Georgia Law Blog

I will tell everybody right off the bat that I am a huge fan and implementer of office technology.  The legal community and judiciary, steeped in tradition, has been slow to embrace technology. I, too, am very traditional and have even been accused of being old fashioned.  However, my use of technology and reliance upon it have paid big dividends. 

I used to handle quite a bit of federal litigation.  Federal courts have been paperless for several years.  I think Georgia's state courts have fallen behind the times in a big way, although change in coming.  For example, the courts in Fulton County, which covers most of the City of Atlanta, now allow electronic filing for many types of cases.  I am well aware that funding is low for technology in the courts, especially in smaller counties.  What I believe needs to happen is a state-wide plan of action to address technology needs of the state court system.  How beneficial would it be if e-filing was the norm in every Georgia county, no matter the size and resources? This could be accomplished in a state-wide and uniform system.  In fact, I found an article about automation in the courts.  It was written in 1998.  In reading the article I really wonder how far we have really come and how much further we could progress.

For those attorneys out there who are skeptical or resistant to going paperless, I will say this: at the end of the day it is absolutely worth the effort, even though it may be an uphill battle.  For me, it was only slightly uphill.

I will not discuss the intricacies of exactly how I transformed by practice to being paperless at the risk of boring you.  There are other blogs out there to help with things such as Adobe and the .pdf format. Here are a few: Adobe For Legal Professionals and PDF For Lawyers. The efficiency that I gained has been tremendous.  Sure there have been hardware upgrades such as a larger hard drive on our server computer, large flat screen monitors, thumb (USB) drives, portable printers, etc.  Back-up has also been a concern.  However, I will say that these costs have been minimal compared to the efficiency being paperless brings. 

A good quote: "It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but  the one most responsive to change."