WHEELING — Bordas & Bordas Managing Partner Jamie Bordas has witnessed technological developments transform aspects of the legal field and believes technology will continue to drive developments in that realm.

Upon graduating from Notre Dame Law School in 2000, Bordas joined Bordas & Bordas, which was founded by his parents, Jim and Linda Bordas. He became a managing partner at the firm in 2005.

As a managing partner, Bordas runs the firm’s day-to-day operations, including overseeing attorneys and staff. Bordas also oversees the interaction between their four offices in West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

In addition to managing the firm’s daily operations, Bordas handles a caseload that primarily deals with personal injury and wrongful death cases. Bordas & Bordas has also expanded into other case types, including insurance bad faith, medical malpractice, consumer protection and product liability.

“My practice personally has focused on both personal injury and insurance bad faith where I represent individuals against insurance companies, which is one of the things that I’ve enjoyed most in my career,” Bordas said. “So many times I see where insurance companies either deny a claim or delay paying the claim, and that unfortunately affects the policyholder in a significant way. Holding the insurance companies accountable and making them pay for what they put those individuals through is very gratifying.”

Bordas pinpointed the use of technology as one of the most significant developments over the 25 years he has been in the legal field. He noted that most courts now have electronic filing for documents when, in the past, documents attorneys wanted to be filed had to be mailed or hand-delivered to the courthouse.

Bordas outlined that the widespread adoption of technology within the legal system has allowed attorneys to work “more efficiently” since they can file documents more quickly. This ease of communication has also led to a larger volume of paperwork.

“When I first started, you might send a letter to the other side [of a case] and get a response back in the mail a week later,” Bordas said. “Now, there could be 20 emails flying back and forth throughout the day between you and the lawyer on the other side of that case. It creates a lot of communication and can cause developments in a case at a very rapid pace.”

Bordas said the firm has striven to stay on top of technological developments in the legal field. He noted that videoconferencing depositions became very prevalent during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, and the firm has been able to conduct depositions by videoconferencing for more than 20 years.

Another way Bordas & Bordas has also begun implementing technology is by producing settlement videos to replace demand letters.

Traditionally, if lawyers wanted to settle a case, they would write a demand letter to the other side outlining what happened to the client and asking for a certain amount of money.

Bordas & Bordas’ settlement videos include the same information as a demand letter but in a “much more impactful way,” Bordas said. These videos contain information from multiple sources, including dash camera footage of crashes, depositions from clients detailing what happened to them and depositions from independent eyewitnesses.

“We’ve taken advantage of multimedia to set forth our clients’ cases in a much more impactful way because the settlement videos show the other side how a particular event has impacted the client’s life,” Bordas said. “They can see, hear and feel the emotion of it, and it’s not just words on paper. When the insurance company hears the client talk about that and sees how bad the case will go for them if it goes to trial, that makes them more likely to want to settle.”