It’s Hard to Teach an Old Trial Lawyer New Techs

         When I started law practice back when Jimmy Carter was President, a trial lawyer had only two items in his or her briefcase: a legal pad and a number 2 pencil.

         But these days, when a trial lawyer goes to court, she generally takes with her an iPhone, a laptop, a Power Point projector, a laser printer, a smart board, a Blackberry, a Raspberry, three paralegals, two Sherpas and a mountain goat.

         We have gone from legal pads to iPads.

         Since I’m a sexagenarian trial lawyer (and there’s nothing more exciting than a sexagenarian trial lawyer), I’m behind the curve on all these developments in legal technology.  While I do have an iPhone, I generally just use it to make or receive phone calls.  For me, my cell phone is just a high-tech version of an old CB radio.  In fact, I sometimes answer my cell phone by saying in my best Jerry Reed-voice, “Breaker, breaker, good buddy!  Got your ears on?”

        I do not have an iPad.  I still make notes with a Ticonderoga Number 2 pencil on long sheets of yellow lined paper.

        But I don’t want to come across like some lawyer version of Dana Carvey’s grumpy old man on Saturday Night Live many years ago.  (“We didn’t have air conditioning, and we didn’t have deodorant, and in the summer it got hot and we sweated and we smelled bad…and we liked it!”)

        I fully recognize the importance of modern legal technology in a courtroom.  Accordingly, every time I go to court these days, I take a smart young woman with me.  Not a smart phone, a smart woman.  More specifically, I take a smart young woman who knows how to design a Power Point presentation, set it up in the courtroom, and then just hand me the clicker or the laser pointer.

        Even at my age, I’m able to stand in front of a jury alongside a Power Point screen and push the clicker so that exhibits magically appear on a courtroom jumbotron.  But if I have to set up a Power Point presentation myself, I stumble around and come across as the techno nerd of the year.

       And my fellow lawyers, there’s nothing more pathetic than the site of an old geeky, techno nerd lawyer who is trying unsuccessfully to set up a Power Point.  If you want to see great satire on this, go on the internet (and even I know how to go on the internet) and Google “If the Gettysburg Address was done by Power Point.”  Abe Lincoln was a great trial lawyer, but if he had had Power Point, the Confederacy might have won the Civil War.

       I have not yet bought one of them fancy-shmansy electronic legal pads.  I just can’t imagine that I could enter something into an iPad faster than I can write something down on a legal pad, even though all the smart young lawyers I work with tell me I could.  They also tell me that an iPad could store all sorts of information for me that I wouldn’t even have to write down, and could do all sort of other e-tasks for me.  I’ll buy an iPad once they have one that can shine my shoes, cut my grass, fetch me a Starbucks latte, and wash and wax my car.

       Let’s face it.  It’s hard to teach an old sexagenarian trial lawyer dog new techs.  But I recognize it’s a new day, and that’s why I keep taking smart young female lawyers with me to court to help me try a case with all the latest bells and whistles.

       I am concerned that one of these days, I will be replaced by a robotic lawyer who can conduct a virtual voir dire, opening statement, direct and cross e-examination and closing argument at the push of a button.  

       But there are still a lot of senior citizens serving on juries these days.  As a rule, they are not as impressed with high tech presentations.  They still like to hear an old trial lawyer with grey hair tell stories, even if he does sound like Dana Carvey’s grumpy old man.