By Seyamack Kouretchian

New York Law Journal

April 26, 1995

While negotiating her new car around a tight canyon curve, a semi-truck pulls out into the middle of the street, blocking Sally's path. Frozen in terror, Sally struggles to slam the brakes and turn the wheel. The screeching tires drown out the radio and Sally braces for impact as her car smashes into the belly of the semi, launching her through the leadpaint coated windshield and into the truck, which, unfortunately for Sally, is full of asbestos sheets and silicone implants.

The next image before Sally is the sweat-covered face of an exhausted physician who mistakenly declares her dead, pulling a bed sheet over her face. Suddenly everything goes black, except for a light in the distance. As it approaches, Sally begins to make out the figure of a man, conservatively dressed in a grey chalk-stripped suit with a brightlycolored orange and pink plaid terry cloth tie. Could this be an angel coming to escort Sally to the gates of heaven? Or could it be the holy one himself? Whoever he is, Sally's mind wanders, perplexed by the logic behind the man's choice in neckwear.

Without warning, the conservatively dressed man speaks out in a deep voice that appears to come in digital stereo sound. "You are not dead! In fact, you are very much alive, albeit having suffered permanent injuries which may entitle you to compensation. I am Paul Money and my law offices have successfully represented hundreds of individuals like you injured in automobile accidents."

Exhausted and partially repulsed by the experience, Sally reaches above her head and removes her virtual reality goggles and headphones. Her journey through the files of "ambulance@money.com" was just another example of how technology will change  the face of marketing attorney services in the future. Are you prepared?

It has been said before that by the year 2000 there will be just two types of businesses- those embracing emerging technology and those looking for a good bankruptcy attorney. After all, to stay competitive and efficient in the future, businesses must learn to compete in an environment where personal communication systems, laptop computers, e-mail addresses, CD-Rom machines, and Internet access is the norm. To reject or fail to notice how this technology will change the traditional methods of doing business is to altogether fail to understand the modern marketplace.

It is estimated that some 100,000,000 computers have been sold throughout the world. As a society, we have quickly progressed past the basic 286 computer with monotone screens and dot-matrix printers. Today, options enable users to digitally record and save telephone conversations, to research through hundreds of volumes of case law in a matter of seconds, to send and receive documents from anywhere in the world with a push of a button, to process information in milli-seconds, and to reduce thousands of pages worth of discovery material to digital images which can be easily accessed from anywhere at anytime.

Unfortunately, for those not up-to-date on today's technological offerings, understanding the uses and impact of tomorrow's technology may prove even more perplexing. To further frustrate those "technologically challenged" attorneys among us, today begins a three day conference on legal technology at the New York Hilton where vendors from around the country will dazzle on-lookers with novel products that perform tasks which used to take people days to perform. Educational sessions will also be  provided to help practitioners pick and choose the most suitable products for their needs.  Although it's nice and wonderful to know that an entire law library can be replaced by

a small stack of CD-Rom diskettes accessible from each attorney's personal desktop computer, much still remains largely unaddressed. Of specific importance is the use of emerging technology to develop legal business. Only those wise and brave enough to understand emerging technologies and its potential impact on the bottom-line have ventured into this new frontier, creatively developing modern versions of traditional marketing devices.

Lets take, for example, a small and prestigious firm in the Silicon Valley. Like most firms throughout the country, this firm would send prospective clients a professionally prepared firm resume describing the firm's culture, partners, success, and specialties. The brochure's purpose was to capture the prospective client's attention by describing the firm's competence and capabilities. By including heavy stock stationary and traditional lettering and formatting styles, the firm would also attempt to convey a level of professionalism upon which trust could be based.

Today, however, that small firm is more apt to forward to its prospective clients a computer diskette. When the diskette is loaded into the prospective client's computer, much of the same information that was originally on the firm brochure is also provided. Unlike the firm brochure, however, the diskette provides options for the prospective client to review the firm's work-product (such as a sample distribution agreement or a Summary Judgment Motion), detailed biographies of the firm's partners and associates with accompanying digitized photographs of the attorneys, and question and answer sessions regarding matters of extreme importance to the prospective clients, such as billing. All of this information also has the added benefit of being copied directly onto the prospective client's hard drive with the push of a button, thereby allowing the prospective client to refer to the information whenever necessary. Finally, the diskette also provides a user prompt allowing the prospective client to create a word processing directory in which all communications with the law firm could be forever filed- thereby establishing a permanent and intimate connection with the prospective client.

Creative practitioners are also beginning to find marketing value in offering their prospective clients copies of the firm's newsletters on diskette, thereby allowing the prospective clients to download the newsletters to their computer hard drives and review the relevant information at their leisure. Newsletters on diskette also allow the loaded information to be exchanged between the prospective client and its friends, relatives, and business partners. This type of exchange only acts to further expose the firm to potential business.

E-mail transmitted newsletters have also provided practitioners with an inexpensive means to widely market their services. By offering helpful and current legal information in on-line forums and bulletin-boards, the savvy practitioner is able to establish lines of communication and information transfer which may lead to an increased client base. Some practitioners have even taken the e-mail newsletter a second step, requiring all interested recipients to pay a yearly "subscription fee". Disguised as merely helpful legal information, these e-mail newsletters and newsletters on diskette serve as marketing devices which further enhance a firm's ability to cultivate new business.

In the very near future, it will even become possible for large firms and solo practitioners alike to inexpensively develop and offer personalized on-line bulletin boards or remote-accessed servers for browsing by anyone interested in the firm's experience, specialties, success, employment, and so on. The way this will work is simple, if you discount bandwidth and data compression limitations. When an attorney hands out his business card to a prospective client, there will be a telephone number and/or Internet address located thereon entitled "Remote-World". In all likelihood, this number will be located somewhere under "Telephone", "Facsimile", "Cellular", and/or "PCS".

When the prospective client dials into "Remote-World" with his computer, he enters a bulletin board program that offers a variety of options- the types and number of options only being limited by the firm's own imagination. For example, upon access to a firm's "Remote-World" address, a welcome prompt may immediately be displayed on the screen. From there the screen can shift into a picture of an attorney's office. Along the side of the screen could be a menu offering options like "Firm Partners", "Firm Specialties", "Landmark Cases", "General Information On Copyrights", "General Information on Trademarks", "The Firm in Action" (this could be where digital full-motion audio and video of an attorney arguing before the United States Supreme Court could be located), and "E-Mail Addresses". The menu can also include an option entitled "Present Cases", allowing the firm's present clients to access certain designated documents in their case file. For obvious security reasons, however, this option would require the transmission of an individualized client password and would permit access to only a limited number of non-sensitive documents, thereby reducing the chance of unauthorized browsing.

The potential marketing benefits for such a flexible and diverse on-line system can only be imagined. In an industrialized society where, however, tomorrow's presidents, entrepreneurs, litigation managers, claims adjusters, general counsels, and injured individuals have always known the world to exist with high-technology, law firms eager to gain and/or maintain a competitive advantage must learn to creatively adapt their marketing strategies to the offerings of emerging technologies. If they don't, they may find themselves surrounded by dinosaurs, dodo birds, rotary telephones, and 8-track cassette tapes. Although the thought may prove nostalgically satisfying, it won't pay the bills.

About Coast Law Group

Coast Law Group LLP is a community-conscious law firm which provides innovative solutions to best achieve clients’ goals and objectives.  To learn more about the firm and its broad range of legal services, log on to www.coastlawgroup.com.

COAST LAW GROUP LLP

169 Saxony Rd., Ste. 204

Encinitas, CA 92024

(760) 942-8505