Techies and law

Brett Burney explains the techie world to the legal one

Recently I attended a workshop on the use of the iPad for legal professionals sponsored by the State Bar of Michigan. It was fascinating.

In preparation for same, I purchased an iPad. (My choice? A new roof for the garage or a new iPad. The garage can wait a month.) I love it and recommend it to everyone, if only for the Angry Birds game.

Brett Burney, was the speaker. He is a lawyer who spends his time on bridging the gap between the legal and technology frontiers of electronic discovery while also explaining to lawyers how to use their new toy, the iPad. 

There are so many ways the iPad can assist lawyers in their everyday lives, both professionally and personally. While the iPad can't take the place of the laptop, it can be used to view media, read documents and surf the web. It can:

• replace the stacks of paper a lawyer shuffles everyday--it is a virtual folder that holds hundreds and thousands of documents
• for hearings and trials it can hold all of the exhibits, marked and ready to be displayed to the judge and jury with a touch of a finger
• be a source of entertainment, holding music, games and movies for you to watch when a change of pace is needed. 

If you need an excuse to buy an iPad, merely think of walking into court without stacks of paper files, just your iPad. That alone should convince you of the wisdom of buying one.

Want to know more about lawyers? My collection of essays "Why do we do that?" Commentary on Lawyers and Law will be available in the fall to upload on your iPad or your favorite e-reader. Watch for it. 

The land of law and lawyers

 

I have lived in the land of the law and lawyers officially for 28 years and unofficially for 22 years before that when I married a law student and suffered the pontificating law students are prone to do with their little bit of knowledge. I left his world of law after a few years and did not officially begin my own metamorphosis from layman to lawyer until at age 48 I started my first year of law school. I was hooked and every task I have attempted lo these many years has been in the legal field, weeds and all.

I found, much to my pleased surprise, that I enjoyed the company of lawyers. We are a highly intelligent, tolerant, and funny bunch. We take on tasks that would destroy the lesser beings, representing folks from all levels of society at their worst and sometimes at their best. We joyously take on each new client that comes in the door, wanting to believe what they tell us while knowing that a little doubt is in order. After all, truth, like beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder.

When the toils of battle wore me down and I found my patience wanting, I retired from active practice. I joined the ranks of the volunteers roaming around the world assisting lawyers from other cultures with whatever they needed assisting with. Sometimes they didn’t even know that they needed the help we offered but they accepted it graciously and probably cast it aside when we left to assist others who didn’t know what they needed. I spent a year in the Republic of Moldova doing what I could to ‘save the world for democracy.’ I like to think I left something behind. I know I brought a lot back with me.

Now I spend my time writing for, about, and with lawyers. I attend legal functions, writing about them for a legal newspaper. I write essays about us, trying to help others understand our strange world. I take the words others write for their blogs, websites, and newsletters translating them into plain English that clients can understand and act upon.