Drew+Foerster+--1--

=HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT 1=

Good Things about Running a Digital Office: 1) lower overhead costs 2) able to consult with clients and office staff more quickly 3) able to reach more geographically-diverse client base 4) able to create synergistic effects that enable more effective representation by combining real-world consultation with online consultation 5) able to reach a more age-diverse client base

Dangers Connected with Running a Digital Office: 1) concerns about storing private information and information subject to attorney-client privilege online with potential access by the website host and/or website maintenance service 2) malpractice concerns connected with obtaining inquiries from clients with issues that should be resolved within jurisdictions that one has not obtained bar qualification in 3) Real-world interaction and online interaction each bring out different aspects of an attorney-client interaction during a consultation. Care should be taken to discern those situations in which a client can best be represented only with at least some real-world consultation. 4) In light of Danger 3, putting one's practice entirely online could significantly hinder one's ability in general to represent the needs of clients. Depending upon one's practice, one may want to maintain both a real-world and an online presence. 5) The ethical rules surrounding contact with opposing parties and counsel may impinge upon online contacts differently than upon real-world contacts.

DEFINITIONS 1. [|"By the basic definition, a completely virtual law office (VLO) is a professional law practice that exists online through a secure portal and is accessible to the client and the attorney anywhere the parties may access the Internet."] 2. [|"There are very few law firms reaching out to the broad middle class with affordable legal services and too few law firms using the Internet as a platform for the delivery of legal services. 'Virtual law firms' represent a new category of law firm that are reaching out to a 'latent' market of consumers with a new value proposition."] 3. [|"Virtual does not mean 'a law firm operated online.' It means, strictly speaking, 'kind of, sort of a law firm.'"]

=HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT 2=

BENEFITS OF DOCUMENT AUTOMATION 1) automated document format, spelling, and grammar checking, as well as automated verification of cross-references 2) automated analysis of the substantive aspects of the document and comparison with similar substantive provisions in previously databased docs 3) can consolidate expertise in a single system 4) The ability to choose different online service providers enables an enterprise providing legal services to choose an online service provider with unique efficiency-enabling capabilities that match the needs of that particular legal services enterprise. 5) Enabling legal processes to function without documents, but rather through direct interaction on issues in an online forum. 6) Going beyond the death of the document as a form of conveying information, online legal processes may in the future enable oral submission of legal materials.

POTENTIAL ISSUES OF CONCERN 1) No Open Source versions yet available. 2) There are so many combinations of online tools, of such varying ranges of price, that it is difficult for practicioners to make fully informed decisions about which document automation tools to use and develop working relationships with. 3) To what degree do lawyers going forward in the future need to learn software programming versus learning merely "about" software programming? 4) On one hand document automation frees up a practicioner's mental time to potentially enable more opportunities to finely craft legal presentations to better match clients' needs; but on the other hand, the process of automation can lend a degree of apparent authority to a final product that may make a practicioner more complacent than she or he should be about determining whether the finished product matches the clients' needs well. 5) Legal systems are already quite burdened by a large degree of legal activity. On one hand, document automation may help legal processes procede more smoothly, but on the other hand, the complex and diverse technical support systems available may further complicate the functioning of legal systems even more than they already are. 6) Document automation has the potential to either slow down the process of innovating document language (by creating libraries that freeze poor practices) or to speed up the process of innovating document language (by creating automated interfaces with databases that are continuously updated to reflect developments in the law and to reflect best practices).

AUTOMATED DOCUMENT PRODUCTION SYSTEMS REVIEW Currently automated document production systems are well developed to support clients creating their own documents, and to support the ability of legal practitioners to produce documents more efficiently. Already existing systems can robustly support interaction between clients and legal practitioners to produce needed documents. Going forward into the future, developers may create increasingly robust platforms to interface with arbitration systems, court systems, and to enable counsel representing disparate sides of an issue to interact online in efficiency-creating manners. I do believe that our legal practice can benefit substantially from current automated platforms; however, to do so we would probably need to hire a consultant who can advise us on which specific service providers best match the needs of our practice and our clients. The key to this determination lies in identifying the boundaries before which clients and practitioners can in isolation create automated documents that either stand by themselves or that require interaction beyond that boundary of automation to create refined documents that best match clients' needs. If we place the selection of too many document production variables into the hands of clients, we run the risk of creating documents that practitioners need to go back and amend. In such a situation, the automated system may create more busy work than it removes the need for. Therefore, it is critical that we define the boundary at which the usefulness of automation ceases and the necessity of refined products resulting from attorney-client interactions begins. Automated document production can occur either on software that is installed on our office computers, or software the runs online through web browsers. The former is more amenable to our practitioners using such systems, the latter to clients using such systems. We may want to begin by implementing automated systems that just practitioners use so that we can get accustomed to using such systems, and later branch out to interacting with clients through such systems. The implementation of practitioner-focused systems will focus our attention upon one of the most important efficiences created by such automation: the ability to consolidate expertise in a central system that multiple practitioners can draw from simultaneously. However, the development of such expertise is exactly the value that we as legal professionals supply to clients. Often such expertise will require refined attorney-client interaction to work properly for the needs of clients, and as such it may not be as appropriate to place the implementation of such expertise in a web-based client-oriented system.