Imagine this scenario.

A corporate client poses a business problem and wants a legal solution fast.

But there’s no case law, no statute, and little if any guidance from treatises to help you.

Panic city?

Not at all, at least not for Robert P. Bigelow, an early pioneer in computer law.

Bigelow, 76, developed an expertise in the early days of computer technology, operating where the law intersected with business reality.

He was on “the frontier” as he puts it, not tethered to any established body of law as the knotty issues kept rolling in: software ownership rights; licensing; trade secrets; patents; security interests in intellectual property; taxation of software; antitrust; tort liability.

Unnerving?

“Not at all,” he says emphatically. “I knew there wasn’t any information. It wasn’t like you could go to the books and read six cases on a topic. It was up to me to try and figure out what to do. Very often, I was faced with problems that had never arisen before, and I had to figure out what would work in the business environment. I didn’t always come up with the right answer, but more often than not I came up with workable solutions.”

Bigelow also pioneered networking among in-house attorneys. In 1979, he co-founded the New England Corporate Counsel Association because he saw the need for in-house lawyers in the region to meet on a regular basis to share ideas.

“The idea was to create a social organization with a learning component,” Bigelow says. “Members would get to know one another and would exchange ideas, concerns, problems at luncheon conversations or over the telephone.”

He’s quick to admit he had a marketing motivation as well, having moved his law practice from Boston to Woburn at the time.

“Very frankly, I had to do marketing. I was looking to find other lawyers who dealt with a lot of high-tech issues,” Bigelow says. “But there was no real bar association for in-house counsel.”

While membership eventually was limited to in-house attorneys, Bigelow says the group didn’t ask him to leave.

“They couldn’t keep me out because I was there [first],” he remembers with a laugh. Bigelow remains an active member of the group, regularly attending luncheons and CLE seminars.

No Luddite

Bigelow is no Luddite. In the early 1960s, when law office “technology” consisted of rotary phones and manual typewriters, he was engaging in computerized legal research through the help of John F. Horty Jr., his fellow 1953 Harvard Law School graduate.

In the 1950s, Horty created the first computer database of legal information, the Pennsylvania health care statute, and over the years Horty continued to expand the database to cover other state and federal laws.

After a stint at Bingham, Dana & Gould (the forerunner of Bingham McCutchen) as a banking and taxation associate, Bigelow worked ten years as a staff attorney for John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Co. in Boston.

While doing research for John Hancock, Bigelow asked Horty — through the use of the old-style “punch-card” system — to run the words “trade” and “business” through the Internal Revenue Code.

“The search came back with 100 citations,” Bigelow remembers. “That sold the legal department on the merits of computerized legal research.”

John Hancock had a progressive take on computers generally, housing one of the very first computers in Boston, a mammoth machine, known as a Univac I, which took up an entire room and used vacuum tubes.

Aside from an early exposure to computers at John Hancock, Bigelow’s employer encouraged him to participate in an American Bar Association committee on data retrieval created in 1964, which culminated in a treatise on the topic, first published in 1966, “Computers And The Law: An Introductory Handbook.” Bigelow was the primary editor of the work.

That standing committee became the ABA’s Section of Science and Technology.

It was his exposure to computerized legal research that led Bigelow to focus on computer law as a private practitioner when he opened a Boston law office in 1966.

In wrestling with computer law questions, he often had to rely on the tried and true centuries-old common law rules, at least as a starting point.

“I went back to the basics. You had to apply the common law to the new technology,” he says.

His work on landlord-tenant law while a staff attorney for John Hancock came in handy when working through the various problems of installing Automatic Teller Machines.

And he says he even once had to delve into the arcane concept of feoffment, the hoary middle-ages custom and set of rules for transferring land.

His early work in computer law was an incredible time, he remembers. With industry recognizing the benefits of computerization, the technology boom was in its earliest stages. Bigelow was instrumental in shaping the laws controlling commercial relationships as to the use of computer hardware and software.

Many questions from the early days remain current today, he says, “although the answers are constantly changing. You have to figure out what will work in the business environment.”

He relishes the intellectual challenges that have marked his career. “It was exciting. It made me think. I wasn’t doing the same thing over and over and over again.”

His specialty was drafting contracts, which meant he had to know how various laws applied to new computer technologies.

Imparting Wisdom

Ultimately, Bigelow characterizes his role as that of a teacher.

“Problems would come to me and I had to work on solving them, which led to writing articles,” he says. “I’ve tried to pass along not so much ‘this is the law,’ but more this is how you find the law.”

Writing came naturally to Bigelow. He credits Supreme Judicial Court Justice Harold Putnam Williams, for whom Bigelow clerked right out of law school, as a key influence on his writing career.

“He taught me how to write well,” Bigelow says. “He would write his own opinions then ask me to read them and tell him if there was anything I didn’t understand. He would say, ‘if there is, then I’ve made a mistake.’ I was editing an SJC justice’s opinions. That started out my editing career.”

Bigelow is a prolific author, having penned numerous articles and treatises not only on computer law, but law practice management as well. He has also edited many similar works as well.

And he was “networking” before that became the vogue term for making contacts, having served in a multitude of leadership roles in the American, Massachusetts and Boston bar associations, as well as more specialized computer law groups in the Unites States, Canada and Great Britain.

His work with various trade groups has led to many friendships and contacts, he says, in part helping him to become an active mediator and arbitrator.

While Bigelow has stepped away from private practice in recent years, he remains an active writer and speaker. He is contributing editor for Cyberspace Lawyer and The Lawyers Competitive Edge, working out of his home office in Winchester.

Questions or comments can be directed to the writer at: [email protected].