by Chris Boyd, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati productive, investing time to learn how to use it should pay off. Fi
Lexis Practice Advisor
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Top 5 Summer Tips: Using Technology by Chris Boyd, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
This practice note outlines five practical tips you can use as a summer associate to help you leverage technology while practicing law. Most law firms have useful technology resources for attorneys. However, law students are typically not familiar with these tools, and the tools can benefit summer associates only if learned and used. The following tips will help you understand how to take advantage of such resources to be more effective and efficient, which should benefit you both during the summer and later as a junior associate.
1. Invest the time necessary to learn how to use the tools.
productive, investing time to learn how to use it should
The first tip has nothing to do with technology per se, but
orientation. The firm will probably have a program set
rather with mindset. Specifically, take time to learn how
up to teach you the basics of its core technology. The
to use a firm’s tools. Learning a new way to do something
session won’t be the most thrilling part of your summer,
better takes effort and patience, both of which can be
but if you listen carefully and start using the fundamentals
challenging. But because firms have usually invested
right away, you’ll avoid frustration and wasted time down
significantly in technology to make attorneys more
the road.
pay off. First, pay attention during the summer associate
Matter and expertise search. Other internal research tools can help you find precedential matters or relevant internal experts. Sometimes, the best way to start is by finding a similar past case or deal and the documents associated with it. Other times, you may want to find an attorney who knows a lot about a particular topic and ask for a few minutes of advice. Most firms have ways of finding similar past matters or internal experts; learn how to use those tools so that you can take advantage of them at the appropriate time.
In addition, ask the firm’s technology training team for their top 10 most useful tips for junior associates. While the trainers may have covered some of these during the orientation, there will probably be a few new and useful items on the top 10 list. They may also have top 10 lists for specific practice areas, so if you know you’ll be spending a lot of time doing securities work or patent litigation, get those lists as well and learn them.
2. Master the firm’s tools for internal searches. As a summer associate, you’ll likely be doing the equivalent of junior associate tasks. Many of those tasks start with an internal search, so learning the firm’s own search technologies will be necessary to complete your work as a summer associate (and make you a better junior associate as well when the time comes). Below are some typical internal searches along with tools you can use to do them. Document search. Internal research often involves finding useful precedents. For example, for a transactional assignment, you might need to find relevant acquisition agreements, commercial contracts, or financing documents. For a litigation assignment, you might need to find relevant research memos, discovery requests, or briefs. Most firms will have invested in technology to help associates find better precedents faster, including (a) a document management system, (b) collections of highquality approved precedents, and (c) enterprise search tools. Learning how to use these tools well will make the job of finding valuable starting point documents much easier.
Practice-specific search tools. Some firms have invested in tools dedicated to single practices, such as calendaring and docketing tools for litigators and patent attorneys. If you’ll be working on projects in one of these practices, spend the time necessary to learn the dedicated tools. Knowledge management. Some firms refer to the entire collection of internal research tools as “knowledge management” or “KM,” and have also built a team of KM professionals to support the attorneys. If the firm does have such a group, get to know them, as they’ll be able to show you lots of ways to mine a firm’s internal knowledge base for useful precedents.
3. Master the firm’s tools for external research. Because some summer associate work projects will involve external searches as well as internal ones, it’s important to learn how to use external research tools as well. Researching case law and other precedents via Lexis or Westlaw is a typical summer associate assignment. You likely already have done this in law school, and the firm you work for will also teach you how to use these tools. The Lexis Practice Advisor Summer Associate Resource Kit has a separate article on legal writing and research, so please consult that for further legal research tips. That said, there are some other external research tools that your firm may have, as noted below. Litigation Several legal research tools based on artificial intelligence have launched in the past few years, and they can help you supplement or augment the research you do via traditional tools. For example, Lex Machina is a legal analytics platform that provides competitive intelligence on the judges, courts, attorneys, and parties involved in a
case. Lex Machina can be used to (a) compare courtroom trends and judge behavior over time, (b) research what arguments and motion strategies work before your judge, (c) compare law firm performance based on actual litigation results, and (d) compare the performance and litigation history of individual parties or party groups. Ravel Law is another legal research, analytics, and visualization tool that can help you research judges and case law quickly. Ravel’s platform includes judge analytics, search visualization, and case analytics. There are other advanced tools as well; check with your firm’s research librarians for guidance. Corporate and Securities Corporate and securities junior associates frequently need to find relevant precedents to help guide the drafting of registration statements, periodic disclosure documents, and other securities filings. If you’re doing a project requiring such research, learn how to use the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) EDGAR website to find precedential filings, as well as applicable regulations and other SEC materials. Your firm may have invested in research tools that make it easier to find precedents, such as Intelligize, as well as Corporate Counsel or other periodicals that provide useful guidance.
4. Learn the tools for producing deliverables. Once you’ve done the research, you’re ready to draft the document or presentation, prepare the spreadsheet, write the email, or otherwise generate a deliverable. Learning the firm’s technology for doing so can make your summer go more smoothly. Law firms typically use Microsoft Word for documents. If you need to learn to use Word, definitely ask the firm’s technology team for help. In addition, because contracts, briefs, and other deliverables typically go through multiple revisions, supervising attorneys frequently want to see how the latest version differs from the prior one; learn how to use the firm’s redlining tool or Word’s Track Changes to show the revisions. Some firms have invested in document automation tools, such as Contract Express or HotDocs, to generate frequently-used form documents more quickly and
consistently. An automated document typically asks the user to answer online questions, and then generates a document or suite of documents that incorporates the answers. If you’re working on an assignment that could be done using a document automation tool, learn how to use the tool, as you’ll typically be able to prepare the deliverables faster and better by doing so. Finally, most firms use some form of document management system (DMS) to store client documents. While it adds some minor extra steps to the process of opening or saving a document, a DMS is critical for a law firm to meet its client confidentiality and records management obligations. Learn how to use the key DMS functions, including checking documents out and back in, creating new versions, saving documents to (and accessing documents from) workspaces, and email integration.
5. Install the firm’s apps and other mobility tools. While most junior associate work is typically done on a desktop or laptop computer, many firms have invested in apps to enable attorneys to do many tasks on their mobile devices, including time entry, looking up attorney profiles and contact information, finding and emailing documents, IM and chat, and others. Find out the full suite of apps your firm offers and install those that’ll save you time and ultimately make you a more efficient attorney.
Christopher Boyd Senior Director of Professional Services, Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich, Rosati Chris Boyd is the Senior Director of Professional Services for Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati in Palo Alto, California. Chris leads the firm’s attorney recruiting, diversity, knowledge management, professional development, research and information services, and work allocation professionals. They work with firm and practice group leaders to develop, deploy and continuously improve recruiting and integration processes, talent management programs, and practice support tools that support the firm’s business goals and help the firm deliver more value to clients. Chris has written and presented extensively about law firm knowledge management and professional development. He received the “Knowledge Management Professional of the Year” award from the International Legal Technology Association in 2016.
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