Speaker: Trevor Coval, J.D. Candidate, 2023
What prompted you to enroll in the Modern Law Practice program?
Trevor Coval: I enrolled in the Modern Law Practice program because I understand that the the growing importance of technology intersecting with law. And in my corporations class, Professor [Bill] Henderson had frequently stressed how a lot of the low level legal tasks that often entry level associates and paralegals are doing can be replaced by technology and to be done much quicker as well as for much lower costs. Understanding this and, and how technology is creeping into law, I had heard that this is a great program to sort of get an introduction to how lawyers are using these programs and these applications to save their companies or save their clients time as well as money. And so it was primarily from my
How have the knowledge, skills & abilities you learned in this program benefited you?
Trevor Coval: The knowledge and skills that I've acquired from the Modern Law Practice class I think apply both at a high level, as well as a granular level. At the granular level, we were exposed to several different tools in class, including Term Scout as well as a couple of others that are tools that lawyers use every single day in transactional drafting. So I think that having the exposure in law school to these tools that I'm likely to come across in practice is very helpful. Also at a higher level, I think that the knowledge that I gained is the familiarity and comfortability of working with new tools in law and seeing how while we might have only worked with two or three, that there are a lot more out there. And that it's always good to explore those new options, and sort of always be finding ways that you can improve the legal industry and save your clients time and money.
What is the #1 thing that you want to tell others who are considering enrolling in the Modern Law Practice program?
Trevor Coval: The number one thing I would tell people who are considering enrolling in the Modern Law Practice program is that technology in law is not going away. I think that rather than sort of going against that trend, it's important for young attorneys to be versed in technology and how it's able to replace a lot of the lower level tasks that entry level attorneys were previously doing, including document review as well as contract drafting. And so this class I think it exposes students to all the different possibilities of how technology can replace attorneys time and enable them to set their time toward more advanced tasks in law. And so even if one does not anticipate using a lot of these tools, I think that having an understanding of them is a very good skill to have coming out of law school.
