Marcus on the e-Lawyer

Rick Marcus has published an article titled, "The Electronic Lawyer," 58 DePaul L. Rev. 263 (2009)(available on HeinOnline), as part of a symposium called "The Challenge of 2020: Preparing a Civil Justice Reform Agenda for the Coming Decade." Rick acknowledges the many impacts that electronic communications have had, and will have, on the practice of law. He further acknowledges that electronic technologies may well portend a revolution in the medical profession. But he doubts that any analogous revolution is about to happen in the legal profession. He also cautions those who wax nostalgic about the golden age of lawyer-statesmen and who would attribute the worst features of modern law practice to techological advances. Electronic technologies "are only to a limited extent the cause of those aspects of practice that tempt some lawyers to despair," and the "current age, for all its difficulties, may have significant advantages over the [past]."