Legal Tech Your Senior Partners Will Love (2025) – Lawyerist

Round Valentine’s Day, we walked you thru 5 authorized tech options your purchasers will love. These instruments provide great options to tech-wise corporations trying to increase effectivity and enhance shopper service.

Six weeks later, we predict it’s time for a follow-up. This time we contemplated, “What authorized tech do senior legislation agency companions worth and why?” Unsurprisingly, they favor merchandise with confirmed monitor data that you already know are working; like face time within the workplace, however for computer systems.

Fax Me Again Child!

Senior companions love fax machines. Why? As a result of nothing says “cutting-edge expertise” like a tool that screeches and beeps whereas transmitting your paperwork on the pace of a snail. The noises inform companions it’s working (identical to the muffled sobbing coming from junior associates’ places of work). Plus, the joys of ready for that affirmation web page is unmatched; you don’t get that with e mail. Fax machines provide the nostalgic allure of actual paper [jams] and blurry textual content. So, mud off these historical relics and present your agency’s powers-that-be that you just too worth custom over effectivity.

Persist with the Details

As soon as that very important fax comes by, somebody has to assessment and touch upon it. Adobe Acrobat is pricey, and Apple Pencils are fragile. The primary is simply too difficult and the second snaps in half in anger even simpler than a daily #2 pencil. What to do? That’s the place senior companions attain for the stack of sticky notes. Nothing says “organized chaos” like a rainbow of sticky squares plastered throughout your desk (the unique range of white-shoe legislation corporations).

Sticky notes provide the tactile satisfaction of peeling and pasting, plus the joys of discovering that essential observe buried underneath a pile of paperwork. Embrace the allure of handwritten messages that may be indecipherable, simply misplaced, and unintentionally thrown away.

Companions know that these colourful gems present the world that your agency values creativity. And there’s an additional advantage. Senior companion Whitacker T. F. Bluster put it greatest: “With sticky notes, I don’t even actually must work together with associates. It’s the unique ghosting! That’s what the children say, ghosting, proper?”

Bates Numbering the Outdated-Common Method

Are you sufficiently old to recollect the Smith Barney commercials starring The Paper Chase’s John Houseman? Your senior companions are! They usually want their Bates numbering the identical manner Smith Barney made cash: the old school manner. Carry a smile to their face by dusting off the Bates numbering machine.

Positive, manually stamping every web page with a singular quantity hardly screams “effectivity.” However effectivity isn’t at all times the objective. Just like the ringing of a money register, the satisfying clunk of the Bates machine is music to your companions’ ears. Plus, it doubles as a implausible arm exercise!

Embrace the nostalgia of ink smudges and misaligned numbers. Don’t assume blemishes; assume natural and handmade. Caught on his each day 1/tenth of an hour toilet break, junior affiliate Mortimer J. Crabtree agreed: “I believe the ink stains and paper cuts actually present my managing companion and my purchasers that I’m hands-on with my circumstances.”

Potent Redaction with out the Energy Plug

You’re most likely acquainted with the significance of correct redaction. Hopefully, you’ve learn horror tales about confidential data being uncovered by attorneys making an attempt PDF-based redactions improperly. Your senior companions might not. However that’s okay, as a result of the trusty black Sharpie by no means fails them.

To individuals who keep in mind the Pentagon Papers, “confidentiality” means a thick, black, everlasting line throughout delicate data. The Sharpie presents the tactile satisfaction of manually crossing out textual content, plus the joys of unintentionally revealing a phrase or two. Nothing provides you the excessive of serving to a shopper just like the unmistakable scent of a contemporary marker. Companions recognize that, even in a high-tech world, generally you must get your palms soiled.

Thumbs Up for USB Drives

Whilst you might joke about companions’ mistrust of expertise or love of Dictaphones, generally they’re on the leading edge…of an earlier era. That’s how they know that, whereas cloud storage may be hacked, a USB thumb drive is ceaselessly. Why would you need shopper recordsdata in a faraway cloud when “safe information storage” can reside within the depths of your briefcase (no backpacks for senior companions)? USB thumb drives change the anger of short-term Web outages with the thrilling seek for a misplaced thumb drive full of unencrypted confidential paperwork.

As Reginald P. Thistleton, III, Esq., defined, over lunch on the membership, naturally, “Whereas the cloud is unsafe, I’ll danger shedding recordsdata in my automotive, the dry cleaners, the nineteenth gap, or elsewhere. Moreover, I like being hands-on with the computer systems. Can’t do this with the cloud. A number of the USB drives don’t match my new laptop computer, however my Dremel instrument solved that drawback.”

Wrap-Up

Don’t at all times give attention to the brand new shiny tech. Generally folks do issues the previous manner for a motive. However ensure their motive is cheap. When you acknowledge a bit a lot of your self above, check out our Authorized Tech Discipline Information to start out reevaluating your tech stack.

Final up to date March twenty seventh, 2025