Page 14 - Delaware Lawyer - Winter 2022

FEATURE | THE TECHNOLOGY DIFFERENCE
The rising generation at Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor: Lauren Russell, Travis Maurer and Caleb Johnson.
p.m. to 5:00 p.m.18 During the dark days of the pandemic, when the line between office and home was often non-existent, I often wondered how things would have been different if our courts had not changed the filing deadline.
Office Attire
When I started practicing in 1999, law-firm office attire consisted of suits. Not suits when you went to court, but suits every day. In the early 2000s, however, a shift to busi- ness casual began. Depending on the firm, business casual may have been a Friday thing or it may have been a complete shift from suits every day to business casual all week long. Over time, business casual seemed to win out over suits on a permanent basis. During the pandemic, there was a further shift from business casual to sweats all day, every day (with an oc- casional suit jacket on top).19
Cell Phones
This may be one of the most sig- nificant and swiftest changes in the practice of law and in life overall. Over the last 20 years, we have gone from cell phones being “here and there” to being ubiquitous. The for- mat of the cell phone has also com- pletely changed during this period. Twenty years ago, flip phones were avantgarde, though their capabilities were largely limited to phone calls and text messages. Today, we all walk around with cell phones that are es- sentially miniature computers. The first Blackberry phones were intro- duced in 2002 (three years after I started practicing!). Today, Blackber- ries are no longer even manufactured. Cell phones have given us more flex- ibility to be away from the office and have allowed us to balance work and life a little more easily. On the other hand, cell phones are a mobile of- fice location that makes us reachable
at all times, often blurring the lines between life and work. Unless you actively seek out the limited remain- ing locations on Earth with limited or no mobile ser vice, “unplugging” is a constant challenge.
Zoom
Zoom was first released in 2011, though most of us probably had not heard of it until 2020. Our courts used Zoom during the pandemic. Our office used Zoom for weekly firm meetings when we were all working from home. Zoom kept our courts open, kept us working, and kept us connected. What would we have done without it over the last two years?
The last four decades have seen plenty of technological change that has impacted the practice of law. What’s in store for the next 40 years? Check back in the Delaware Lawyer
12 DELAWARE LAWYER WINTER 2022
80th anniversar y Winter 2062.
issue, coming in
PHOTO BY BUD KEEGAN