Implementing new technology in legal firms is broken. Upper management ponders sweeping changes to the law firm’s structure that will take years to implement, while missing small low-cost changes that can be made now.

Dissatisfaction with the practice of law can often be attributed to the fact that lawyers spend nearly as much time acting as word processors as they do solving complex and interesting legal problems. Ironically, clients are also dissatisfied with the amount of time spent on document preparation. Combined it leads to lawyers facing extreme billing pressure, boredom, and burnout all at once.

When junior and mid-level associates aim to improve their legal writing, most try to be better, clearer, more concise, more persuasive, or more precise. I have yet to meet anyone who declares that they want to be a more confident legal writer. Yet if you lack confidence then increasing it is key. Confidence in your legal writing will help you meet your objectives. Training providers should take note because confidence also improves productivity and efficiency.

Written communication is the foundation of every law practice, but it is extremely time consuming—and when time-pressure is a factor, it can be an embarrassing stumbling block. So how can lawyers balance time and billing pressures with the perfectionism that the industry demands?

I’m a practicing lawyer and I’m a legal tech entrepreneur. Living in both of those worlds, I’m always amazed when I hear people speak about lawyers as if we are rare mythical beasts to be tamed and tricked into using technology.

Solo and small firm lawyers represent individuals and businesses, providing access to justice for clients whose needs would otherwise go unmet. It is a worthy practice in a profession experiencing rapid changes that are eroding the financial stability that lawyers once enjoyed.

I can vividly remember what my young associate days were like. As part of the class of 2008, I graduated with classmates who had offers rescinded or who were furloughed as the economy tanked. Good grades were no longer enough, an offer was not a guarantee of a job, there was no longer time to ramp up in an apprenticeship format, and our mountains of debt made failure not an option.

Bluebooking is a menial task and a law school hazing ritual that has no bearing on actual law practice, right? Wrong. Citing is more than just an exercise in irrational obedience.

Many law schools are failing to adequately prepare students for the profession. Historically, students were not required to participate in legal clinics, complete internships, or take practice management classes. In 2015, the American Bar Association (ABA) issued a guidance memo that clarified that schools must offer experiential learning.

Discussion about new legal tech tools has reached a fever pitch. It seems that, every day, there are new applications for artificial intelligence and blockchain. Lawyers are dreaming big and imagining ground-breaking new technologies. But what about simple technology tools that already exist? There’s powerful productivity software available—and it’s probably already installed on your computer.

Style preferences are changing. If you’re not keeping up with the changes, the people who read your documents may assume that you’re outdated, too. This is the second part of a three-part series on using Find-and-Replace.

Spellchecking and proofreading are not the same. Spellcheck is just one part of the process.

Producing high quality legal writing is vitally important to success as a lawyer—but it’s difficult to learn. We have brilliant legal writing gurus, such as Bryan Garner, Ken Adams, and Gary Kinder to guide us, yet most legal writing isn’t good. How is that possible?

Style preferences are changing. If you’re not keeping up with the changes, the people who read your documents may assume that you’re outdated, too. This is the first part of a three-part series on using Find-and-Replace.

Lawyers are struggling with basic office technology and aren’t recognizing how this hurts productivity. This is particularly true with MS Word, a program that is ubiquitous throughout legal practice, and one that, as lawyers, we believe we already know how to use. Don’t let these six myths stand in the way of getting the training you need to work smarter and get more from each day.

Diversity is important to legal tech because it brings in different perspectives, which yield different solutions. Yet, diversity is often reduced to a buzzword and a checkbox. When that happens, the legal tech industry misses out on unique and compelling stories, dynamic expertise, and connections that could convince others to embrace technology rather than resist its adoption.

Nobody likes receiving criticism. However, the truth is that when it comes to legal writing, you can learn to understand feedback differently and make it useful for your career.

Technology competence is now a requirement for all lawyers. The majority of the states have adopted revised Model Rule 1.1, so it has reached a tipping point: Technology competence has moved from optional to essential. So what do you need to do to ensure that that your tech skills are adequate? This article discusses two options for gaining technology competence: delegation and training.