Winter 2006 Survey of Technology for Professional Development

Executive Summary        

The full survey report is published in the February 2006 issue of Professional Development Quarterly. It updates the findings of a Summer 2001 technology survey, analyzes the trends in the intervening 5 years, and quotes explanatory comments.

I. Survey Respondents

Number and type of responding organizations: 16 law offices, all private law firms, responded to the survey: 14 U.S.-based and 2 Canada-based firms.

Organization size ranges from 120 to 3,000 lawyers, and averages 632 lawyers. In all, the respondents employ over 16,000 practicing lawyers.

Geographic scope: The responding organizations have anywhere from 2 offices to more than 50. The average number of offices is 11.

PD and Technology Staffing: Staffing of the professional development function has increased since the 2001 survey, to an average ratio of 1 full-time PD staffer per 150 attorneys (in 2001 the ratio was 1:201). Staffing of the IT/MIS function has increased even more, with 11 IT/MIS staff members per PD staff member in 2006 (4:1 in 2001).

Respondent subsets: Most of the data is reported for all respondents in the aggregate. In a few instances, however, there were marked differences between larger (500+ lawyers) and smaller (<500 lawyers) firms' responses and those subsets are separately reported.

II. Survey Findings

A. Technology for formal instruction

1. Traditional classroom-type courses are offered by all 16 respondents, up to 220 courses a year. In 15 of those firms the course faculty use up to 5 technology tools to support their teaching. Computer slides such as PowerPoint continue to be the first-choice tool in the classroom, but the use of Web/Intranet-based resources has moved up to third place from sixth in 2001, and the use of overhead projectors/document cameras has dropped from second place to fourth.

2. Live distance courses, up to 200 a year, are delivered to the firms' remote offices by any or all of videoconference, telephone conference, and Web conference, in that order of preference. While the rankings are the same as in 2001, Web conferencing has increased tenfold since 2001. The greatest advantage of distance programming, according to the respondents, is increased firm-wide participation/inclusion/cohesion; its greatest disadvantage is technical difficulties.

3. On-demand/self-study resources are maintained at 94% of the responding firms (up from 87% in 2001). While videotapes are still the preferred media format, CDs/DVDs have jumped from 4th to 2nd place and e-Learning courses are a new phenomenon that occupies both 5th (internal courses) and 6th (external courses) place in the rankings. The expanded availability of CLE credit appears to have played a role in the growing availability and use of these resources since 2001. PLI is mentioned by two respondents as a preferred resource provider.

B. Technology support for other developmental activities

The extent to which other developmental activities are conducted and/or supported online differs by size of firm, having gone up overall in the larger firms (500+ lawyers) and, with the prominent exception of performance appraisal, gone down in the smaller ones (<500 lawyers). Performance appraisal is the developmental activity with the most widely-used technology support in all sizes of firms, with smaller firms showing even higher technology usage than larger ones for this one program. In second place, work product/model document files are stored and indexed online by the great majority of respondents. Remaining online activities range from "Publish in-house training calendar" in third place to "Publish directory of in-house experts" in tenth. Four respondents mentioned the viDesktop/viEval suite of products as a preferred application.

C. Technology support for managing the PD program

Overall technology use for management and administration of the PD program is up slightly since 2001, and is similar at larger and smaller firms except in 3 areas: tracking course attendance, delivering course materials, and tracking CLE compliance. Smaller firms are using technology more for the first function, and less for the second and third, than are the larger ones. The top spot in the rankings is occupied by technology use to "Generate CLE applications," which has made a huge leap up from 8th place in 2001. One respondent mentioned Reqwired as a preferred provider.

D. General technology issues

1. Most valuable application honors go to "Evaluation and survey software," with the viDesktop/viEval suite of products being named by four respondents. Eleven additional applications are mentioned and ranked in this category.

2. In contrast to 2001, where complaints about the performance of technology tools were numerous and lengthy, only four technology applications were identified as not useful in the 2006 survey, and two of those were internally developed. Each of the four was mentioned only once, so there is no leader in this category.

3. As in 2001, a "New or improved intranet" was the Most wanted technology improvement.

Order the full survey report here.