[newbusox]

I couldn't agree more. Having worked at a large law firm, and with an offer to work for one in the near future, I am amazed at the amount of "cut and paste" resources these law firms have available at their disposal (including research, memoranda,briefs, etc.). It's unthinkable how much work is replicated from law firm to law firm, although I understand liability concerns and the way these law firms are constituted which make solving this problem (and lawyers likely see this as substantially less of a problem, given that they get paid to do this) very challenging. This plus the fact that most large law firms I am aware of are practically institutionally opposed to change (like implementing new technologies that might make the firm more efficient, or permitting the sort of ideas we're discussing here). Part of it is how lawyers are trained, part of it is how law firms operate, part of it is grounded in liability concerns... but, given how badly this recession has hurt the legal market, I am optimistic that we will see lawyers and law firms change for the better in the years to come--it's just going to take deep-seated institutional changes to get there.