Links from today's class

In an effort to address a couple of loose ends that came up in class today, here are two links and observations from today's class:

Talking of automating legal processes / practice and some of the less desirable directions that could go brought to mind this cautionary tale. Some law firms seem to have developed a business model based on 1) finding defendants automatically (i.e. by screening the Web), 2) automating demand letters and law suits and sending a ton of them, and 3) usually setting the price of settlement at just about what it would cost to defend the case.

It is not always perfect. (Click on the PDF link near the bottom to see the actual demand letter.)

While we talked a little about ethics and lawyer use of new technology, lawyer use of e-mail was once controversial too. In the mid 1990s state bar associations released many different opinions about the issue. Here is one from 1997 when the Vermont Bar Association released an advisory ethics opinion approving of lawyer use of e-mail, primarily because e-mail technologies "appear no less secure than the ordinary fax or telephone communication."

Speaking of ethics - would lawyers not still have an ethical duty to "supervise" work that is done for them by computers? Assuming that the letter in the first example is as bad as some of the comments imply, should the law office that sent it be subject to sanctions?