Unlike architects or engineers or physicians, technology doesn't always show itself directly in the delivery of better quality service to our clients. Architects can use a computer to turn dreams and ideas into three-dimensional drawings that enable us to visualize what a building will look like. Engineers can test things in very different ways and can improve upon designs even before the products are built. Technology continues to transform the practice of medicine with laser surgery and non-invasive imaging. Many lawyers view technology as a tool that allows us to do the same things we have always done, only a little faster and perhaps more inexpensively.
Lawyers often think of technology in too narrow a frame.
We think of technology in terms of computers and word processing because words are what we like to deal with, especially the written or printed word. We can look at computer screens and immediately see what we've done and do what lawyers have always done, manipulate words. However, by focusing on words lawyers have failed to embrace much of the television-type technology that has most changed the world. This type of technology allows us to share one another's experiences in both a visual and an oral way, in an immediate time frame that really has made our expectations of the world very different. Today, the public witnesses debates on the legal issues of the day through a variety of media and sees unfiltered the justice system in action.