"What lawyer surfs the web in court?"

"Dear Millennial Law Prof:

Enough with the laptops! I've heard all the reasons why I should allow students to use them in class, but here's one good one to ban them: what competent lawyer will surf the web in court?"

Good question. There are a lot of issues wrapped up in this one question. A big one is the difference between using a laptop and using the Internet. For now, though, let's set that aside and look at the more practice-oriented than law-school-oriented issue. I think this is really about envisioning the future of law practice. As Prof. David Thomson is want to say, our job is preparing students for their future, not our past.

When I was in law school [sic 'em bears], we were told that lawyers had to have their attention everywhere at once: the witness in the box, the jury, the judge, opposing counsel, the door into the courtroom. For generations of lawyers, attending to multiple tasks at once (see where this is going?) was a new skill they learned in law school and honed in practice. Now, multi-tasking is something that students come to law school already knowing how to do. Certainly, very few of them know how to do it with the focus and precision required of lawyer. But the multi-tasking that Millennials have grown up with is not so different in kind from the multi-tasking that's part of our craft. Opening the trial notebook to exactly the right place in the deposition, flipping through the well-worn and dog-eared (or Post-It flagged!) rules of evidence, and maintaining a rhythm to cross-examination are all multi-tasking skills. Access to a laptop and an Internet connection makes most of these tasks easier, not harder.

So what lawyer will surf the web in court? My guess is that, in the future, all of the good ones will.