Paging the Law Firm of 2020

You don’t have to watch Looper, Terminator or Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure to know that the future can be a tricky thing to predict. Even trends as close as two decades away can be difficult to see.

Think on this:

• Thirty years ago, you could find a typewriter in every office.
• Twenty years ago, we were figuring out this thing called the World Wide Web. (Remember dialing in?)
• Ten years ago, mobile phones – the kind with basic calling and texting capabilities only – became a widespread phenomenon.
• Now, mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets and applications allow us to work and play from almost anywhere.

Now, the International Legal Technology Association has launched an initiative to discover how technology and the way legal organizations use it will develop. This includes providing long-term insights into legal technology strategies for the next 10-15 years such as:

• Defining key driving forces shaping business and the legal profession
• Identifying a likely timeline of IT developments
• Examining how IT advancements can be leveraged to help enable and enhance tomorrow’s legal organizations

If you’d like to contribute to the study, ILTA invites you to answer two surveys:

• Business applications survey: http://s.zoomerang.com/s/futurehorizons
• Timelines survey: http://s.zoomerang.com/s/ILTAEmergingTech

The interim results will be covered in a keynote presentation during ILTA’s annual conference in Las Vegas. It features Rohit Talwar of Fast Future Research Ltd., who will also discuss the future of legal IT and highlight how law firms can leverage emerging technologies coupled with new paradigm thinking to change everything from firm strategies and business models to the way tomorrow’s lawyer is recruited, developed and rewarded.

The landscape of business and the technology that supports it is constantly changing. Already, legal organizations and corporate legal departments are trending away from enterprise-wide solutions to flexible, light-weight applications that can readily support their changing business processes and priorities. The legal organization that thrived 20 years ago operates very differently today and doubtless will continue to evolve as it works to accommodate the needs of its clients.

We’ll share more information on this study as it progresses.