A Casualty of E-filing?
Seattle PI has a piece on dwindling numbers of bike messengers:
Bike messengers were ubiquitous; they epitomized brash, scruffy youth; they were tattooed relief in corporate cityscapes across the country.
But that was the '90s.
These days, bike messengers are a dwindling breed, vanishing with the rise of high-speed Internet, digital imagery and electronic court filings. Ten years ago, an estimated 150 messengers worked in Seattle. Today, the number is 50 to 75. Other cities have experienced similar declines, with The Economist reporting that New York has lost more than 1,000 messengers since the dawn of the new millennium.
E-filing has already fundamentally changed the profession. (The pdf format probably more so - it's amazing to think that more and more business is conducted without printing, signing, or mailing.)I feel bad for the messengers, but I'm definitely not complaining. (NB - here's a law.com article on e-filing in state courts "Patchwork E-filing Frustrates Lawyers".)
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