The advancements we currently benefit from within the legal sector could not have been possible without previous technological advancements. This article explores a few of the key technologies that made it possible for us to develop the understanding of legality that we currently have.
The digital age has entered and is surpassing industry 4.0 – the digitisation of our manufacturing processes. In fact, every industry and sector of business on the entire planet depends on the technological advancements which begin there and encompass the whole landscape of the modern working world. So it is in sectors like real estate and healthcare, as it is with law and legality.
Technology has shaped the way we practice law. Besides modern databases making cases easily searchable, advancements as far back as the first computer has helped shape the working world of the modern legal practitioner.
What technologies impact the modern legal sector? These examples may be of interest.
It Started with a Typewriter
The first point we can measure massive changes in how we practise law is from the development not of writing but of mechanised writing. Almost as soon as the typewriter was invented, legal teams were using it to finish official documentation, giving it a professional air. Since only those with money could afford mechanised writing devices, this added to the status of practising law.
The typewriter advanced efficiency and productivity while providing better legal documentation. This later developed further due to the introduction of the word processing unit, and thenceforth to the computer as we know it today.
And Progressed to the Word Document
Let’s mention Microsoft Word here because this is the ultimate cultivation of formatted documentation derived from these earlier tools. Without Word, law documents would be far harder to document. The first electrical typewriter was one of Edison’s inventions and came about in 1872. Word was not created until October in 1983. That’s a lot of time to enter past cases into searchable digital files.
The Telephone Sped Up Legal Practices
Developed in the latter half of the 19th century, the telephone was the brainchild of Alexander Graham Bell. Imagine this device’s impact on the speed at which things happened in the notoriously slow legal world.
Although much of the documentation side of legal work still had to take place, but now there was less guesswork. When you can call ahead and ensure your client is ready for court, you have less to compete with during your casework.
The telephone might have begun as a useful tool used in legal offices, but it developed into so much more. This tech has become the Smart Phone and opened up a whole other world of use.
Until the Smart Phone made us More Productive
The modern law officer moves from town to town, place to place, and court to court. Always on the go, they have to utilise travel time as if it were office time. One of the main devices which lets us do this is the smart phone.
The invention of the internet combined with having that internet in your pocket means you can email, call, write documents, and even file paperwork all online. You don’t even need to be in the office. In modern times, this helped the legal sector survive the Covid crisis.
The mobile phone began as a concept created by IBM engineer Frank Canova sometime in the 1990s. What started as a concept has become a priceless tool in conducting business across all sectors.
Books Worked Just Fine
When you think of legal practices, you think of scrolls and scales. Judgement, balance, and fairness all come to mind. While the old days saw vast legal libraries used to store the multitude of past cases and legal histories, the modern world uses the internet in the same way.
We have all human knowledge at our fingertips, in our pockets, most hours of the day. With the digitisation of the legal world, files and cases have moved online. They may be company-specific or they may belong to colleges and universities – but the information on any case you can imagine is out there if you have the will to find it.
Until the Internet Worked Better
You can track down any case history you like if you know how to use a good online search engine. Around 1995, we saw the first websites, with refinement and development, the next two decades saw the mass migration of documentation online, where it is safer and fire-proof.
Kindles and Smartphones have replaced the scrolls and scales of the lawyers of the past. Interestingly, this change has made the law more easily accessible to all. Now, those on the receiving end of the hand of justice can research their own cases, find their precedents, and help their lawyers better represent them.
And all of this through technological advancements which helped develop the legal world.
