Why the techie talk? I'm not trying to brag about how tech-savvy I am, or how many toys I have. It just occurs to me how vastly different my daily routine has become in a few short years.
I grew up with an Atari. I thought I was hot stuff with a Commodore 64. My first laptop was a Toshiba; I could stack five Ipads front to back and they would still be thinner than that mammoth.
The practice of law is at the vanguard of the changes brought about by these remarkable devices that populate our lives these days. If your domestic attorney is embracing new technologies, you should be encouraged. Adapting to incorporate new tools and ideas is not a universal quality of legal professionals, unfortunately.
For example, I have started bringing my laptop/Ipad to every hearing and mediation. Traditionally when attorneys settle a case in court they hand write a "Memorandum of Judgment" setting forth the basic terms of the agreement. The judge signs it, and it has the force of law, but one of the attorneys still has to type a formal order, adding in any appropriate boilerplate and verbiage for the issues resolved.
You can imagine the havoc this wreaks. One lawyer's boilerplate is another lawyer's substantive change, and the client ends up paying another four hours in legal fees before getting the benefit of a deal they already made. My goal is to always have a device on-hand stocked with templates I can use to create a final settlement document the first time. My impression is that other lawyers and judges appreciate this practice. Last week for instance, I kept both parties, opposing counsel, and a mediator at my office for an extra hour while we reviewed and revised a final separation agreement and custody order. My client asked why the other side wasn't bitching about the extra time I was taken (like he was). The answer was simple - we didn't finalize documents on a case settled in mediation last month, and we were STILL haggling over the final language. I got out of the office at 7:30 that night, but with a much happier client.
