Technology’s Effect on Advocacy
How Legal Technology Can Strengthen a Lawyer’s Judgment Without Replacing It By F. Edie Mermelstein
I did not go to law school because I had always dreamed of becoming a lawyer. I went to law school because I had been a plaintiff. Before I entered the profession, I learned what it meant to place my life, my credibility, and my future in the hands of the legal system. I obtained a jury award against a defendant whose conduct had profoundly affected me. When he later attempted to discharge that judgment in bankruptcy, I refused to accept that the verdict could simply disappear. I immersed myself in bankruptcy and appellate law, worked through the record, and drafted my own appeal. Before I ever attended law school, that effort resulted in my first published opinion. The district court reversed the bankruptcy court’s discharge ruling, held the judgment nondischargeable, and overturned sanctions that had been imposed against me and my counsel. The Ninth Circuit later affirmed and adopted the district court’s published opinion. That experience did more than lead me toward a legal career. It taught me that a court can reach the right result only when the advocate gives it the record, the law, and a reliable path connecting the two.
By the time I arrived at law school, I had already been formed by appellate practice. As a certified law student, I worked on numerous appellate matters, drafted briefs in the Ninth Circuit and California’s Fourth District Court of Appeal, and then argued before the Fourth District while I was still a student. Early in my practice, the second case I took brought me to the United States Supreme Court, where I sat second chair on October 6, 2015. Since then, I have continued to work on appeals and writs and have been fortunate to obtain multiple published opinions. Appellate work did not merely teach me how to write appellate briefs. It taught me how to practice law. It made me conscientious about preserving objections, making offers of proof, authenticating exhibits, identifying the applicable standard of review, and ensuring that the trial court has a complete and accurate record on which to rule. It also taught me that every citation is a representation of personal integrity. When a judge follows a citation, the court is not merely checking a page number. It is deciding whether the lawyer can be trusted. That lesson has become even more important as legal research has moved from libraries, to Westlaw and Lexis, and now to artificial intelligence.
F. Edie Mermelstein is the founder of FEM Law Group, P.C., where her practice focuses on financial elder abuse, special needs trusts, conservatorships, and complex probate, trust, civil, and appellate litigation. She represents individuals, families, and fiduciaries in matters involving vulnerable adults, contested assets, and fiduciary disputes. She also serves as President of the Auschwitz Study Foundation, Inc., dedicated to Holocaust education and preservation.
Tools Have Changed; the Responsibility Has Not
Legal research once required a physical relationship with the law. We went to libraries, pulled reporters from shelves, traced authorities through printed volumes, and Shepardized cases by hand. That process was inefficient by today’s standards, but it
edie@femlawyers.com
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Consumer Attorneys of California
FORUM September/October 2026
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