The ethical duty to constantly remain aware of technology changes in the legal sector has become essential for lawyers in virtually all jurisdictions. The issue then becomes how these legal professionals can constantly and consistently fulfill this duty. This can be quite difficult considering the fact that lawyers already have a lot on their hands and this will be an additional task.
However, staying abreast of new trends in the legal technology front doesn’t have to be an herculean task, and indeed it isn’t one. There are a lot of resources available at lawyers’ fingertips which they probably do not even know about. This article highlights these resources and points their attention in the right direction.
These tools will make it easy for lawyers to go on with managing their practice even more effeciently and remaining knowledgeable about technological changes. In addition, these tools and resources will also teach them how to maximally utilize any latest technology.
Websites and Blogs
There are many blogs that majorly contain legal technology topics. There are several legal blogs that focus on several topics with the inclusion of the most recent trends with regards to technology in the legal sphere. However, these blogs are so many and it may be difficult to determine which blogs are the most suitable for you. A worldwide legal news sites newly introduced by Lexblog can, however, help solve this difficulty.
This news website effectively curates diverse posts from legal blogs from different parts of the world. As it stands, more than 19,000 such blogs are already part of this network, and there are several channels on the network already dealing with different legal topics.
Thus, to help you maintain steady awareness of changes in the legal technology sphere, you should consider following some of the channels on the network site such as the privacy channel, the management channel and the technology channel.
Podcasts
Podcasting isn’t a new innovation, but it just began gaining more popularity among lawyers. Some have attributed the reason for the increasing popularity to the massive success of Serial, a podcast that borders on legal matters, among other reasons.
Whatever the reason may be, legal podcasting has gotten more popular and some of these podcasts are actually quite helpful. The good thing is that you can listen to these podcasts from anywhere and at any time, be it on your way to or back from work or when you are taking a break.
Some of the popular helpful podcasts that will definitely keep technological changes and development in the legal world within your reach include, LawNext where the host interviews legal innovators and entrepreneurs. There are also podcasts where the podcasters talk about the core business of the law with the inclusion of the role of technology in law practice.
Several bar associations, both local and state, as well as different software providers that offer legal technology materials sometimes make educational webinar available for free. In addition, some of these organizations offer free guides and ebooks that focus on managing the law practice and legal technology all designed to ensure a more efficient running of your firm. It is advisable that when you finally get these online sources that offer these helpful resources for free, make it a duty to regularly check. You can subscribe for newsletters and updates if possible, and by doing that you do not miss any offering or update.
Legal Research Resources
There are also free tools for legal research online and Google Scholar is one of such tools. Google Scholar is free, very detailed and can be used with so much ease.
Tools that are developed on artificial intelligence have also begun to prove very useful in carrying out legal research. These tools can help bring out only the most important details for your query and also provide faster results.
Some companies that offer such AI tools for legal research for free include Ross with its EVA product. This product allows you to upload your legal document for the content to be analyzed by this software. Upon analysis, it provides you with more legal resources based on the topics that are relevant in the particular document you uploaded. Casetext is also another company that lets you upload a memorandum or brief into its A.I. tool known as CARA. This tool analyzes your document’s content and gives you several other relevant authorities.