A Lawyer Explains Why There is a Computer in Her Pen
by Legal Practice Intelligence
"As a lawyer, if I were allowed only one tool and couldn't use anything else, I would always need a pen or a pencil. I couldn't survive without a pen or a pencil" states Melbourne-based in-house lawyer Cathryn Nolan.
The creators of the Livescribe digital pen must have been thinking along the same lines. Their thinking took an interesting turn. To them, the next logical development for the ordinary pen was to put a computer in it, and not only a computer, but also a voice recorder and an optical character reader.
The combination of pen, voice recorder and optical character reader in the one device has turned an ordinary pen into an empowering piece of technology. There's a huge variety of applications for such a device, one of which is the note taking requirements of legal professionals.
The Livescribe pen lets Cathryn reduce her note taking to key-words rather than masses of hard-to-read scribble. It enables her to focus on the conversation occurring in a meeting without being distracted about whether she is not writing down something important. This is possible because as she writes, the conversation (audio) is recorded and is being associated with what she is writing.
For example, if she writes a dollar sign while someone is talking about a financial issue she can later touch that part of the handwritten note and hear what was being said when she drew that symbol.
The pen connects to a computer via a USB connection so that notes can be saved to a computer.
Cathryn explained another useful application. If a PowerPoint slide deck is emailed to her prior to a meeting or presentation, she will print out the slides and take them with her to the meeting. During the meeting she will make handwritten notes on the printouts. Cathryn finds that this is especially useful for meetings that cover complex financial topics. Such meetings can be a challenge to accurately record and comprehend at the same time.
In a typical meeting note, Cathryn will write the file or matter reference at the top of the page. The handwritten note is saved with the audio of the conversation onto her computer, often as a PDF. The file number is used as a locator when searching for notes even though it is still in handwritten form.
What makes a piece of technology a great piece of technology? One school of thought says that the technology has to have a long list of functions. But what if those functions require a lot of user training and significant changes to work practices? That can lead to otherwise great technology not being adopted and in that sense the technology is effectively useless.
Another school of thought says that great technology is that which slots into the way one already works. It is not so much the long list of functions that makes it great but its ability to transform existing effort into something even more effective.
For Cathryn, typing on a computer keyboard or an iPad is nowhere near as fast or natural-feeling as pen on paper. Cathryn says that writing with a stylus on a tablet computer feels clunky. She is most comfortable with a pen and paper and the Livescribe pen fits perfectly into the way she has always worked.
Some people may have resisted buying Livescribe products in the past because they believed that special writing paper was needed, which comes at an extra cost. It is true that Livescribe requires special paper however it is possible to print this paper yourself using almost any printer and regular copy paper.
Livescribe pens can be purchased from retail outlets including Officeworks and Dick Smith. There are different models with prices starting from around $129.00.
Video below: "The Future according to Livescribe"
26 September 2011
Note: Legal Practice Intelligence thanks Cathryn Nolan for generously making available her own personal time to be interviewed for this article. She has no affiliation with the Livescribe company and agreed to be interviewed because of her enthusiasm for the product.
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