My Two Cents: In celebration of the World Wide Web's 30th Birthday, a look back on how it changed how lawyers work.

The World Wide Web (WWW) celebrated its 30th Birthday on April 30th! Introduced as a "global computer networked information system," it, as the Wall Street Journal puts it, "establish[ed] an information sharing-and- retrieval system that enabled the websites we still use today!" The Internet has changed how lawyers find, consume, and share information today and very well into the future! Here are some examples:

Access to Law: One significant impact is the emergence of other legal research platforms, which have disrupted traditional platforms' monopoly on delivering legal information. The competition has eased access and lowered the cost of these providers. Meanwhile, the availability of the WWW significantly decelerated the need to visit brick and motar law libraries for legal research. (The first more subtle deceleration being "libraries" delivered on CDs.) When was the last time you had to spend time running down to the library hoping the right book was correctly shelved (or was that just in law school where students may hide books from others? 🙃). All the while hoping to get your work done before it closes. Does anyone remember how to Shepardize case law by book? 🤪

Competition: The WWW has increased competition and greater accessibility for clients seeking legal services. Multiple lawyer review sites (many, IMHO, are worthless) allow potential clients to review others' experiences with lawyers to help them find the right attorney (meanwhile, Google Business seems to be taking over many of these "review sites"). Lawyers can now reach potential clients through the WWW, targeting a specific client criterion - age, interest, location, etc. - Just make sure you are following the appropriate state bar rules!

Global Access: The scale of law firms has also changed due to the WWW, with law firms now able to operate across different jurisdictions and reach more clients globally. (Just make sure you follow the various bar association regulations for each jurisdiction (if necessary) along with your own!). The WWW has changed law firms' staffing composition structure in two critical ways, both pre- and post-hiring models. Before hiring, law firms now have access to a more extensive pool of candidates through online job postings, social media platforms, and professional websites. After hiring, the Internet has affected how law firms achieve client outcomes by providing lawyers with quick and easy access to legal research databases anywhere they have access to a computer and the Internet. This allows them to stay up to date with their cases, work from almost anywhere, and not be too constrained by time zone differences (I once had a clerk working remotely by 12 time zones - we'd talk in my morning/her evening or visa vie. It was great! I'd go to sleep and wake up with her done and delivered!!!). This has also affected the need for or at least the size of brick-and-mortar offices.

"Brick & Mortar" Footprint/Work From Anywhere: The democratized Internet has made it easier for lawyers to access users through e-mail and social media. With web e-mail, users can access their e-mails from anywhere in the world. This helped start a growing trend of lawyers practicing in virtual offices. Virtual offices allowed many solo and small firm practitioners to forgo the need for costly downtown office space and allow them to work from their own office at home. This practice grew when the COVID pandemic required traditional "brick and mortar" offices to shut down and force many to work from home. People saw the advantages of working from home, like saving time traveling to and from work, saving office leasing monies, flexibility in working from home and getting more work done without water-cooler distractions. Plus, Chatbots, VOIP allowing virtual receptionists, and other customer service applications have enabled online conversations between firms' lawyers and their clients from anywhere, enabling more efficient communication and delivery of legal services.

Saving Trees and the Environment: Cloud-based technologies have also allowed for repositories and digital platforms, eliminating the need for multiple paper copies for "physical" discovery production, courier services to deliver stacks of paper documents, and keeping an up-to-date copy of your office file on paper when you travel. All of this can easily be maintained on a computer tablet or laptop. With mobile phone data roaming and Wi-Fi, lawyers can sync their computers with other office members instantaneously to keep a client's file up-to-date. Plus, lawyers can stay up-to-date with current laws and precedents on-the-go without any hassle.

Ease of communications with the courts and agencies: The WWW has changed the legal landscape by introducing court electronic filing systems that allow lawyers to file legal paperwork online. A filing deadline typically means until midnight (but confirm with your court and judge's rules and orders). In the past, in order to meet that deadline, you'd need to have your brief done earlier: You would need to print an appropriate number of copies, run down to the courthouse, and submit it at the court midnight drop box (I've done a couple myself). But now that time can be used to finalize your brief as you can file it (for many courts) online! Meanwhile, judges and lawyers can also collaborate more efficiently using e-mail. Additionally, the WWW has made it easier for lawyers to share information with colleagues worldwide, making group communications instant regardless of the time zone. 

A Mixed Blessing? As lawyers became more reliant on the WWW to do their work, they also have had to contend with many problems that come with it. Granted, the days of slow dial-up internet speeds are long gone! (Oh, the dreaded communications sound when you first connnect!) But the internet did bring on online computer bugs or viruses crashing, erasing, or holding hostage our law firm's computers and information? On the other hand, lawyers need not wait for or go out and purchase new CDs (which recently turned 40) every time there is an update in their computer's operating system, law library, anti-virus and other software programs; they can just download it from the net! Yet, spam and faux e-mails, instant messages, and the like, are bombarding our individual internet windows with lottery wins in foreign companies, a long-lost relative needing cash immediately, and offerings that are just too good to be true! 🙄 And of course, when the internet goes out, our access to the cloud "disappears!" This blocks access to our work and worse yet to the court we need to make that midnight filing!!!

The WWW has significantly changed how legal professionals approach their job since its release in 1993. Technological developments have transformed our paper-based profession into an evolved work requiring lawyers and clerks to improve their typing skills, their knowledge of technology and software, and adapt to digital platforms. THE ONE THING THAT HAS NOT CHANGED is as a lawyer, you must check your work and your staff's work - Use reliable sources on the WWW, make sure the results from your computer's calendar due date calculation and spell check programs are correct, and check the writing and sources from anything you draft in ChatGTP - it's been known to sometimes get things wrong and just to make stuff up! 

MTC.

Happy Lawyering!!!