In the more than 20 years since law firms began to introduce computer technology – it has been argued – the only major impact has been the automation of existing processes and practices. Creating documents has got easier, but the documents are still the same. Computer systems add the numbers faster and more efficiently, bringing information to hand a bit faster, but really nothing fundamental has changed. Until now.
The agent of change is the ubiquitous high bandwidth internet connection, with its ability to enable secure, remote and highly-personalised access by clients to a legal firm’s systems. This is changing the relationship between lawyer and client and changing the range and nature of services that lawyers provide. These changes are threatening to many traditionalists. For example, when faced with giving clients internet access to raw billing information – opening their kimono, as it were – many lawyers would rather fall on a Samurai sword.
