Gain technology ­competence: Attend a legal technology conference

Nicole Black, BridgeTower Media Newswires

If you read my column regularly, you're no doubt familiar with my repeated mantra: lawyers need to maintain technology competence. Not only is it an ethical obligation in 38 states and counting, it's simply common sense. We live in a world where technology has impacted nearly all aspects of our lives. Practicing law like it's 1995 and ignoring technological advancements is irresponsible at best and arguably amounts to legal malpractice.

Even so, many lawyers continue to turn a blind eye to technology, in large part because the thought of trying to learn about it is overwhelming. This despite the fact that there are conferences and CLEs devoted to acquiring legal technology knowledge available to them both locally and nationally. But in my experience those conferences and CLEs are not nearly as well attended as those devoted to substantive and procedural law issues.

A decade ago, this fact disappointed me, but now it only serves to perplex me. Most lawyers readily admit that they know they need to learn more about technology, but only a small percentage of them actually make an effort to do so by taking advantage of the educational opportunities made available to them by local, state, and national bar associations.

It's 2020 and it's time for a change. New decade, new resolutions, and for those of you reluctant to embrace technology, there's no better time than the present. There are plenty of ways for you to increase your technological know-how at CLEs right in your backyard and at legal technology conferences on the other side of the country. Here are just a few great options to consider.

Check out your local and state bar associations and sign up for at least two different technology CLEs over the next year. If you're a Rochester lawyer, you're in luck. Kevin Ryan, the Monroe County Bar Association's Executive Director, is incredibly forward-thinking and as a result, you have many opportunities to learn about technology. For example, the Solo and Small Firm Section is hosting its annual conference today, which included breakout sessions on your firm's website and online marketing efforts, legal tech products you should be using, and buying legal tech in 2020.

There are also the technology CLEs sponsored by the MCBA's Technology Committee that I chair. Our next CLE will occur on March 31st: "More Tech Tips You Need To Hear." It's a live CLE that will also be available via webcast and will provide you with 60-plus technology tips to help you solve many of the day-to-day problems you encounter in your law practice.

On a state level, the New York State Bar Association now hosts an annual Tech Summit, which is devoted to legal technology issues. The second annual conference will be held on Oct. 8-9 in New York City, so why not sign up?

You might also want to consider a national legal technology conference. Here are three major conferences focused solely on legal technology that are held each year that I would recommend.

The first is LegalWeek, a very large conference held in New York City that tends to skew toward larger law firm legal technology issues, but still provides lots of sessions of interest to lawyers from firms of all sizes. Next year it will be held Feb. 1-4.

Next is ILTACon, which will be held in Nashville. This conference has also historically been targeted more toward mid-sized and large firm legal technology decision-makers, but in recent years has broadened the focus to include content of interest to lawyers and legal technology decision-makers from smaller firms. This year's conference will occur Aug. 23-27.

Last but not least is ABA TECHSHOW, a conference that targets solo and small firm lawyers seeking to incorporate technology into their practices. It's always held in Chicago and is scheduled for March 10-13 in 2021.

So if you haven't yet taken steps to incorporate technology competence into your 2020 plans, what are you waiting for? You're ethically obligated to do so and there are plenty of opportunities available to learn about legal technology in the coming year. Sign up for a CLE session or two, or even an entire conference. You've got nothing to lose and everything to gain.

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Nicole Black is a Rochester, New York attorney, author, journalist, and the Legal Technology Evangelist at MyCase legal practice management software. She is the nationally-recognized author of "Cloud Computing for Lawyers" (2012) and co-authors "Social Media for Lawyers: The Next Frontier" (2010), both published by the American Bar Association. She also co-authors "Criminal Law in New York," a Thomson Reuters treatise. She writes regular columns for Above the Law, ABA Journal, and The Daily Record, has authored hundreds of articles for other publications, and regularly speaks at conferences regarding the intersection of law and emerging technologies. She is an ABA Legal Rebel, and is listed on the Fastcase 50 and ABA LTRC Women in Legal Tech. She can be contacted at niki.black@ mycase.com.

Published: Fri, Mar 20, 2020