Ready to Wear: Portable smart and augmented reality devices can supercharge lawyers' practices
Smart eyeglasses and pendants. Vision Pro panoramas. Immersive cameras. All are part of the future of legal technology—and it looks bright.
That’s according to Sean Harrington, director of the AI and Legal Tech Studio at Arizona State University College of Law, and Jeff Richardson, an appellate litigator in the New Orleans office of Adams & Reese and creator of the iPhone JD website.
The two spoke about wearable and augmented devices during a Friday afternoon panel discussion at ABA Techshow.
“If you know the theme of the conference this year, it’s two letters: AI. AI is important,” Richardson said. “But there is something else in what’s next in legal technology. It is AR/VR [augumented reality/virtual reality]. It is a world where technology is augmenting the world around us.”
In the case of smart glasses, lawyers could benefit by integrating them into their practice, Harrington said.
“For example, when you are looking at a contract, having a sophisticated AI system tell you when to start flagging things in a contract,” Harrington said. “While it is not used for that right now, you can easily imagine for attorneys.”
Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses were discussed at length by both panelists. Harrington said a version of the eyewear has the ability to take screenshots of a video very quickly, feed it into the AI and give an interpretation of it to the wearer. Several news articles presented during a PowerPoint presentation heralded smart glasses coming from Apple and Samsung.
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As technology evolves rapidly, Richardson finds what his “early-generation” Apple Vision Pro can do today to be impressive.
“I remember the day when someone told me, ‘Jeff, instead of having just one monitor on your desk, you should have two monitors,’” he recalled. “But then I got one, and guess what? I am still using multiple monitors. Wouldn’t it be cool if you could make the monitor whatever size you wanted—however big or small without taking any space on your desk?”
The Apple Vision Pro allows lawyers to look at multiple screens virtually and privately anywhere, without needing multiple computer monitors or worrying about people seeing information on your screen. Both, they said, are wins for lawyers.
Other devices discussed included smart pendants that you wear. They can record your entire day’s activities, including tracking emotional responses and analyzing what you eat. And lawyers are already using data from smartwatches for evidence. They cited the Nancy Guthrie abduction, where data from an Apple watch was used to help pinpoint the time she was abducted.
Of course, the panelists both acknowledged that with the new wearable tech there are some ethical questions, such as recording people without consent, client confidentiality and data retention concerns.
“It comes down to judgment,” Richardson said.
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