With nearly a million of them, you would hardly consider the American lawyer a scarce commodity. There are almost as many lawyers in Chicago as in all of Canada. But in proportion to the volume of potentially useful legal services, actual coverage is quite thin in many places. There is a continuing need for legal expertise in our complex society, and the market for reasonably priced, constructive, preventive and remedial legal services is practically inexhaustible. Making better use of our lawyers is one step toward serving that market.
Computers can help conserve lawyers and their expertise in several ways.
Preventive law seeks to reduce the number of problems needing legal attention by eliminating the source of the problems. When problems do arise, alternative dispute resolution techniques like meditation and arbitration give the parties more self-empowerment. Saving the Lawyer Deposit . The cynical view of how computers may best help save lawyers is that computers will stir up new business in the form of new subjects to litigate. Lawyers were among the first professionals to make active use of computers as devices for storing and searching vast quantities of textual information, and have also increasingly explored mechanisms for storing higher forms of legal knowledge.