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The Case for Digital Legal Briefs

The legal world has been evolving towards digitization for the past 30 years. Legal documents have transitioned into an almost fully digitized space, starting with the approval of PACER in 1988, opening electronic records to the public and moving into the current practice of mandatory e-filing across all federal and most state courts.

The logical evolution to digital briefs

E-filing solved many issues surrounding transparency, cost, and accessibility for attorneys, judges, clients, and the general public. Transitioning legal briefs from paper versions to digital versions was the logical next step in the ongoing digital evolution of the legal field. 

At TypeLaw, we saw the opportunity to be part of the future and we built our business around creating quality digital legal briefs, using AI to automate previously time-consuming formatting and hyperlinking. 

We agree with the research of the American Bar Association (ABA) that digital briefs are the way of the future and are fundamentally superior to traditional paper briefs: 

“This is the next frontier—briefs that are not only more accessible, portable, and storable than paper briefs, but actually better to read and use than paper briefs.”-ABA

The many benefits of digital legal briefs

Digital legal briefs provide a variety of benefits to a variety of users, including: 

  • Standardized formatting
    • Briefs are in a PDF file that can be read on any electronic device and are accessible to all courts regardless of their e-filing requirements
  • Ongoing editing capability
    • Updates can be made real-time to edit the brief contents (i.e. tables and hyperlinks) and maintain continuity within the brief and appendix documents
  • Reduced cost and overhead
    • Filing, processing, and storage costs are significantly reduced with digital briefs compared to traditional paper
  • Increased access to the public, courts, and attorneys
    • Digital briefs can be easily accessed on a variety of devices by courts, attorneys, and members of the public 
  • Digital integration and increased functionality
    • Improved capability to add citations, references, graphics, tables, et al, to provide comprehensive support for a case and integrate seamlessly into the online world

The world of digital legal briefs is rapidly changing, and at TypeLaw, we want our customers to be at the forefront of that change.