We strive for and expect excellence in everything we do at Crosley Law Firm, including excellence in all things related to legal technology. We do not settle for proficiency; instead, we demand an exhaustive practical knowledge of all basic software applications for all of our attorneys, paralegals, and legal assistants on staff. New industry findings suggest that unlike Crosley Law, many firms have had difficulty bringing their staff up to date with these essentials.
D. Casey Flaherty, in-house counsel for Kia Motors America, recently made the public assertion that, by and large, lawyers are glaringly inept when it comes to handling seemingly basic office productivity tasks. According to Flaherty, this leads to wasted time, productivity, and ultimately, money. To legitimize his claims, he created an audit designed to evaluate an attorney’s technological proficiency and administered the test to nine outside firms – all of whom subsequently (and tellingly) failed. Following his initial work, he partnered with Suffolk University’s Institute on Law Practice Technology to offer the audit to other lawyers and law students alike.
Flaherty lovingly refers to the examination as a Legal Tech Audit (LTA), but the truth is that it is much more generalized than that, focusing on a wider audience than attorneys and paralegals. The audit doesn’t really gauge legal-specific applications, but rather the basic software competencies that should be expected of most office employees, such as dealing with Microsoft software programs like Word, Excel, and Adobe Acrobat. Still, these are vital tasks that every legal employee should be familiar with, rendering Flaherty’s audit effective for law offices despite its broad appeal.
While the audit is definitely a step in the right direction, it is still clearly in the early stages. One negative is that smaller firms simply do not have the proper staff or protocols in place to achieve optimal results. Furthermore, at this point the audit can only be run through Internet Explorer using Windows and requires comprehensive administrative access to access all facets conveniently and without obstruction. Additionally, the obscure instructions are made all the more problematic by the fact that there is no option to return to previous portions of the audit. Therefore, mistakes that could be rectified by a sudden, belated understanding of previously confusing directions will remain as errors. These gripes may appear innocuous, but the irony of a technologically flawed test of one’s aptitude in dealing with office technology supersedes the audit’s efficacy.
The current incarnation of the LTA costs $150 for a 1-year subscription, with the option to spend an extra $150 for a tutorial. For most firms, this will be little more than a drop in the bucket while proving extremely helpful for hiring and retaining competent employees who are able to keep costs low and operate basic software tasks effectively. Therefore, even though the LTA might still need a few bugs worked out, it seems to be a relatively cost-effective tool that could greatly optimize nearly every law office’s production and bottom line.
At Crosley Law Firm, not only are we confident in our entire staff’s ability to use all office productivity software programs at the highest levels, but in order to best serve our clients, we’ve also gone several steps further by incorporating advanced technology to research, present, and win our clients’ cases. Our multimedia presentations allow for jurors to have a more interactive, gripping experience of the facts and details of each case while our medical visuals create an observable physical timeline of injuries, procedures, and rehabilitation processes. Lastly, we have invested heavily in digital accident reconstruction, which allows us to virtually recreate the exact particulars of an accident from the weather conditions outside to the point of impact. These reconstructions are accompanied by narrative explanations from various field experts who offer further insight into the implications of each detail, keeping jurors fully informed of the facts related to each case.
Technology is a vital asset to the team at Crosley Law Firm. It allows us to provide the best possible counsel to our clients and often means the difference between a mediocre settlement and an optimal recovery. If you or a loved one has suffered a personal injury and deserves the fullest compensation, please contact Crosley Law Firm by calling (877) 535-4529 or by visiting our website for a free consultation. Our skilled and experienced staff will put their legal and technological expertise to work for you.
Reference:
Needham, L. (2014). The legal tech audit proves lawyers are terrible at technology. Lawyerist. Retrieved from
http://lawyerist.com/76189/lawyers-terrible-technology-audit-will-prove/
