Well, this is my last technology column for Legalese. There's a lot more I'd cover if I were sticking around, but alas, I graduate in May. Since I won't be around next year, I thought I'd share a few predictions. Stuff I might have written about if only I had more time.
You will get very tired of hearing "e-discovery." E-discovery refers to the new requirements in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure that allow for the discovery of electronically stored information (ESI). New technologies in our wired offices make discovery of documents much faster and easier for both sides of a dispute. But these new capabilities have resulted in confusion over exactly what is discoverable (hint: it's not just e-mail), and how much a firm must do to ensure its systems are capable of tracking and producing data that might be discoverable. As you might guess, an entire industry has emerged to tackle these thorny issues... and to sell software to lawyers.
You're going to use your phone for nearly everything BUT talking on the phone. Cell phones are great for talking to pals, but who wants to talk when you can txt message or IM? What about listening to music, surfing the web, booking a flight, ordering lunch? Actually, the software is available to do all these things RIGHT NOW. It's our phones that need to catch up. In Europe and Asia, the phones are light years beyond ours. Fortunately, with Apple's iPhone, the T-mobile Sidekick, and the updated BlackBerry models, we're starting to catch up. And sites like Twitter.com are helping to make texting and chatting way more fun than just talking on the telephone.
The Nintendo Wii will take over the office. Imagine a tiny computer with built-in WI-FI, a web browser, two USB ports, and a wireless pointer that doubles as a mouse. Suppose it's also compatible with SD cards, so you can store all kinds of photos, files, and music on it. You can use it for Web demonstrations, PowerPoint slides, and pretty much anything on the Internet. Oh, yeah, I forgot. It's basically a toy that costs only $250. That's at least $1000 less than you'd normally spend for the same features. And you can't bowl or play tennis on those other machines. Yep, there's going to be a Wii in every conference room in America.
Online gambling will eventually be legalized. And it will be HUGE. Recently the World Trade Organization (WTO) ruled against the U.S. a second time in response to our discriminatory online gambling laws. The problem? We prosecute foreigners for operating gambling Web sites targeted at U.S. users, but we make all kinds of special exceptions for terrestrial gambling operations (e.g., horse racing, lotteries, Las Vegas/Atlantic City). The double standard could result in massive sanctions. I'm betting the US will relax its gambling laws just enough to avoid a major headache. When that happens, online wagering will make Vegas look like a pit stop.
Your mom will join Facebook. Facebook is a social networking site like Myspace, but with vastly superior features, and a much cleaner interface. Until last year, only kids with a valid school or educational e-mail address could join. Now, the site is open to everyone, and Facebook is enjoying unprecedented growth. Since October, Facebook has added 11 million members. By some measures, it's the number one Web site among young people (besting even Myspace). Even more important, Facebook's stylish design and strong privacy controls are starting to attract older users. A few companies have signed up, too. For example, employees at Southwest Airlines now have their own Facebook network. Why is the site so popular? It's simple: their software keeps you in touch with your friends without getting in the way. Who just uploaded photos? Who's bored in class? Who's getting married? Facebook tells you all that within a second of logging in. There's never been a better way to ask "hey, what's up?"
Legal research on the web is going to get cheaper, easier. Right now, Lexis and Westlaw have a stranglehold on the legal research business. But both sites are prohibitively expensive for the millions of solo practitioners out there, and there would appear to be ample room for a competitor to sneak in. Alternatives include Loislaw.com and Fastcase.com, both of which offer vastly cheaper subscriptions the frugal attorney can easily afford.
Another thing I'd look for in the next years is a web-based tool that automates Bluebook citation. CiteIt.com offers a powerful Windows program that includes Bluebook support. But a number of scholars and practitioners are waiting for Zotero.com to add Bluebook functionality. Zotero is a free FireFox extension that automatically collects citation information from the Web and formats it in the appropriate style. Zotero supports some legal databases and cites, but robust Bluebook support isn't yet available. It should be soon.
The humble Word document will be rediscovered.
Recently a new site called Scribd.com launched, unofficially dubbing itself the "YouTube for documents." As you might imagine, users can upload documents in virtually any format and view them in a lightning-fast PDF player, no downloading required. The PDF player lets you embed any document on another Web site, just like YouTube. You can also save any file as a Word doc, PDF, or plain text file. It's perfect for law students who want to share course outlines and legal forms. But the feature that's going to keep the lawyers up at night is the ability to bulk upload files to the service without registering or even supplying an e-mail address. Scribd, and sites like it, are going to make secret memos and confidential files a thing of the past. Before, you had to be very careful and be at least a little Web savvy to leak a sensitive document online. Not anymore. Whistleblowers never had it so good.
Fortunately for lawyers, that's how the Web is. They just keep building a better Pandora's box.
