The Knoxville Chapter of the Association of Legal Administrators (KALA), together with the Knoxville Bar Association (KBA), held it’s Managing Partners’ Luncheon at Club LeConte on March 28.  Mr. Dave Briscoe of Altman Weil spoke to a group of 65-70 managing partners and firm administrators on "Technology Trends in the Legal Marketplace".  Computer Systems Plus, a local computer services company, sponsored the event.

Probably the most startling point of the presentation was that the average law firm in the U.S. spent approximately $8,000.00 per attorney on technology investments in 1999, up from approximately $3,000.00 just 5 years earlier.  I imagine it’s also fair to assume that the number is significantly higher in 2001 than 1999.  Have you looked at your costs per attorney lately? I would venture to guess that many of us cringe at the idea of such a large investment in technology and make decisions accordingly. We could assume that spending less on technology means that we are more frugal in Knoxville than the rest of the country is. Or, are we increasingly putting our firms at risk of falling behind the rest of the country by not investing more in technology?

A major contributor to the rising costs per attorney is the expediency of changes in technologies today, verses just a few years ago. We now have multiple “new and improved” hardware and software solutions each year, whereas we used to have a single “new and improved” version every few years.  We have faster and more efficient hardware coming out every day, when hardware changes of old took years to be developed, tested and sent to the market place.  Software packages have become substantially more powerful and integration with other packages is now a standard.  Hardware that is just a couple of years old has trouble operating these more powerful packages.

It’s a catch 22.  It’s like the radar detector business.  The manufacturers build a radar gun, then build a radar detector that tells the driver one is being used, then build a better radar gun that the driver’s radar detector can’t detect, then a better radar detector that will identify the newer radar guns, and so on.  Where will it stop?  It won’t!  Unlike radar detectors, computers are a necessity.  If we don’t have a good radar detector, we can slow down to avoid a ticket, but to ignore technology will ultimately limit our ability to “speed” through the requirements placed on us by our clients while our competitors may buy better radar detectors (i.e. invest in newer, more efficient technologies) and drive right by us.  The legal profession, more than most, has its foundation on days gone by, but a bicycle just can’t compete with the cars on the interstate.

Maybe investing in technology at the level of the national average is too much for us, but we need to maintain a level of technical growth that allows us to compete in a more global marketplace. The very technology we are talking about, allows ours competitors to reach and serve local clients easier every day. The bottom line – our clients and competitors do, and will continue to, force us to invest in current technology at an ever- increasing rate.

The KALA would like to thank managing partners throughout the Knoxville area for attending, Mr. Briscoe for a timely and thought provoking presentation, Computer Systems Plus for their sponsorship and the KBA for their continued partnership with us. We trust that those of you that attended were pleased with the presentation, the facilities and the meal. If not, at least you got CLE.

Thanks again for your participation and we at KALA look forward to the next opportunity we have to work with the KBA and the legal community in Knoxville.   

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