BUSINESS
CAREERS
TH E
AUTOMATED
I’m in a small firm with just four lawyers,
so we don’t have in-house IT support to rely
on. But the joy of being in a small practice is
that you get to know what works for you. “
Technology
Continued From Page 21
lawyer to analyze and think analytic-
ally,” says Manning, who is also
responsible for knowledge manage-
ment initiatives and e-discovery
developments within her litigation
group at Blakes. As such, she keeps
an eye on trends and,
to that end, attended
the recent Legal Tech
trade show in New
York City. That
three-day event drew
thousands of tech-
nology vendors and
lawyers, including
Canadian e-discovery
and litigation management expert
Susan Wortzman.
“It’s a different world for most law-
yers now. They’re not dictating any
more - they’re typing their own
memos, and walking around with lap-
tops, BlackBerrys and PDAs [personal
digital assistants],” says Wortzman, a
former litigation partner with Lerners
LLP in Toronto. “All lawyers have, to
some degree, integrated technology
into their practice.”
In turn, technology has trans-
formed the way law offices operate
across the country.
New software, in beta version by
California-based eClaris Inc., is
intended to manage files and track
Manning
their progress, identify who’s doing
what and how long each task will take
and what it will cost, and insert dead-
lines — all in one program.
Records management systems enable
lawyers and staff to access documents
and files at their fingertips. These days,
billing is typically automated, while
many firms are posting documents on
the web and allowing clients or experts
(in the case of evidence for litigation) to
access that information, via password,
and even work online with counsel on a
case. The collaboration could even
extend between plaintiffs and defend-
ants, and a lawyer can determine who
gets virtual access to what documents.
“It’s all about greater efficiency for
law firms and better service for clients,”
explains Wortzman.
She points out that litigators, who
might have cases consisting of hun-
dreds of thousands of records on tera-
bytes of data, don’t have to print any of
that information. Files can be auto-
matically sent to opposing counsel.
Thanks to technology, lawyers are
also not tied to their offices anymore.
Voicemail, forwarded calls and such
devices as BlackBerrys and iPhones
keep them interconnected with clients
and colleagues wherever they are.
“Clients expect you to be available,”
says Wortzman.
She explains that while lawyers
moved to automate their offices a few
years ago, they weren’t as quick to
adopt e-management practices.
“What wasn’t making sense was that
lawyers were taking thousands of
emails, printing them off, deciding
what was relevant, and producing those
in scanned format even when they were
in an electronic format to begin with.”
That batch of email could have
instead been run through a software-
search program culling for metadata,
such as when messages were created
and by whom —
inevitably saving
time and costs
for the client.
Susan Nickle,
who works with Wortzman on e-discovery issues, says that client concerns over costs have led lawyers to
look for “cheaper and better ways to
do things.”
Fortunately, competition among a
plethora of high-tech companies has
forced software and hardware prices to
come down. But those products are
also constantly changing, which poses a
separate challenge for practitioners.
“We devote ourselves to technology
issues full-time, but there’s no way we
can keep pace with all of the new
innovations and maintain a full litigation practice,” says Nickle.
“We own nothing and have stayed
completely neutral on what products
we use.”
She explains that when Wortzman
Nickle Professional Corp. is advising a
law firm or client on a litigation case, it
relies on the best tech tool available on
the Canadian or U.S. markets - and
leases it.
But technology needs a tight leash
at times.
“It can connect you to almost too
much information to consider now,”
says Nickle.
“But with e-discovery, everything you
do must involve the twin pillars of rea-
sonableness and proportionality - and
nothing is going to substitute good judg-
ment. You need to bring some sanity
into the process because you will com-
monly have millions of documents that
you have to sift through to get down to
the 50 to 100 important records.”
For instance, when Wortzman
receives gigabytes of data and boxes
of paper files, she uploads the former
and conducts a “triage” on the latter
to determine what needs to be
scanned. She then runs all that infor-
mation through an optical character
reading program to search for rel-
evant text.
“Technology is so advanced that we
can now use software to compare paper
and electronic documents, so we don’t
have five versions of the same docu-
ment,” explains Wortzman.
“Technology has transformed the
way law offices are run” - and in so
many different ways.
THE TECHNO-TALE OF TWO SUSANS
Susan Wortzman and
Susan Nickle share a small secret.
While their firm, Wortzman
Nickle Professional Corp., is
headquartered in Toronto
where most of their clients are,
each calls home base some-
where else. Nickle lives in
another Ontario city, London;
Wortzman’s residence is in
another province.
“I’ve got clients to this day
who don’t know I live in Win-
nipeg,” says 46-year-old Wortz-
man, a native of Manitoba’s
capital city. However, she
spends most weeks in Toronto,
usually from Tuesdays to
Thursdays — while 42-year-old,
Toronto-born Nickle follows a
similar commuting schedule.
Thanks to voice-over-Internet
Protocol and BlackBerrys, their
office is as mobile as they are.
