Legal Technology Overview - A Paralegal Skills Course

Overview. This skills course describes the important role of technology, applications, and software in the efficient operation of a law office or law department. It also illustrates how the right approach to these legal tech tools can enable paralegals, lawyers, law clerks, legal interns, legal assistants, and others to optimize their use of time, complete tasks and matters faster, and successfully manage busy case loads and matter dockets. This is not a software development course and is focused on paralegal and related students and occupations.

It is not intended to be a step-by-step tutorial, however it includes comprehensive overview on legal technologies and apps along with examples, illustrations, and tips for improving or charting out a plan for learning more.

Effective Approach to Legal Tech. The course starts by describing the purpose of legal technology from the core software that is used by nearly everyone to the more specialized apps and tools used by different practice areas. Importantly, it provides the student a valuable way to think about and approach technology as an indispensable tool for efficiency and for personal effectiveness. It also briefly discusses some of the ethical considerations unique to the use of software and applications in the legal setting. Categories of legal tech and apps covered include: word processing and office applications, law practice management, time and billing, document management, document assembly and automation, communication and collaboration apps, legal research web-apps, and next generation legal tech tools such as knowledge management systems, legal quality assurance, process automation, and others.

Overview of Important Application Types. Importantly, while the course spotlights some specific advanced tools in word processing and other core software that can be useful for most law offices and legal departments, it is not taught as a step-by-step tutorial for specific applications. This is because each specific practice setting and law firm will have its own mix of unique software. The course does provide a good overview of the major classes of software and applications, describing their general purpose, illustrating how they improve efficiency in the law office and help make paralegals more effective. Students can use the exercises and handouts to map out their own plan for further learning of specific applications that are relevant to their position or area of focus.

Concise and Practical Skills Course. The course includes extensive lecture and visual materials; however, it is not intended to substitute for post-secondary instruction in legal research and writing for paralegals. This course is also not intended to be continuing education and is not qualified for such credit in any jurisdiction. The course focuses on paralegals in the U.S. and is intended to be a highly practical skill building overview useful both to paralegals in training who want to supplement their formal studies or current paralegals who want to sharpen everyday skills to help them improve performance on the job.

Advanced Technologies, Data Analytics, and the Future. We also briefly explore the potential role of the latest and most advanced technologies and how leveraging them can help optimize our approach to case work, priorities, drafting, and potentially bring more job satisfaction for paralegals and attorneys. This inclusion discussion on automation and related technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI).

The lessons focus on the United States (US) legal system and are taught primarily in English. The course may also be applicable to other common law legal systems (e.g., India, United Kingdom - UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia).