Historically, paper documents have been as closely linked to lawyers as “white on rice”. The link was so strong that in the ’70′s a movie about law school students was aptly named “Paper Chase”. Practicing lawyers’ offices and desks were piled high with paper, and the piles got higher and higher with the invention of high speed copiers and computers. It was just too easy to create voluminous documents and to make multiple copies.

One of my least favorite things in the practice of law was to find a needed pleading or document in a paper file that often consumed more than one file cabinet. My other least favorite thing was to sit in a warehouse and sift through voluminous bankers boxes of documents, or to sit in my office and review a truck load of documents in a products liability case.

That has all changed to a great extent. My desk is now covered with computer monitors instead of paper. My only meaningful in-box is shown on one of those computer screens, as opposed to using the old fashioned tray in the office. My calendar and emails are shown on another screen, while work in progress is shown on a third screen. Telephone conferences are now done by video conferencing, with the video on one screen while I look at documents necessary to the call on another screen. Defendants now produce documents to me in electronic format and I am able to do word searches on them when they number in the hundreds of thousands pages. These examples are just the tip of the iceberg, but you get the point. A lawyer who is not computer savvy and willing to fully embrace the digital age is quickly becoming a dinosaur in complex products liability litigation, toxic tort and pollution litigation and mass tort litigation.

I frequently lecture at continuing legal education meetings on discovery of electronically stored information (ESI). Few lawyers fully understand how to obtain the information they need in complex litigation, due in large part to the vastness of the digital world. But those who are to remain the best must keep abreast of the developments and go, at least almost, paperless.

Lloyd Gathings