New technology is helping small and solo law firms level the playing field with their larger competition. That sure sounds like a true statement, doesn't it? And yes, it is. But the full story is a little more complicated.

For one thing, as past generations of lawyers will tell you, this isn't a new story. Since the first lawyer hung a shingle, small firms have devised ways to make up their deficit in manpower and financial resources to bigger shops. For another, many of those methods have been non-technical in nature. For decades, small firms have banded together to share law libraries, secretaries, copying machines and office space—arrangements that helped them compete on equal terms with firms that had the scale to pay for such tools on their own.

That's not to belittle the role of technology. Tech has had an undeniable democratizing effect on the legal profession, enhancing the “little guy's” ability to compete. This, too, has been going on a long time, and not even the flashiest of new technologies—artificial intelligence, machine learning and the like—have had nearly the impact of a much older one: the internet itself.