The Second Box

       The second box identified here is the computer case that holds the output of a lawyer’s work on a disk -- most frequently, a hard drive.

       As mundane as this second box might initially seem, the parameters of this box are huge obstacles to the effective representatives of indigent persons. These parameters are an obstacle to cost effective representation, which affect each of the skills of lawyers attempting to serve their indigent clients.

Some Lawyers Do Not Input into the Computer

  Many lawyers today are still producing their written work-product within the parameters of a dictating machine, by scribbling on a legal pad, by scratching out names on an old copied document or some such similar system, where, later, another person is given the material to be placed in a readable form on the computer disk that later is printed to become the lawyer’s written work-product. Many lawyers cannot even access this work-product on the computer disk without someone’s assistance.

 The same masses of lawyers who are using outdated methods of producing their written work-product usually only develop this written work-product while sitting behind a desk at their office. These lawyers have no access to information stored on their “office” computer from their home or some other location.

 Excuses used by these lawyers for not being engaged with their computers and not being computer literate range from, “I’m paid to be a lawyer, not a typist” to “I’m too busy and besides, I can’t type”.

Get with it or Get Gone

  Lawyers who are not computer-input literate constitute a whole different aspect of the parameters of this second box. These parameters are too elementary to warrant more than a mere warning to these lawyers that there is no place for them in the cadre of people attempting to represent indigent persons. These lawyers are neither cost effective nor innovative enough to be earning a pay check that could otherwise be used in indigent defense.

Computer Literacy is only the Start of being Computer Productive

  Not only must today’s effective advocate for indigent persons be able to input into the conventional computer box’s hard drive, the effective lawyer must be able to write to the Internet.