Future Fridays: Should Lawyers Cut the Cord on Late-Adopters…Like Apple?

airpodsLast week, Apple’s long-expected announcement of the iPhone 7 was accompanied by an unexpected development: the elimination of headphone jacks , now replaced by wireless Air Pods to the tune of $159 per set.

Not surprisingly, Apple’s move produced polarized reactions. On the one side, are critics such as the Verge’s Nilay Patel, who termed Apple’s move as user-hostile and stupid, or Venture Beat’s Jordan Novet, who listed a bunch of reasons why it stinks that the iPhone 7 has no headset jack (notably added cost to replace existing headphones and buy a new jack or AirPods if the ones that came with the pone are lost)/

On the other hand, Forbes’ Chuck Jones (admittedly, an Apple stockholder, as am I)  says that the criticisms over the new jack-less phone are much ado about nothing since users who prefer a headset can default to the jack. Carolina Milanesi at Recode. realizes that Apple’s new headset is a boon to early adopters whom she praises for their willingness to “buy into the future without knowing what the immediate benefits will be.”

Milanesi’s view is one that I — and probably most first-generation law bloggers — can relate to. When I took up blogging at MyShingle at the end of 2002, I never imagined that it would produce any benefits at all, especially when I attracted about 30 readers a week. But the concept of self-publishing and interacting with readers through comments was so compelling and even more, such a radical departure from the old system of peer-reviewed law reviews and bar journal articles published six-months after the fact and destined to a life of obscurity that I couldn’t resist blogging’s siren song.

On the other hand, what we lawyers gain from tech on a personal level may differ from what our clients may want – just as Apple’s desire to be perceived as constantly innovating isn’t always compatible with its customers’ wishes. The question is: when our use of tech diverges from what our clients need, should we lawyers react like Apple and cut the cord? Or should we continue to serve them in a business-as-usual fashion.

As recently as five years ago, my response would have been clear: the clients’ demands prevail. So if a client preferred that bills be sent by mail, or wanted to transmit document by fax or meet me in-person, I’d have agreed, no questions asked, even though I greatly favored all-electronic and online, all the time.  These days, however, I’m not so sure. So much of my work takes place in courts and before agencies where e-filing is standard practice that it’s rare for me to put a check in the mail or pick up a piece of paper (though I still favor print to read complicated regulations or lengthy briefs).

For this reason, my firm really isn’t set up to handle paper-preferring clients efficiently.  Waiting to receive papers from the client and then printing copies out and sending them to the client for review slows down my workflow and may disrupt other parts of my practice. As a result, unless a case is truly compelling or involves a high risk matter where email isn’t sufficiently secure (not typical for my practice), I’m unlikely to accept any more matters from clients who won’t agree to communicate electronically.

Of course, this isn’t a particularly tough decision for me since the demographic that I serve tends to be computer savvy. The same isn’t true for lawyers serving lower-income, elderly or rural clients who are more likely to rely on paper or lack regular access to a computer (I realize that I’m over-generalizing here). These clients continue to need lawyers – but will capable lawyers be available to serve them? Many older lawyers who rely on paper are retiring, may suffer from peridementia  or simply lack the stamina to zealously represent clients, while the next generation of lawyers, trained on laptops and accustomed to paperless, online exams may lack the patience or the money to operate a heavily paper-based practice and all the accoutrements its entails such as office space, physical storage and possibly staff.

Our profession is fast approaching a critical juncture when we face a wide gap between digital haves and have nots.  Companies like Apple can cut the cord, and thumb its nose at old school customers who won’t get with the program. But much as we want to make the practice of law like Apple or Uber , we owe an obligation to ensure access to law, especially to the most vulnerable clients. Maybe that’s what sometimes holds lawyers back from innovation but it’s also what sets us apart from today’s fast-moving companies – which isn’t always a bad thing.

2 Comments

  1. Scott Bassett on September 16, 2016 at 9:50 am

    I have considered cutting the cord on less tech savvy clients – and also less tech savvy trial counsel who refer appellate cases to me. As an appellate attorney who does only family law cases, all of my clients are individuals, not companies or institutions. That is good and bad. They are not limited by Luddite corporate policies that might limit the use of certain technologies. They are free to use the tech they want – or that I ask them to use – during my representation of them.

    On the other hand, many of my clients have little tech training and even simple things like email attachments are challenging to some of them. Rather than decline to represent clients who have little tech knowledge, I try to bring them up to speed on the basics, such as email, online payments, etc. I often ask them to create a new email account to use for our case-related communication and protect it with two factor authentication. In far two many cases, their spouse or former spouse still has access to their email and other accounts because they never updated passwords, etc.

    My retainer agreement states that email will be our primary means of communication and that I will store their case file on any one of several Cloud-based file storage/sync/backup services of my choosing. It also states that invoices will be sent by email and may be paid by credit card online.

    There are also issues with referring trial counsel on occasion. Most family law is done by solo or small firm attorneys. A significant portion of them do not have decent sheet feed scanners nor do they store their files in digital (PDF) format. Instead, when I ask for a copy of the file, I receive a banker’s box of paper documents (sometimes unsorted) at my door via Fedex or UPS. That costs the client money as I have to sort through the documents and scan them to searchable PDF.

    I keep no paper. I ask clients and trial counsel not to send me original documents. When I receive originals, they are scanned and shipped back (at client expense).

    Recently, the number of referring trial counsel who keep their files in digital format has gone up, which is a pleasant surprise. Several trial counsel are perfectly capable and willing to use the button on the home page of my web site to upload one or more (or all of the) files directly to my Dropbox. That is very nice and saves me time and the client money.

    So while I am not yet willing to cut any cords with prospective clients or referring trial counsel, I am willing to push them as hard as I can to move into the 21st century.



  2. myshingle on September 16, 2016 at 2:16 pm

    Scott, I think that you have exactly the right approach.



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