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Contacts. It's all about contacts. That's what older lawyers say, anyway. They grew up in an age when it was common to spend hours—even days—in the same room as lawyers from another firm, as advisers on both sides of a deal or case attempted to hammer out an agreement.

Technology has changed all that. Nowadays, lawyers spend hours on conference calls as terms are negotiated, but they have much less of the face-to-face contact that once built strong professional relationships—even friendships—between practitioners of competing firms.

The effect is that younger lawyers simply do not get to know people like their predecessors did. And it is not just other private practice lawyers they see less of. It has become easy to have client relationships that involve little to no real-life interaction.

Lawyers are instructed by email. They liaise with clients by email. And sometimes they even celebrate a deal completion by email. While celebratory food and drinks were once a staple part of corporate dealmaking, many say it has become difficult to get clients out for meals due to anti-bribery regulations.

And yet that human touch is what in-house lawyers are constantly asking for—not necessarily in the form of face-to-face meetings, but in the way that extra detail and advice naturally flows from genuine relationships, as opposed to purely professional interactions.

One head of legal at a well-known U.K. institution recently bemoaned the fact that her business' panel firms frequently fail to go beyond the absolute basics. She wanted a lawyer who could proactively tell her the advice they have offered to other companies in the same sector and what it would mean for her team. But she wasn't getting it, and now plans to make changes when the roster is next reviewed.

Surely her need for tailored advice rather than some ­robotic service that treats everyone the same would be best addressed through personal interaction.

Her problems are trivial compared to those of the group worst affected by all of this: private practice lawyers. The drudgery of a demanding mandate is a lot more depressing when you don't know the client. While money is the ultimate reason for working, there are few successful lawyers who think of it that way. Over the long term, loyalty to clients and providing an excellent service are more powerful motivators than the simple satisfaction of generating fees.

Take away the human element from a relationship and lawyers could be forgiven for feeling like they are working for their laptops and iPhones. It is hard to feel loyalty toward a nebulous concept of a client. And it is hard to feel motivated about acting for someone you have never met.

Not only that, but a lawyer's ability to push back against clients also becomes more limited. One veteran partner says he would often spend time explaining to clients that they could not have documentation as quickly as they wanted it because it was important to take the time to get it right. The clients listened to him because they knew him well enough to trust him and value his opinion. Without that depth of relationship, though, such conversations are likely to be a lot more awkward and the work done on deals more perfunctory.

It is notable that the veteran partner describes his career as "fun," a word that is not often used by the younger generation—the same people who constantly ask the veteran how he is so well connected.

Is it any wonder that mental health problems are so prevalent across the industry? Putting limits on working hours and introducing wellness workshops won't solve this one. Lawyers, like all humans, respond best to, well, humans.

Technology has found a way to increase the speed of interactions. But, so far, it can't do anything to deepen them.

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