ABA Report: Lawyers And Technology Trends In 2021

Next, let’s take a look at how lawyers use social media for professional purposes, beginning with their firms. It used to be that lawyers and law firms were reluctant to use social media, but times have most certainly changed! The vast majority of law firms are on board, with the data from the report showing that 81% of law firms have a presence on social media.

Not surprisingly, LinkedIn, the “professional” social media site, is the most popular network, with 42 percent of lawyers reporting that their firms use LinkedIn for marketing. Other popular law firm marketing efforts include event sponsorships (48%), email marketing (41%), Facebook (33%), print (21%), Twitter (16%), and direct mail (14%).

It’s not just law firms that use online tools for marketing; lawyers do too. According to the report, 71 percent of lawyers now personally use social media for professional purposes. Some of the more popular social media sites used by individual lawyers include LinkedIn (88%), Facebook (39%), Twitter (23%), and Instagram (13%). For more than a quarter (29%) of the lawyers who use social media, their efforts have paid off, and those lawyers report that they have had a client retain their legal services because of their professional social media presence.

Notably, the results of the report showed that blogging is falling out of favor with lawyers, but those who do blog see results. According to the report, only 27 percent of law firms have blogs, and the the bigger the law firm, the more likely it has a blog: 64 percent of firms with 100 lawyers or more have a blog, compared to only 6 percent of solo attorneys.

The number of lawyers who have their own legal-specific blogs is very small, with only 5 percent sharing that they have a legal blog. The reasons for blogging are varied and include client development (65%), career development and networking (65%), and seeking to improve their law firm website rankings (42%). Of the lawyers who have started a legal blog, 16 percent reported that they’ve stopped updating it. However, of those who continued to blog, nearly half (46%) reported that a client has retained their services because of their blog.

Hardware And Software Technology Choices

Finally, let’s turn to the technologies used by lawyers, starting with hardware. When it comes to smartphones, the most popular choice is an iPhone, with 79 percent reporting that it’s their smartphone of choice. Next up are Android phones at 18 percent, and the once-popular BlackBerry, which has fallen into disfavor and is used by a mere 1 percent of lawyers surveyed.

Given the increase in remote work due to the social distancing requirements of the pandemic, it’s no surprise to learn that the use of laptops by lawyers has increased quite a bit. Nearly half (47%) of lawyers reported that their laptop was their primary work computer, compared to just 39 percent in 2017. In comparison, desktop usage is on the decline with  less than half (49%) of lawyers sharing that their main work computer is a desktop, compared to 60 percent in 2017. Finally only 1 percent of lawyers reported that a tablet was their primary computer.

Next up, legal software. Lawyers were asked about the legal software available at law firms, and the software that was most often available was conflict checking software. The next most popular type of legal software available in law firms according to the survey results was case management or law practice management software, with 63 percent of lawyers choosing this option. Other types of software that lawyers reported were offered in their firms include specialized practice software (37%) and docket or calendar rules-based software (38%).

Finally, lawyers were asked about their perspectives on more cutting-edge legal software — specifically artificial intelligence (AI) software. Since AI is arguably still in its infancy, the number of lawyers who shared that their firms had AI software in place was quite low at only 7 percent. Lawyers from larger firms were the most likely to share that their firms used AI software with 28 percent of lawyers from firms with 500 lawyers or more reporting that their firms had invested in AI software.

Although only a small number of lawyers currently use this type of software, nearly a quarter of respondents (22%) indicated that they expected that AI-based tools to become mainstream in the legal profession within three years, and only a very small minority — 6 percent of lawyers surveyed — believed that AI software was already mainstream.

Those are some of the most notable statistics from the report. Of course, there’s a lot more where that came from. Make sure to read the report in its entirety for additional data on a host of issues relating to the legal profession, including the demographic and diversity data that I cover in this post.

How does your technology use compare to that of your colleagues? Are you and your law firm in the minority or the majority? Are you using some types of technology more often than other lawyers are? Has the pandemic increased your reliance on technology, and if so, which types? Ping me on social media and let me know!