For English, Press 1.

For English, Press 1. For English You can Understand, Please Try Again Later.

I am a lawyer today because of computers. Back when I got out of law school, computers were not commonplace and I knew how to build them. My first employer hired me because of that, I am convinced. As proof, I spent many hours working on his computers both at home and the office, less time answering legal questions for him.

I’ve done tech support for every law firm I have worked with since, including my own. My wife tells folks that I am her personal Geek Squad.

My youngest son works in tech support. When I asked him if he was a geek now, he told me that he prefers “nerd,” but “loser” works too. I have tried to keep my tech skills sharp although it is a losing battle as technology changes fast these days. I am a used-to-be nerd, no longer fluent.

Those who rely on me for bits and bytes know not to call me with a technical problem until they have first rebooted the offending device that no longer does their bidding. They have all heard the question from me so frequently that my wife has threatened to kick me with a boot if I ask her again.

Today I changed both the office internet provider and my cell phone carrier. I highly recommend this double switch to anyone who does not have enough aggravation in their lives.

Our installer for the internet service was originally from Ukraine and has seen his share of strife, so our inability to get online didn’t phase him much. His English was very good, thankfully, as my Ukrainian is non-existent. We chatted about the situation in his homeland for a few minutes while waiting for the static IP addresses to move to our new modem. He said that the current situation with Russia is nothing new to his countrymen. When you have a dictator next door, you sleep with one eye open.

While he was doing his incantations and calling the mothership for help, our office phones didn’t ring and there was no computer work to be done. The peace and quiet was nice but I reminded him that if I was going to pay the bill next month we should probably get our service connected quickly.  His part was done in about an hour, and my firm was back online.

The cellular service was a different animal. Porting my phone number out and cancelling my old carrier was easy, getting the new service connected was a different story. After a couple hours of cursing and crying, I found the problem- a mistaken IMEI number. All I needed to do was contact customer service and they could fix it. For once, I could have used the online chat portal with customer service, but the company insisted on a phone call. Making a call is a neat trick when your cell phone isn’t working.

I finally found a working phone in my office after the above noted ISP change. After pressing 1 for English, verifying my social security number, tax ID number, and the address of my first grade teacher’s second cousin, I got past the AI helper to a person who then transferred me to a different department as his only handled customer complaints from customers with last names starting with “W.” I only had to explain my issue twice more before they conjured a new ESim and my cell phone worked.

With phone and internet active, I was as good as new. At least, I was back where I was before the whole mess started. I haven’t been as good as new in decades.

The process was frustrating, and that is to someone who is semi-tech savvy. I imagined the frustration of my nearly Amish wife if she had been tasked with this and reflexively ducked from flying footwear.

Clients who have never been through a legal situation are often frustrated when they call a lawyer and get the run around, or don’t get the explanations and information they need to understand what is happening to them. Sometimes we make it worse by talking in abbreviations and jargon. A couple of hours trying to get technical support every now and then is a good refresher for lawyers that plain talk is crucial. But it is not a CLE that I recommend.

©2025 With All Due Respect. Spencer Farris is the founding partner of The S.E. Farris Law Firm in St Louis, Missouri. Comments or criticisms about this column may be sent c/o this publication or directly to him via email at farris@farrislaw.net. Barring a technical error, he usually responds within between 1 and 4,000 hours.