REMEMBERING
THE HUMAN FACTOR
Samuel A. Guiberson
American
Bar Journal,
February 1995
My best discovery:
Confidence
in my own judgment.
What it is:
The
result of my positive and negative experiences with legal computing; the sum
total of what we have learned kissing a thousand high-tech frogs.
How to use it:
I take
responsibility for what technology we put in place, rather than allowing
myself to be driven by industry hype or by mimicking other lawyers.
We practice at making changes every day.
We make experimenting with alternative ways of using technology a law
office priority. Our goal is to
teach ourselves how to think about what's possible with computers and to
encourage anybody who works with us to contribute their own ideas.
What it saves:
We've
saved ourselves from the prevalent tail-chasing mentality of trying to buy
your way, rather than think your way, into a technology-capable law practice.
What it does for
us: We
no longer think of technology as an endless string of products, but as a
process of gradual (and perpetual) experimentation with the way we do work.
We now define success as learning, not owning.
I was able to move beyond the "more money than sense" phase
of law practice management as soon as I stopped believing that the technology
I was buying was capable of making our law practice modern as soon as I
plugged it in.
How I found it:
I
found the confidence to dictate my own objectives to the technology I use
under a very large pile of wasted money, obsolete know-how, and obsolete
goods. I realized that we were
relating to new technology emotionally, as if it were an end in itself, rather
than rationally, as a means to our ends.
I started thinking about newfangled technology within the framework of
an old-fashioned fundamental: focus
on the product of your work and not the products you work with.
How much it cost:
We
spend at least a tenth of our professional time running our experiment in how
to best use present and future technology in a law practice.
The return on that investment is greater skill in managing change.
