doing econometrics

at BYU in my master’s program

I wrote computer programs in Cobalt and

Fortran and I ran them on an old IBM

360. you know this is the real to real

computers that you see in the old movie

War Games you know a room full of

reel-to-reel computers

and I would Reserve time because I was

doing these economic regressions the

sorts of things that you do in

econometrics

when I got

into the practice of law

we were using dictaphones that had

magnetic belts that were about four

inches wide

and I was told that I had to dictate my

work

because

well

we use correcting selectrics and they

had secretaries who typed

not lawyers

so I was disciplined to learn to use my

dictaphone which I still use because

it’s more efficient for me

to dictate

then to keyboard

most lawyers today keyboard their own

stuff and I have a reason why that’s a

bad idea but

after a few years they came out with uh

computers

as

typewriters

so they had the screen

I had this background in computers

so I went to a couple of guys

who were computer Geniuses and I said I

want a program

that I can use to display documents in

the courtroom

they said what

and so I described what I wanted

and they wrote that program for me and I

used that in the courtroom

it blew the other side away

it made millionaires of these two guys

because they

saw this idea and what a great idea it

was

so they have improved and improved and

improved that program and what I use

today is a descendant of that fir very

first program I had them write for me in

about 19

81 82 something like that when computers

as we know them were in their infancy

and then we get PCS and they continue to

develop and then we I I began doing dos

coding in my computer at the office now

they’ve gotten even more sophisticated

we got windows

and I write many programs that interface

between Word Perfect my word processing

program rather than Microsoft Word

because I can write programs for word

perfect and I can’t for Microsoft and I

can make Word Perfect interface with my

presentation program

so that I’m sitting here at my desk when

I do something in the word perfect

document here it displays in the trial

presentation it makes it very very

efficient so I got into it because

I was involved in computers as an

econometrician

until my wife talked me how to be an

economist and into being a lawyer

so is it easy transition for me and I

don’t write the programs now I’ve done a

lot of major beta testing in these

programs

and I think anything that you do that is

repetitive you can do with the computer

let me give an example

one of the toughest things that happens

right before trial and that makes other

lawyers fret

is they suddenly have to designate their

trial exhibits a final trial exhibit

list

and they’ll have their secretary or

someone some sometimes it’s a baby

lawyer even

type up

keyboard it’s not typing anymore it’s

keyboarding

the trial exhibit list

well I wrote a program that I use with

word perfect and I I don’t know if you

can see it here

but on my uh

sheets here

because trolley zip number let me show

you how easily I do that I’m reading the

documents and I know this is important

and so right here if you can see my

screen I decide that’s a good trial

exhibit I do

bam just like that and it puts that

script in there

just like that

then I tell my paralegal well we need

the trial exhibit list I’ve written a

program that goes through this

chronology picks every one of those out

those put them in order give them

numbers and the description and it’s

done and I can do a trial exhibit list

of

100 or more documents

in about 30 minutes

and it’s flawless

it works

I give it to the clerk

and it doesn’t take two or three days so

computers make you more efficient as a

lawyer and I say if you’re not using the

computer

then you’re committing malpractice