer.”
As a few others of you know, I’ve recently been working on re-editing The Legal Technology Primer, with the idea of turning it into an e-book and/or downloadable PDF book, in large part because it is quite unwieldy to read in its current online version. After finishing up a first pass this evening, I was pleasantly surprised by how well some of the older pieces still stand up and how interested I still am in many of the themes that I addressed much earlier in my writing (simplicity, usability, workability).
There were two articles in particular that I found especially interesting. One was called “Fast Fish and New Technologies: Ten Advantages Small Firms Have Over Large Firms,” which seems even more accurate today, especially since I’ve spent the past 3 years at a firm over 300 lawyers, than it was when I wrote it in 1997. The second is called “Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and Late Night Thoughts on Rethinking the Practice of Law,” ostensibly a book review of the book, Dealers of Lightning, about Xerox and its legendary ability to develop new and compelling technologies but inability to bring them to market. When I wrote that article, it felt very unfinished (hence the title) and I keep thinking that I’m going to return to it and the themes it addressed, but now I’m thinking that it, in its own way, may stand as it is.
I recommend both articles, both to those of you who are familiar with my writing and those of you who are not, as windows into some of the issues about law and technology that fascinate me most.