Legal Practice Technology and Law: Case

Legal Practice Technology and Law: Cases and Materials familiarizes readers with American Bar Association amended Model Rule 1.1 and added comment 8 in order to explain the risks of misusing technology in legal practice. The book teaches law students, as well as both newly minted and seasoned attorneys, how to avoid mistakes and the concomitant risk of suspension or disbarment. Readers learn the critical importance of staying current with the law and its practice regarding all legal-practice technologies.

This casebook discusses common-law and statutory rules that state and federal courts employ to resolve law-office-technology disputes, particularly the legal and/or ethical actions of solo and small-firm attorneys against clients, allegedly third-party victims, state disciplinary boards, and the designers, manufacturers, suppliers, and providers of technological goods and services.

Three important questions will be answered. Will virtual and technologically rich legal practices replace traditional brick-and-mortar law practices? What are the benefits and risks of solo practitioners' accelerated use of and reliance on law-practice technology? Can existing ethical rules be applied to resolve virtual-practice or law-office technology disputes? Thoroughly researched and expertly written, Legal Practice Technology and Law is ideal for courses that address the topic.

Willy E. Rice earned his J.D. at the University of Texas, Austin and his Ph.D. at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, and pursued post-doctoral studies at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Rice is now a professor of law at St. Mary's University School of Law in San Antonio, Texas, where he is a past recipient of the university's Distinguished Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching. In a career spanning more than thirty years, he has researched, written about, and taught insurance and consumer rights laws and served as an expert for numerous plaintiffs and insurance defense law firms. Dr. Rice is a member of the Gerson-Lehrman Group of International Experts.