Far too often, these settlement calls come on a Saturday or after hours, at a time when the lawyer can not get any information. That lawyer might very well say that if you could give him or her one button to click on that would produce that information, he or she would immediately buy whatever technology that could make that happen because the technology would solve the lawyer's business problem . A programmer might be able to give the lawyer that button to produce that customized result. Clicking on that button would set of a process, invisible to the lawyer, that pulled information transparently from a variety of underlying programs and then displayed the necessary result in an understandable and usable form. Custom approaches are funny things.
Most people have a reluctance to go that route.
On the other hand, custom can bring us closer to getting the right tool for the job, Just as the carpenter has a specialty router jig for certain cuts that saves a great deal of time, gets the job done right and allows the carpenter to enjoy the craft, a settlement calculator may do the same thing for a busy personal injury attorney. Ironically, the better the custom design and the more upfront work put into it, the more effortless and simple the results. At one point, Howard introduced me by e-mail to Grant Peterson, something of a legend in bike design circles. We had an interesting discussion about handle bars and other things, all in the context of how I would actually use a bike. Even if you don't ride a bike, the newsletter is fascinating for the glimpse it gives into how a gifted designer sees things.