Insurance Defense Law and use of Technology

Our firm, Albareda Rosso Maluje & Nies, P.A., leverages use of technology to keep costs of insurance defense down, while enabling attorneys to focus more on the law, trial preparation and client development. We all here at the firm graduated from Shepard Broad Law Center, Nova Southeastern University in South Florida. Our school was consistently rated as the most technologically advanced law school in the country. Upon graduation we all worked for large firms. I worked at one point for Florida's largest insurance defense firm, Wicker Smith and later for the country's largest insurance defense firm, Marshall Dennehey. I noticed that a majority of the insurance defense firms were not moving as fast as the insurance companies in embracing technology. Although excellent attorneys from whom I learned how to be a trial lawyer, many of the senior partners at the firms I worked with failed to understand how e-mail worked, much less the use of smartphones, practice management software, intranets, blogs, etc. More and more insurance companies appeared to be requiring that status reports be sent via e-mail only. As such, several of my colleagues and I were able to attract several insurance companies to do business with us. We will be adding to this site information which may be useful to both our insurance company clients along with our insurance defense colleagues.

First and foremost, the firms must have input into the design of their websites. Relying on a third party will slow down the ability of firms to post useful information to clients as soon as it is learned. So, appointing a lawyer to understand website design by reading books on Dreamweaver, etc. will be worth it in the long run.

E-mail communication between adjusters and attorneys is growing at an enormous pace. IN fact, several insurance companies demand correspondence by e-mail only. Insurance defense attorneys are often out of the office at hearings, depositions, etc. How do the attorneys and adjusters communicate when either is not in the office? One is by telephone and the other by e-mail. Why not combine the two into a Smartphone (e.g., PalmOne Treo 650 or Blackberry)? I use my Treo 650 to prepare updates via e-mail to the adjusters assigned to the case. Very often, following a hearing while I am still in the Courtroom, I will send a one paragraph e-mail update (either directly on the e-mail or via Microsoft Word) to the adjuster. The adjuster will often receive the e-mail (sent via my work e-mail) and many times read it by the time I get out of the elevator. I automatically have all my e-mails sent from my Smartphone scanned into our secure network. I can also arrange to have all the e-mails automatically printed. There are many more uses of the Smartphone for insurance defense lawyers that I will touch upon at a later time. If you have any questions, whether you are a fellow insurance defense lawyer or an insurance adjuster, please post them here, e-mail me at tnies@armn-law.com or call me at 800-948-2889. I would love to speak to you about the role of technology in the insurance defense industry. You may also view our main website, which was designed by one of our attorneys, at: www.armn-law.com. Thank you.