Quotes

“We are moving away from text-based collaboration, the limitation of narrow bandwidth. We now recognize that human communication is multidimentional. Accordingly, lawyers must become voice smiths and image smiths in the same way they are effective in oral advocacy.”
– Sam Guiberson, Trial Attorney.

“Psychological studies show that only 7 percent of your credibility comes from your message itself; 38 percent comes from the qualities of your voice and speech; and 55 percent comes from the visual clues you give with your appearance, posture, gestures and body language as you speak.”
− Bert Decker, Have to be Believed to be Heard.

“Visuals can increase understanding of a concept, show relationships, highlight importance, clarify, capture interest and increase retention. Detailed statistics are easier to grasp when displayed on a chart. Flow charts can easily show processes and procedures, and organizational charts can depict functions and relationships. Bulleted lists of key words captivate, emphasize, strengthen and motivate.”
− Elizabeth Hunt.

“If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a simple pie chart or bar graph can be worth a whole spreadsheet full of numbers.”
– Sue Hinkin.

“By 9:00 am, when a typical trial jury begins to hear evidence, participants will have been exposed to 300 ads, each striving to be more visually appealing than the last. They will have learned about 83% of what they know from visual information and only 11 percent from what they hear. Their alert attention span will range from one to 10 minutes.

What this all adds up to is that today’s trial lawyers must try cases visually in order to win over increasingly visually oriented juries.”
– J. Ric Gass, trial lawyers. Kravit. Gass & Weber.

“By using computers to make the system more accessible, lawyers can increase public satisfaction with the system and with all those – including lawyers – who work in it. . . Another area in which computers can be helpful is making all of us not only more efficient lawyers, but more competent lawyers,.: “[O]ne of the saddest things about a judge’s job is seeing possibly meritorious cases lost because of lawyer error . . .. naturally, no computer can make a competent lawyer out of an incompetent one. But technology can help keep otherwise good lawyers from making mistakes . . what really is important is that the organized Bar . . . aggressively seek out newer and better ways of doing things.”
− Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, Dec 1993 Arizona Attorney.

“Probably the two most important ingredients for successfully implementing law firm technology are leadership and training. The first comes from the top; if the leaders of the firm do not lead the way to technology, the rest of the firm will struggle needlessly and probably unsuccessfully, only partially achieving the benefits technology has to offer. Similarly, if everyone in the firm is not properly trained, then the technology investment will not be fully realized.”
– Nicholas Wallwork, Beshers, Muchmore and Wallwork, P.C. Reality Today, A Prototype of the Law Firm of the Future. (www.bmwlawyers.com).

In the Bible, David took a major risk that would not have looked good in strategy meetings. A cybercorp newcomer needs less raw heroism than that exhibited by the biblical hero; it can use new ideas to exploit an old company’s weaknesses. It can use newer technology, virtual mechanisms, and electronic marketing. Because of its size, it can build a cozier relationship with customers. David can win in many corporate situations because Goliath is loaded down with baggage of an earlier era.

Old corporations often have old cultures, inappropriate to the mercurial cybercorp age. They have cumbersome structures and politics. Their computers are snarled up in spaghetti-like software that is murder to change. They pay lip service to re-engineering themselves but make only mechanical changes within the present structure-when that structure ought to be scrapped.
− Cyberdavid Rocks Goliath

“Today’s technology makes possible virtual space and virtual operations. A small company does not need expensive offices; some employees can work at home. Key players may live in different cities but be linked electronically. A small company can be a virtual company.”
− James Martin, The Wired Society.

“Complex litigation can be a costly, tedious and time-consuming drain on the litigants and their lawyers. But automated litigation support can help solve these problems . . . . Nobody benefits if legal staff spends hundreds of hours chasing papers. If all of this time is billed, the client pays too much. If the firm writes some of it off, then the firm is losing money.”
– Clifford Shnier

“It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be…. This, in turn, means that our statesmen, our businessmen, our everyman must take on a science fictional way of thinking.”
− Isaac Asimov

“The reality is that the Internet is no more insecure than any other medium of commerce, such as bank, postal or telephone credit card transactions. But Internet security concerns cannot be understated either, because computerized tools such as network “sniffer’s” are employed by hackers to sort, filter and intercept sensitive information from a “network”.
− Jerry Mechling, Director of Strategic Computing and Telecommunications, Harvard University.

“Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.”
– Popular Mechanics − 1949.

“Man is still the most extraordinary computer of all.”
– John F. Kennedy (1917 – 1963), U.S. Democratic politician, President. Speech, 21 May 1963.

“Justice Sandra Day O’Connor sees technology s a valuable tool for improving not only the quality and efficiency of legal services delivered, but al the quality of life of those in the legal profession. Acknowledging that great strides have been made in the delivery of legal services through technology, she suggests that we seize the opportunity to improve services even further through the use of legal materials to be in a digital format such as images or full text, videoconferencing and other specialized computer applications. As she so eloquently states, ‘Technology is never a panacea. It won’t make our laws more just, or make lawyers more ethical or more collegial. But it is a valuable tool: a tool for making ourselves more efficient and more competent; a tool for making the legal system more accessible; a tool for making the legal profession easier on the legal professional.’”
− The role of Technology in the Legal Profession. Law Practice Management Magazine, March 1994, Justice Sandra Day O’ Connor.