What Does Google Wave Mean For Lawyers?

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I’ve been fortunate enough to snag a tough-to-come-by invitation to Google Wave, and have been playing with it for about a week now.  Due to the fact that only a precious few invitations have come from the Wave HQ, my contact with others has been limited.  Still, it has not dulled my interest in this remarkable new platform.

Before diving into the Wave (no pun intended – until now) I want to be clear on something.  Nobody knows what this platform will be, nor the uses that will ultimately shape it.  We can only suspect that Google put a lot of time into trying to come up with some ideas for use, if only because it threw a considerable amount of developer power behind it.

What’s odd is that some pretty high-profile tech and social media folks have effectively written off Wave – Robert Scoble essentially called it worthless.  But what they fail to note is that Wave is merely a platform on which to build interesting tools and use accordingly.  It’s a good idea to bear in mind that platforms such as Twitter started out as one thing and then became what the world wanted.  So, too, with Wave.  It’s there, but it’s up to the world to decide what to do with it.

What Is Google Wave?

The first thing we need to understand is Google Wave itself. Billed by Google as “a personal communication and collaboration tool,” it’s essentially a web-based platform that lets you merge e-mail, instant messaging, wikis, and social networking in a single document – called a “Wave.”

Huh?

OK, think about this for a minute. You send me an email. I respond with a voicemail. You miss my call and shoot me an instant message. We finally get together on Twitter and decide to work on a pleading together (you’re helping me because I’m clearly headed in the wrong direction). Rather than email it to you, we work on it at the same time on the same screen.

None of this is new. Except for one major change.

If we’re using Google Wave, we can do all of this stuff on a single screen and keep our disparate conversations together.

Cool, huh? OK, let’s take it one step beyond (cue the ska music).

We’re working on this pleading and decide to get another set of eyes. You reach out to your colleague and ask for help. Colleague agrees and joins our Wave. In so doing, the colleague gets to see each and every communication we’ve had on the subject because the new addition can scroll through the entire history of the Wave.

No more looking in a million different places to cobble together an understanding of a subject, conversation, etc.

Still confused? Here’s a pretty good video to check out on the subject:

Google Wave For Client Communications

You’ve got a new client who wants to talk about a legal problem.  So you open up a new Wave to get a sense of the issues.  Client shows you some documents, points you to a website for more information, and you realize there’s something going on.  You add one of your staffers and another lawyer to the Wave so they can provide insights.

Once you decide to work on the matter, you give the client the retainer.  Client signs electronically and gives it back to you.

All through Wave.

That night you can’t sleep, so you’re researching the issues.  You pop back into the Wave and put up your findings.  Everyone else is blissfully asleep, but the Wave rolls on in their absence.  When they log back onto the Wave, it will be there for them to comment on, update, add to, and the like.

And once you’re done, you simply save the Wave to your files.  A full electronic record of client communications, right there at your fingertips.

Every time you interact with the client, you update that client’s Wave.

Google Wave As A Possible Boon To Virtual Law Firms

Take the above example and move everyone out of the office.  You’re at home in Texas, the assistant best matched to the issue is in California, and the other lawyer you want to work with is on vacation in Jakarta.  The client is in Chicago.

With Wave, it could be all in one place.  Every communication, interaction, thought, citation, pleading, idea … it’s all limitless.

Your social media outlets, emails, voicemails, notes, wikis, ideas, phone records, podcasts, PDF files … all in one place.  The ultimate collaboration.

It Could Be This, Something Else, Or More.

The truth is, what I’ve outlined above is nothing more than a bunch of guesses about what Google Wave could be – not what it is.  As Mitch Joel said in his insightful post on the subject:

At first glance, if something is new and unique it’s going to immediately cause us to recoil or shrug our shoulders. Nobody wakes up in the morning and wants their existing patterns changed (don’t believe me? try moving the coffeemaker to a different location in your office every morning and let me know how long you live). After the shock and awkwardness of the newness, and as people settle into a more regular routine with their new applications and platforms, that’s when the “a-ha!” moments start to happen.

Before you go drowning Google Wave, give it a moment to really sink it before passing judgement on it. Inevitably, we all wind up back-peddling on those initial reactions as we begin to realize that the reasons we were chastising it are the exact same reasons that make it so innovative, new, different and relevant.

The true test of Google Wave will come not now, not in 6 months, but only after we’ve all had access to it for a little awhile and have figured out how we want to play with it. It took awhile for Gmail to catch on (threaded conversations confused the heck out of a lot of people). Twitter is still a mystery to most lawyers.

One thing’s for sure, though. Google Wave is a game-changer. The way we communication is evolving, and it’s important for all of us to recognize the opportunities that may present themselves with these new platforms. Our task is to investigate the platforms, spend some time thinking about them, and resist the urge to discount them as tools for our law practices.

For some Google Wave basics, check out Lifehacker’s post on the topic.

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