For the past few months, my batchmates and I have been doing our internship in the University of the Philippines Office of Legal Aid ("UP OLA"). We have been doing our fair share of lawyerly work. It's a taste of what is to come after we graduate and get our licenses, and what is really notable is that some of us like doing things for UP OLA, while some do not.
In any case, if there be no internet, and for that matter the technology we have now, things would probably be worse and many more would detest doing such internship. Well, "detest" is a strong word, but the context should be considered - the last semester before graduation is not cake walk, and as there are currently "issues" affecting everyone (probably better discussed in another blog), doing internship in UP OLA is not as fun nor enjoyable as it should be.
In all my years in law school, I have been with various professors, who are different in their own ways. Some professors are not as young as the others, and they provide us good insight on what was the process of the courts and even their law offices during their time. We usually got the impression that things were really hard back then, considering that pleadings to be filed to courts are to be typewritten, and an error in an allegation or probably a typo means (1) scrapping the whole pleading and (2) retyping everything from the beginning. I also consider the stamina needed for using a typewriter as compared to a desktop or a laptop.I think about the scenario and try imagining myself being in that situation, and I cannot help but cringe. The general scenario when a law student is doing internship in UP OLA is that all pleadings are first to be emailed to the supervising lawyer, and the supervising lawyer usually returns it with the revisions, suggested additions, and other relevant points pertinent to the pleading. The intern then revises it, and returns it to the supervising lawyer for final checking, unless the said supervising lawyer says that the corrections are so minute that the pleading could be filed after the errors are corrected. Some corrections, however, are so major that this process of sending, returning and revising takes a few tries.
The internet and technology definitely made the lives of lawyers easier, and as UP OLA has shown me, even of law interns (even though emails are sent to the yahoo group, to be seen by everyone). The communication between lawyers in the same law firm definitely became easier. The scenario is the same in UP OLA, as the communication is through email. In fact, while I was drafting a major petition, my supervising lawyer was still the one who checked the final draft, even though she was abroad. Deadlines are also more easily complied with, because printing five copies of a ten-page pleading can be done in a matter of seconds, while typing each copy would take a few hours. Also, if there are revisions, then such could be changed in a matter of minutes, unlike that of a typewritten pleading, which needs to be revised for a few hours depending on the volume of the revisions.
Of course, the internet did not completely change lawyering for the better. As I have been hearing from upper-batch friends who are now lawyers, as more work could be done today by one individual in less time, more cases are allotted to that individual. This causes a lawyer to burnout more easily. In addition, being in front of a laptop poses a lot of distractions, especially when it is DSL. May it be catching-up on a favorite show, chatting, online gaming, facebook, or even pornography, a lawyer could easily digress from what he or she is doing because of all the temptation that the internet brings. In another point of view, the internet opens the doors to information on relevant laws, and as the lawyers get consumed with the information he or she needs to digest and use in his or her pleading, he or she allots more time to work and less on other activities which are also beneficial for a healthy and happy life. It makes him or her less social, and closes the possibility for more physical activities. Finally, as is addressed by the first cartoon of this blog, some lawyers become overly dependent on the technology in his grasp, when such information could be recovered faster if he or she has just studied well; some lawyers now do not study as well because he or she knows that the information could be recovered through just a few clicks.In any case, the internet still is a more advantageous tool for a lawyer. However, the tool is only as good as the person who wields its, and therefore the capacity to use the internet in an advantageous manner is still dependent on that lawyer's methodologies and discipline.
Cartoons from:
http://www.emsnetwork.com/cartoons/Drawings/cartoon_14.jpg
http://lib.law.washington.edu/announce/nlw08/email.gif
http://www.courtoons.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/cartoonist.jpg
http://www.glasbergen.com/images/tc8.gif
No comments:
Post a Comment