1997 Technology Survey

Second Annual Technology Survey Tracks Computer Use In Wisconsin Law Firms

By Dianne Molvig

Computers have become nearly as pervasive as telephones in today's office settings, and law offices are no exception. The 1997 Law Firm Technology Survey conducted by the State Bar of Wisconsin found that among responding attorneys, nearly 98 percent reported having computers in their offices.

Still, despite apparent widespread use, sentiments toward computer technology remain all over the map, as reflected by survey respondents' write-in comments. "It's overrated," stated one attorney. "The learning curve is very high." But another wrote: "Without [computer] technology I could not compete with even small law firms. With it, I hold my own against the largest firms in the Midwest." And many lawyers probably can identify with their colleague who volunteered this reaction to computer technology: "I love it and hate it depending on whether things are going right."

Clearly, even though computers are prevalent, they're far from problem-free, according to the lawyers who use them. The second annual Bar technology survey attempted to pinpoint problems lawyers experience and track their computer usage patterns. What are the hardware and software trends among the state's law firms? How do they use computers in their day-to-day work, and how do they think those uses will change in the near future?

About the survey

Surveys were sent to a stratified random sample of 1,738 Wisconsin law firms, addressed to "managing partner." Surveys were returned by 695 firms, for a 40 percent response rate. According to the project's survey research consultant Gene Kroupa, "This response rate is sufficient to provide an accurate overview of law firms' technology usage."

Responding firms closely approximated overall State Bar membership statistics in the areas of firm size and geographic location. In a stratified random sample, the population is divided into subgroups and a random sample is then selected from each subgroup. For the technology survey, the population of Wisconsin law firms was divided into subgroups based on firm size. A random sample was then selected from each of these subgroups to obtain a representative sample based on firm size. (See Figure 1 for a breakdown of respondents.)

Richard Rodgers, a law professor at Campbell University in North Carolina and a nationally renowned expert on law office computer technology, believes Wisconsin lawyers may well be at the forefront of adopting computer technology. Contrary to what many believe, the leading edge is not in Manhattan or Los Angeles, he contends. "The solo practitioners are the ones pushing on the edges of what we can do with computers," Rodgers explains, "...and that allows you to innovate. I think you'll find more computer use among lawyers in Wisconsin than in any state I know, except possibly North Carolina."

The remainder of this article highlights some of the findings of this year's technology survey and opinions on what the results mean.

Getting out the words

Surveyed law firms were asked to rate the degree to which their firm used a computer for various functions, by marking scores ranging from "0" for no usage to "5" for high usage. Figure 2 shows the aggregate results, along with comparisons to rankings from last year's survey.

Not surprisingly, word processing and document assembly are the computer functions law offices use most. The most popular word processing software remains WordPerfect, although its usage level is down by 12 percent from last year, while Microsoft Word is up 10 percent (see Figure 3). WordPerfect 5.1 use fell about 13 percent from last year, although it remains the WordPerfect version of choice among attorneys surveyed.

"People shake their heads at how a program that's a decade old can still be the preeminent word processor for lawyers," says Green Bay lawyer Mark Pennow, chair of the Bar's Electronic Bar Services Committee. "The answer is it just works. It's the lingua franca, if you will, of word processing for lawyers."

Still, the survey numbers show that some law firms steered away from WordPerfect in the past year - a shift also reflected in the general population, according to computer industry observations. Industry observers speculate the shift may be due in part to uncertainty about WordPerfect's future since it changed ownership from Novell to Corel.

Gary Bakke of New Richmond is one lawyer who made the switch to Microsoft Word, although he now regrets it, even to the extent that he's pondering switching back to WordPerfect. "We had 12 years invested in WordPerfect," Bakke says, "but things that are intuitive for us for WordPerfect don't exist in Word. Many people are happy with Word, but I find that the better you were with WordPerfect, the less you'll like Word. Nobody told me that before I bought it."

Despite such problems, the survey indicates a shift toward Microsoft Word is under way. "Microsoft has more ability in terms of support and development dollars that go into continued improvements and upgrades to the product," says Milwaukee attorney Timothy Muth, who has long been a Microsoft Word user. "So I think the universe of choices and level of support and commitment to the product is greater for Microsoft." Microsoft Word also has become the leader in the corporate world as a whole. Notes Muth, "When I'm emailing documents back and forth to clients, I don't find many businesses who have WordPerfect outside of law firms."

On the other hand, WordPerfect committed recent strategic blunders that have disheartened at least some attorneys. Leigh Webber of Practice Management Institute, a St. Paul-based technology teaching/consulting firm, refers to one of these as the "Great Betrayal." "That has to do with the macro language," Webber explains. "If you were to add together the total cost to law firms around the country of developing all the macros they have developed over the years in using WordPerfect for DOS, my guess is it would easily be billions of dollars. But the newer versions of WordPerfect (6 for DOS, 5.1 for Windows, and so on) have a completely incompatible macro language, which means that lawyers' enormous investment in automation procedures has been made worthless. That's why a lot of firms have hung on to their WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS; they don't want to abandon all their macros."

The upshot of all of this is that selecting word processing software can be a headache for lawyers, especially in light of how central a function word processing is in any law firm. The debate over WordPerfect versus Word surely will continue.

Is change inevitable?

The DOS operating system continues to predominate in law firms, according to survey results. But while DOS is fine for word processing, many lawyers reach a point when they want more from their computer technology than DOS can give them - such as accessing the Internet. Hence, Webber sees many firms that have put off buying new computers in recent years now taking the plunge. "I've seen a lot of that in the past year," he notes. "And of course when you buy a new computer, you can't buy one that doesn't have Windows 95 on it."

As Figure 4 shows, Wisconsin law firms' use of Windows 95 is up by 29 percent since last year's survey, while use of DOS and Windows 3.x dropped by roughly 15 percent and 10 percent respectively. Another 18 percent of survey respondents plan to convert to Windows 95 within the next 12 months.

The trend toward Windows 95 also ties into choice of word processing software. As Webber points out, "The difference in pain between going from WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS to WordPerfect for Windows, versus going from WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS to Microsoft Word for Windows, is very little. It's painful either way." That factor, plus the doubts about WordPerfect's strategic direction, may spur more lawyers to turn to Microsoft Word.

As for computer hardware, Figure 5 indicates that the 486 PC has become the computer most commonly found in law offices (an average of about five per office), with the Pentium ranking second (an average of about four per office). Pentium use gained somewhat since the 1996 survey, while 486 use stayed about the same and 386 use dropped significantly. Of the respondents that intend to purchase new computers over the next 12 months, most expect to purchase Pentiums.

"With the advent of 32-bit computing - that is, computing that requires Pentiums - coming along, I think we're due soon for a second wave of [computer] purchasing," Pennow predicts. "Lawyers who equipped their offices with 486s and swore that would be the last computer they'd buy for a long time, are in for a significant economic surprise in the next couple years when support for the 16-bit applications drops off, and the 32-bit Pentium world becomes the de facto standard."

The "Net" gains

Almost 50 percent of Wisconsin lawyers now have Internet access, a sizable jump from last year's 30 percent figure. Another 11 percent plan to hook up to the Internet within the next year.

Librarian Jane Colwin sees those numbers reflected in major changes in how attorneys and judges use the State Law Library, which has long offered a photocopy/fax information service. "A lot of lawyers used to call us when they read about an opinion in the newspaper the day after the court issued it," Colwin notes. "Now they've figured out how to go to the Bar's home page and get it themselves."

The Internet provides a wealth of information: caselaw, statutes, sources for finding expert witnesses and more. By no means, however, does the Internet meet all of a lawyer's research needs - at least not yet. Major proprietors of online research services and legal publishers are moving to fill that gap.

"One of the most interesting developments," notes Ross Kodner, an attorney and owner of MicroLaw, a Milwaukee-based consulting firm, "is that there's enough substantive material now on the Internet and a large enough critical mass of people using it so that the proprietary online research services, such as Lexis and Westlaw, feel the pinch. So they're rolling out Internet-based access to their services."

While Kodner envisions continued increased use of the Internet by lawyers, that trend brings implications that are both "good and bad," he warns. "What I'm referring to is lawyers whose only computer experience is Internet-related. They don't know a lot of basics about computer usage, but have learned to be quite adept at Internet usage."

This leads to a knowledge gap that Kodner characterizes as "genuinely dangerous." One risk is that because others in the firm come to view these individuals as computer power users, which they're not, they get asked for advice they're not qualified to give. Another negative result may be an "undue emphasis on the importance of the Internet in the firm's overall ability to generate its work product and serve its clients," Kodner says.

"I don't want to sound negative because I believe the Internet is an essential tool for any firm of any type. But it's part of a whole collection of tools that a firm uses to get its job done. By focusing a lot of effort on the Internet, potentially to the detriment of core production tools, firms can suffer some serious efficiency losses. You have to put it in the proper perspective."

Barriers to using computer technology

Lack of time topped the list of reasons lawyers cited for either not adopting computer technology at all, or not learning to use it as effectively as they could in their work (see Figure 6). There was little variation in the ranking of barriers to computer use even when firm size was considered (per data not revealed in Figure 6), with the exception of financial constraints, which was less of a barrier in large firms.

In addition to the information in Figure 6, Richard Rodgers points to obstacles lawyers don't like to talk about. One stems from the belief that proficient computer usage demands being a skilled typist. "You don't have to be a Della Street typist to use a computer," Rodgers says, citing himself as a prime example. "When I get up [in front of a group of lawyers] I hold up two fingers and say, 'These are the digits with which I make my living.' My wife says I type like a pharmacist."

"The notion that you graduate from a typewriter to a computer is wrong," Rodgers adds. "Computers aren't to be considered typewriters. [Otherwise] you'll never get the benefit of computer technology, because computers can do things typewriters never dreamed of doing."

Another factor concealed behind the "I don't have the time" argument, Rodgers contends, is the fear of looking foolish. "A lawyer's ego is the size of the Goodyear blimp," he says. "They've been to law school where they're taught omniscience. If the computer makes a fool of me, there will be a crack in this veneer of omniscience. That's very hard on lawyers."

Conclusion

The State Bar will continue to track trends in how Wisconsin attorneys use computer technology in their law practices. Why? Information on trends may help individual members and various Bar groups make decisions about technology use. And survey results can help the Bar identify further opportunities to help meet members' technology and information needs.

Dianne Molvig operates Access Information Service, a Madison research, writing and editing service. She is a frequent contributor to area publications.

Wisconsin Lawyer