In the more than 20 years since law firms began to introduce computer technology, it has been argued that the only major impact has been the automation of existing processes and practises. Creating documents has become easier, but the documents are still the same. Computer systems add numbers faster and more efficiently, bringing information to hand more easily, 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 law firm’s systems. These changes to the relationship between lawyer and client and to the range and nature of services that lawyers provide, 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.
