Though the law has long been a bastion of individualism in the business world, it probably will not continue to be. Increasingly, the market is forcing clients to demand that lawyers account for how they bill and to limit what they bill. Such client demands are forcing firms to try to cut costs and maximize return on each lawyer's time. Increasingly, lawyers must justify taking an interesting but insufficiently profitable case. Lawyers are not exceptions.
Technology is no longer an extravagance for the practicing attorney.
Soon it will be essential to a competitive legal practice. Lawyers and their firms are already responding to rapid changes in technology. Computers have already drastically changed the way most firms process and revise documents in complex and multiple transactions. Computers are already the standard medium of research, correspondence, and the preparation of legal forms. A recent American Corporate Counsel Association conference was devoted to re-engineering the law department.