Legal practice made easy
“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read or write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.” -Alvin Toffler, Rethinking the future.
According to Tawo Eja Tawo, SAN, technology has enhanced legal practice. In the hay days of practice, communication with clients was direct, the telephone lines were not working effectively, so communication and client briefing was physical and direct; brief was written down in long hand. But with technology now, practice is much more advanced and better, the young ones of today, have brighter chances than what we had in those days.
Nowadays one can get law reports online; as the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal pronounce judgments, one can access it online not bothering themselves with hard copies of the law reports. Thus, a legal practitioner lucky to practice law in the 21st century era must be ready to follow the trend, any lawyer without an email address at this time and age is far behind in technological advancement.
As Wikipedia puts it “the information age (also known as the computer age, digital age or media age) is a period in human history characterized by the shift from traditional industry… to an economy based on information computerisation.”
At the just concluded Nigerian Bar Association Annual General Conference, every registered conferee was given a tablet installed with legalpedia which has authorities, forms and precedents of different jurisdictions etc in other to place the Nigerian legal profession at par with our counterparts in advanced legal environments.
The tablet given is not for advanced Facebook, Instagram or Whatsapp use, it is a key to the global village.
In my humble opinion, legal practitioners ought to make use of the Information Communication Technology that this century has provided, and take legal practice to the next level. The time of going to cyber café to check email is far gone except maybe for scanning and printing of documents which of course can also be done in a law firm that has the facilities.
The tablet (smart device) provides ‘stressless’ and easy ways of doing things which in turn improves legal practice. For instance, letters seeking employment which ordinarily have to be taken physically to a law firm (wherever it is) can now be sent electronically from the comfort of homes and offices. Letters can be sent to clients irrespective of their location and vice versa; reminders can be set for meetings 24 hours before the time to avoid placing unnecessary burden on the brain. Even ‘Tru Caller’, is an application that can be useful to determine who is calling.
Some readers belong to the school of thought that this is only theoretical and cannot be achieved in our Nigerian legal system knowing full well that our court rooms and most law firms are lacking in technology advancement. However, Dan Brown said in his novel ‘Inferno’ that “the decisions of our past are the architects of our present”, meaning what we do today will play a great role in determining how tomorrow would look like.
Imagine if all court processes had the email addresses of lawyers in a suit and a day before court sitting a lawyer is copied an adjournment letter that would be taken to court, to prevent the stress of rushing to court (sometimes from outside jurisdiction) just to find out the matter is not going on, subject however to the convenience of the court.
Though technology is not without its disadvantage, I believe the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages, all a lawyer needs do is find a way to tap into the computerized world and make his practice easier.
That being said, the time for lawyers to upgrade their legal practice and skill set to fit into the 21st century is now. There is no harm in finding easier ways of doing things in a law firm.
The managing partner of Eversheds LLP, a multinational corporate law firm, once said “this generation has the potential to transform the way in which the legal profession works…”
In sum, legal practitioners should own tablets for the sake of the possession alone, rather it should be used to make legal practice easy.
Godspeed!
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From the next edition, the junior lawyer’s favourite column, ‘Young Lawyers’ Column’, will now be known as ‘The Advocate with Daniel Bulusson’. This is due to changing nature of law practice and the widening of the pool of readership. Further details and feedbacks should be directed to the writer through his social media handles or to lawpages@ dailytrust.com.