Some have asked why I don’t enable comments for this blog. The answer is two fold. First, moderating and filtering the “spam” wasn’t worth the benefit. The second reason is that there are better and more effective forums for these discussions. They include “The Virtual Lawyer” group on LinkedIn.com and my new group “Future Automation (Documents, Data and the Cloud)” also on LinkedIn. I am also managing a group for HotDocs Wizards, Amicus Attorney Wizards, and “The Time Matters Connection”. So if you find anything I write provocative enough to comment on, I hope you go to one of those groups and have your say.
Future Automation represents an attempt to bring together the thinkers and developers who are shaping the future of document assembly and legal practice management. It’s goal is to be forward thinking and positive; to celebrate what is good; and to occasionally point out what is not yet good enough. Future Automation recognizes that much of software is still “too hard” for people to grasp. Much of that difficulty has been in the hardware and management of networks. In this “Wild Wild West” with malicious attacks, trojans and virus, just running a server can be an act of faith, or a very expensive proposition. So much energy has been directed to “protecting” and “defending” that many have forgot that computers are about “doing” and planning, and structuring data for quick retrieval, and integrating data for “document assembly” and other forms of automation.
And so, Future Automation is about looking at a bring future for software that bring real productivity to lawyers and business people; to celebrate software that “makes lawyers smarter”, that “makes lawyers more productive”, and that “makes lawyers richer”. For face it; if the technology is not bringing a tangible return, why invest in it.