Over at the EDD Update blog, there is a very good discussion of defensible EDD / ESI search. It’s worth reading and prompts me to ask what we mean by reasonable.
Eric suggests the current discovery system is broken, that humans are not reliable reviewers, that machines may not be reliable, that the introduction of statistics may confound matters, and concludes that “So the question remains, how do we find a definitive search tool that is affordable, manageable and defensible in 94 district courts, never mind who knows how many state courts?
After sketching out some history, I cover the general benefits and concerns about the SaaS approach and give some suggested tips when considering this approach:
The book is worth much more than the $129.95 price; however, the rationale for submitting the book for review on the Law Marketing Portal when the word "marketing" (let alone the participation of the marketing staff) is not even mentioned is unclear. Moreover, the patience level of lawyers being what it is, I doubt any lawyers worth their billing rate will actually read its 354 pages. Nonetheless, the book contains valuable information if you know where to look.
I have been a long time fan of social networking for lawyers. Capturing the conversation among colleagues is one of the best ways of capturing knowledge and finding expertise. Connecting with peers is the best way to stay up-to-date on the law. That was one of the primary reasons that bar associations formed. Can these online networking opportunities be as effective as your local bar association? Are they worth your time?
The issue has many useful articles and I expect it to receive many pointers as the "go to" resource on the topic.
Big US and UK companies have cut spending on BigLaw. Has anyone stepped back to ask how much should they should spend? The current US debate on health helps illuminate the answer.
The US spends far more on health care than other developed countries yet achieves similar outcomes. Perhaps the same is true for corporate consumption of legal services. (Comments here are not about consumer legal spending.)
Experts debate what woes US health care. I think over-spending is fueled by unnecessary diagnostic tests and rampant over-treatment. (For example, re the former, see In Push for Cancer Screening, Limited Benefits, New York Times, 17 July 2009, and re the latter, recent studies show that back pain usually resolves without treatment yet many have surgery anyway).
You've just graduated from law school, left your corporate position or you and your former partners have decided to part company. The first thing you do is organize your new practice for client development. The concepts and techniques are the same whether you are going solo or starting a new firm with one or more colleagues. Let's start with some easy and concrete tips and action items you can start using today to market to prospects and clients after you have found yourself "suddenly solo."
The marketing plan for the individual lawyer or law firm includes the same basic components of any marketing plan -- a position or aspirational statement, goals, objectives, policies, strategies and a tactical plan to achieve those goals and objectives. While larger firms may have hundred page marketing plans, a smaller firm or individual lawyer can have a plan that fits on a few pages. Whether in a large firm or practicing as a solo, the marketing plan is a useful tool to focus and organize the individual's practice to permit marketing. Spend a few hours putting together your personal marketing plan.
SmallLaw: The Recommendation Economy Part 2: How to Transform Twitter Into a Client Magnet for Your Law Firm
Last month I wrote about what happens when too many demands vie for the time and attention of your
prospective clients, and referred to it as the
recommendation
economy. For this second installment, I promised you tips on how to use Twitter to establish a
compelling presence online, resulting in press coverage and new clients. Here we go.
Getting the inside story from a trusted source can prove invaluable. That's why Twitter's
ability to capture the public zeitgeist is priceless. Used in conjunction with its ever-growing list
of free third-party applications, Twitter enables you to monitor multiple conversations at once, send
and receive files instantly, limit conversations to a few participants or throw them open to the world,
create instant communities, and more.
Many VN findings match the market assessment of Integreon as an LPO provider; there are some differences
however from the supplier perspective...
Like CB radios, pet rocks and mood rings, Twitter is turning out to be a fad that has
peaked, according to numerous research studies. Check the facts:
56% of people with a Twitter account are not following anyone, according to HubSpot.
Read the Article
E-Discovery Goal: Win or Avoid Disaster?
By Ron - June 10, 2009
From
Prism Legal
Have lawyers forgotten the goal of e-discovery? EDD articles and professionals seem
exclusively focused on avoiding disaster. The real EDD goal is winning the case.
In 1997, I characterized the goals of discovery as: [see note below for source]
A. Achieve the best outcome for the client
B. Minimize cost
C. Learn the facts of the case
D. Prepare offense or defense
E. Fulfill obligations to produce documents
I don't think that has changed. Producing documents is a requirement of discovery;
the goal, however, is learning case facts, telling the best story and winning. We
hear countless stories of EDD gone awry. Where are the stories about how a team found
the best documents, put together the best chronology and witness binders, and did
the best job marshaling the facts?
Read the Article
64% of Marketers Now Considering Firm Sites on LinkedIn or Facebook
By Legal Marketing Technology - June 2nd, 2009
From
TechnoLawyer Blog
The April 2009 PM Forum 'Snapshot' survey on social media and Web 2.0 shows huge changes in
attitudes at professional firms since November 2007, especially at smaller firms, in favor of
accessing LinkedIn, having an official presence on social networks, and using Web 2.0 techniques
in a firm's intranet and internet systems.
The PM Forum is a worldwide association of 5,000 professional services marketers, primarily
in law firms, headquartered in London. See www.pmforumusa.com. Formed in 1996, it is dedicated
to raising the standards of and to enhancing the credibility of marketers working in professional
service firms worldwide.
The 2009 survey showed that 64% (20% in 2007) are now considering an official presence on
LinkedIn or Facebook with their sites consisting of simple items - links to the main site; photos
and bios of people; and networking information. This proportion rises to 94% for small firms.
Target audiences are clients, current employees and partners, with graduates a less important
audience than in 2007.
Read the Article
Why Avvo's Top Legal Blogs List Is a Joke and How to Fix It
By Neil Squillante | Monday, May 18, 2009
From
TechnoLawyer Blog
Avvo's Top Legal Blogs list (TLB)
- a ranking of the top legal blogs (blawgs) - is a textbook example of smart marketing.
It provides interesting information and attracts inbound links (especially from the
featured blogs).
I applaud the list in the abstract, but deplore its implementation. It strikes me
as a lazy effort designed purely for marketing purposes with little to no regard for
accuracy - strange for a company whose mission revolves around providing actionable
information about lawyers.
Avvo's TLB has two major problems - sample pool and data source. A list by its
very nature depends entirely on these two components. In other words, TLB is
unreliable. It's also a slap in the face to legal bloggers, most of whom frankly need
a slap in the face, just not of this variety (I'd like to see legal bloggers debate
each other more often and also criticize lists like TLB).
Read the Article
Legal Technology and Client Charges
By Ron on May 16, 2009
From
Prism Legal
A recent law suit contends that a law firm's online research client charge-backs
are unlawful. This hints at the bigger issue is what should be overhead and what
should be a charged to clients.
Carolyn Elefant writes in Law Firm Markup of Research Costs: Annoying or Unlawful? at Legal Blog
Watch about a plaintiff who "claims that that Chadbourne [wrongfully]
charged him $20,000 for computerized legal research services that actually cost the
firm only $5,000." She cites an NLJ article and links to and discusses
several blog posts commenting on the article.
Read the Article
Evandry: Read Our Exclusive Report
By Neil Squillante | Wednesday, May 13, 2009
From
TechnoLawyer Blog
Today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire covers electronic discovery processing
software, an online video deposition editing and syncing service (see article
below), a legal technology job board, an email utility for capturing contact
information, and an Outlook add-on for automatically filing messages. Don't
miss the next issue.
The Fotomat of Video Depositions
Because lawyers like you find trials exciting, it's easy to lose sight of
the fact that trials bore many jurors. They're just not that into you. They'd
rather be home in front of their 52 inch TV. While you can't give them Sports
Center, you can at least give them video deposition testimony, especially since
it's no longer an expensive proposition.
"Law firms are not doing anything dramatic and are not planning to do
anything dramatic [in response to the economic downturn]," says Eric Seeger, an Altman
Weil consultant and co-author of the survey, Law Firms in Transition.
Read the Article
In BigLaw, Where Every Firm is Above Average
May 12, 2009
From
Prism Legal
Are large law firms reeling with the rest of the economy? Reading legal headlines
since January 1, you would think so. But maybe not.
In Survey: Law Firms Don't Expect to Make Radical Changes the AmLaw Daily reports
on a new Altman Weil law firm survey (conducted March and April). [The preceding
link is to a fee-based webinar about the survey.] The surprise finding, quoting AmLaw
Daily:
"Law firms are not doing anything dramatic and are not planning to do
anything dramatic [in response to the economic downturn]," says Eric Seeger, an Altman
Weil consultant and co-author of the survey, Law Firms in Transition.
Read the Article
Wither Law Firm Marketing?
May 6, 2009
From
Prism Legal
Through the 1980s, marketing was a four-letter word in most large law firms. By the
1990s, BigLaw had build marketing teams. One survey a couple of years indicated firms were
spending 2% of revenue on marketing. Where is marketing today and how has it fared in the
downturn?
I found a great answer to these questions in an e-mail I received from my friend Steve
Nelson of The McCormick Group, an executive search firm with a big legal practice. Steve
is an astute observer of the legal market. He was previously a practicing lawyer and editor
of the Legal Times. With his permission, I reproduce here an e-mail report that he sent in
April titled "TMG's Take.On CMO Vacancies".
Read the Article
Time, Billing, and Practice Management "in the Cloud"
April 19, 2009
From
Affinity Law Office Technology Blog
With advances in the category of software as a service such as Gmail, Google Apps, Zoho, and Microsoft's
too-often overlooked "Windows Live" offerings (if you use MS Office on your desktop, Office Live is a must
have), it will come as no surprise that "cloud" computing is making forays into traditional desktop/server
territory such as time, billing, and practice management. First out of the gate was probably Bill4Time.
It has been joined by Clio and Rocket Matter. There is even a scaled-down on-line time keeping and reporting
application called MyHours that anyone can try instantly at no charge that exports reports to Excel.
Read the Article
How to Use Blogs for Effective Public Relations
April 18, 2009
By Rodger D. Johnson
From
Law Marketing Portal
You haven't heard? Social media is changing how we do public relations. And at the heart of it
all -- blogs. In the Technorati:
State of the Blogosphere report for 2008, we find blogs are a pervasive part of our daily lives.
Technorati cites several studies to illustrate the scope of the blogosphere and its impact. Take a look:
- comScore MediaMetrix (August 2008)
- Blogs: 77.7 million unique visitors in the US
- eMarketer (May 2008)
- 94.1 million US blog readers in 2007 (50% of Internet users)
- 22.6 million US bloggers in 2007 (12%)
- Universal McCann (March 2008)
- 184 million worldwide have started a blog | 26.4 US
- 346 million worldwide read blogs | 60.3 US
- 77% of active Internet users read blogs
Let's put the worldwide numbers from Universal McCann into perspective. Take a soccer team,
for example. Nearly nine of the 11 players would be reading blogs, leaving about two doing
who knows what. In a world where communication is quickly becoming a global affair, understanding
that many in the industrialized world are turning to blogs should raise the brows of PR principals.
Read the Article
Twitter is Killing RSS
April 2, 2009
By Jeff Nolan
From
Law Marketing Portal
Twitter is killing RSS as a marketing method.
There are two primary use cases for RSS:
- Promotion of new content. This is a means for promoting new content through RSS client
applications, widgets, iPhone apps, purpose specific apps, and so on. You see the headline and
click on the content that interests you.
- Content syndication. This is the true plumbing that offers low cost, reliability and convenience.
Few media sites enable full text RSS feeds and for a good reason: it robs them of site traffic
that is monetized -- whereas RSS feeds are not. This has always hamstrung the utility of RSS
outside of blogs, yet still provided "good enough" utility that you could still use it.
Read the Article
Managing Confidential Information Disclosures
April 1, 2009
By David Munn
From
Legaltech.com
A question came up recently on an ACC (Association of Corporate Counsel) listserv about best
practices in managing information received under a confidentiality obligation.
"We are trying to develop a 'best practices' process for NDAs i.e., how to keep track of
info that is received and to who it is disclosed; how to preserve it/destroy it when the nda
ends etc. Anything you have prepared in this regard would be appreciated. Thanks"
Several people on the listserv responded that they'd be interested in this information,
but no one responded that they had developed such a process, so I thought people might benefit
from this. Here's my response, supplemented with additional information about the solution
provided by my company, Pontus Global, Inc., that I didn't feel I should provide on the listserv:
Read the Article
Do Law School Deans Live in a Different Dimension?
March 19, 2009
By Ron
From
Prism Legal
If you listen to law school deans, you would think training as a lawyer is the greatest
thing since sliced bread.
At least that's my take away from the Nathan Koppel Wall Street Journal article Best
Defense? Seeking a Haven in Law School (19 Mar 09). Koppel quotes law school deans who extol
the virtues of legal education and writes:
Read the Article
Lawyer Attracts New Clients and Press Inquiries Immediately After Starting New Blog
March 16, 2009
By Michael Martine
From
Blawging Lawyers
We try to be cautious about over-promising. We don't want to seem "hypey" or "salesy."
But then something like this happens and what are we supposed to do? Pretend it didn't
happen? Play it down?
Heck, no! This is exactly what happens when you market your law practice the Blawging
Lawyers way. You get clients. You get attention. Here is a quote from one of our members
(some information omitted to protect privacy, emphasis mine).
Read the Article
Standardizing Deal Documents: Expert Discussion
March 12, 2009
By Ron
From
Prism Legal
My post last month Measuring the Consistency of Legal Documents reported on pioneering
legal document analysis by Kingsley Martin led to an interesting follow-up dialogue about
standardizing transactional documents.
Doug Cornelius (Compliance Building blog and DougCornelius.com) posted a public comment
on that post. It led to a private e-mail exchange among Doug and Kingsley (www.kiiac.com or
e-mail to kingsley dot martin at kiiac dot com). With their permission, I reproduce the
e-mail exchange below.
The discussion raises issues similar to ones in my December 2007 post, Dressing the Emperor:
Jones Day M&A Lawyers Speak Out, reporting on comments in an article by Jones Day lawyers Robert
A. Profusek and Lyle G. Ganske. They observed that lawyers seldom add value to deal-making, that
document creation is now a commodity, and reported on "spearheading an initiative to rethink
deal documentation." I don't know if that initiative has moved forward but I think Kingsley's
approach would facilitate the creation of document standards and give attorneys the tools to
rethink their role beyond document drafters and move towards business counselors.
Read the Article
SmallLaw: The Rise of BigSolo: Large Firm Refugees Who Start Their Own Law Firms
February 23, 2009
By Ross Kodner
From
TechnoLawyer
One of my 2009 predictions was that the pace of large law firm downsizing through layoffs,
or even dissolving, would increase.
With Heller, Thelen, and Thatcher unthinkably gone, and the "Valentine's Day Massacre" already
legendary despite occurring less than a week ago, the prognosis for "traditional" large firms is
about as good as it would be for a Stage 4 cancer patient.
With a long dark winter ahead, according to Punxatawny Phil, Spring may not come at all this
year for many BigLaw lawyers. As fallout from the economic chill that is gutting the bread-and-butter
corporate business of BigLaw, an increasing number of large firm lawyers are jumping ship, before
it sinks. And what are many choosing to do? They're going solo.
Read the Article
By Request: Any Open Source Apps to Create Legal Pleadings and Documents?
February 22, 2009
By Dennis Kennedy
From
DennisKennedy.com
As longtime readers know, I'm a big fan of Open Source applications and the whole Open Source
concept. However, I don't use any flavor of Linux, Ubuntu or otherwise, so I don't have an answer
based on my own experience., although I have two suggestions for you.
If you are looking for Open Source software, I generally suggest checking Sourceforge to see
what specific applications might be available. In this case, however, I'd suggest starting with
something much simpler - Open Office. OpenOffice is an Open Source competitor to Microsoft Office. It's
available in a Linux version. I'd check into its capabilities and see if can do what you want it
to do. Check some of the OpenOffice resources and forums to see if there are other suggestions. I
just did a quick search and found some interesting comments on the topic here.
Read the Article
Law Firm Lay Offs - Are E-Discovery Specialists Being Hit?
February 17th, 2009
By Ron
From
Prism Legal
Law firm lay offs have cut wide and deep. At a legal knowledge management lunch today, we
were wondering how law firm EDD staff have fared. Hours later, I had an answer - and it surprised
me.
I've gotten to know David Cowen of the Cowen Group and the blogger at Opportunity Knocks
over the last year. He is a search and recruiting expert for litigation support, practice support
and Electronic Data Discovery and someone who thinks deeply about this market. His blog post
today (reproduced with permission) E-Discovery dodges the bullet.:
Read the Article
Using Twitter for Business - Perhaps!
February 10th, 2009
By John Jantsch
From
Law Marketing Portal
Maybe the siren's call of twitter - http://www.twitter.com (everybody's doing it) has become too
much and you've jumped in. Or, maybe you have no clue what it is or why you would care. I get asked
enough about this mircoblogging tool that I thought I would create a practical guide for business
folks wrestling with yet another social media outpost.
What is it?
In simplest terms, twitter is a free service that allows anyone to say almost anything to anybody
in 140 characters or less - it's the "what are you doing right now" kind of micro-blogging that
permeates online social communication.
So, now the question is - is that all? Well, no, not exactly. While people are using it to tell
no one in particular what they had for lunch, millions are leaning on twitter pretty hard as a way
network and communicate with contacts new and old. twitter is outfitted, like most social media
tools, with the ability to subscribe, share, friend or follow as many twitter feeds as you like. In
addition, developers are swiftly creating tools that allow users to bend and twist the feeds in
creative ways. More on that shortly.
Read the Article
Is this the best thing I could be doing with my time?
January 7th, 2009
By Greg
From
Affinity Law Office Technology Blog
"Is this the best thing I could be doing with my time?"
These immortal words were scribbled on a small yellow Post-it note placed strategically in the
top right hand corner of the computer monitor. The owner of the computer was the senior partner
at a firm where I was recently implementing a CRM system.
It was his personal reminder that he should avoid becoming side-tracked by following up on
non-productive administration tasks and sacrificing his $255 per hour hourly rate. Indeed, the
day to day issues of running his firm had become quite a "time-suck", particularly preparing his
computer systems for my CRM installation.
Read the Article
WordPress SEO -- Do I need it?
January 11th, 2009
By Grant Griffiths
From
Home Office Lawyer
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the hot button topics right now and there is a
lot of discussion about it. For some, just the thought of worrying about SEO causes a sick
feeling to overcome them. And it shouldn't. Search engine optimization is not something you
or I should be scared of. In fact, it is not impossible for us to do and because of that, we
need to be looking at SEO every time we draft a blog post.
Read the Article
Law Firm Staffing Reference Model
January 13th, 2009
By Ron
From
Prism Legal
How should law firms support lawyers?
Sounds simple but is it really? Firms can compare their staff ratios or cost as a percent
of revenue using survey data. The averages, however, conceal huge variations. For example, I
know that three large NYC law firms have lawyer to secretary ratios of 2.9, 4.7, and 6.0. And
I've seen surveys reporting IT spending as a percent of revenue range from 3% to 7%. Can the
extremes both be "right"? Are averages best practices? In my experience, the variations arise
randomly, not from objective factors such as practice mix.
To determine what support lawyers need, firms must know what lawyers should do on their own
and what they should delegate. Should lawyers dictate or type? Do legal research or delegate it
to a research lawyer? Make their own travel plans or use a travel agent? Do their own analysis
in Excel or rely on a business analyst? These are hard questions but if firms don't ask them,
how do they know the appropriate support?
Read the Article
Have Large Law Firms Met Their Waterloo?
January 14th, 2009
By Brett Trout
From
BlawgIT
The list of large law firms laying off lawyers and support staff is snowballing. As one
commentator put it "when times are so lean that the frivolous money-wasting starts to detract
from desired partner distributions, then firms start to cut the crap and make some real business
decisions."
At the same time large law firms are downsizing, smaller law firms are upsizing. Boutique
law firms (smaller law firms, which focus on a single area of the law) have started hiring to
accommodate the steady increase in work flow. Contrary to popular thought, specialization, not
diversification, garners the flexibility necessary to attract clients looking to streamline
services. With lower overhead costs, little debt, and more personal client contact, boutique
law firms are better positioned to adjust to rapidly changing client demands. As Elie Mystal
of Above the Law notes: these smaller firms are experiencing "new business development and
recruiting opportunities as many corporate clients look to reduce their outside counsel legal
fees."
Read the Article
Online Legal Practice Management Software Predictions for 2009
December 17th, 2008
By Larry Port
From
The MacLawyer
Innovations in the use and development of online software have created new opportunities
for law firms, and can present cost-effective methods for adoption.
The year 2008 was a transformational one for legal practice management. After years of minimal
new product development, the field broke wide open with the arrival of an exciting new option:
Online, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions for law firms.
For some time now, SaaS has been successfully applied to sales force automation, HR and
payroll, project management, and other mission critical businesses. The legal industry,
traditionally slow to adopt technology, was ready for this new option for several reasons. For
one, new web technologies, commonly labeled Web 2.0, now allow for a desktop-like experience over
a web browser. Also, day-to-day exposure to web applications has become a common and accepted
practice, whether via Social Media sites like Facebook or through online banking. And, an
increasingly mobile workforce is looking for ways to connect from any location, from any type
of computer.
Read the Article
Taking the LPO Temperature: Warm, Getting Hot, But Doubts
December 9th, 2008
By Ron
From
Prism Legal
What's the current state of legal outsourcing? Depends on what factors you give
the most weight to. Four items came together this week to provide excellent
perspective on legal process outsourcing (LPO).
US Legal Outsourcing $2 billion by 2013. Over at Integreon.com (my employer), I wrote
a blog post yesterday, Survey Suggests US LPO Spending of $2 Billion by 2013. Based on
a recent survey and "some conservative assumptions, we estimate that U.S. corporate law
departments will spend about 3% of their budget on legal outsourcing. This translates
to US legal process outsourcing (LPO) spending in 2013 of almost $2 billion." You can
read in gory detail exactly how I derive the market size estimate. I think that
represents a very high growth rate.
LPO Doubt Continues. India Work Grows, With Glitches (The National Law Journal, 9 Dec 2008)
is a "on the one hand, on the other hand" story. It suggests a growing market and that cost
pressures bode well but reports concerns about outsourcing management challenges and
ethics. And it focuses a bit heavily in my view on the recent Mumbai attack. Legal outsourcing
is about how lawyers can delegate work to appropriate resources, not where. There are many
LPO destinations; India happens to be the one getting the most press. In a future post, I
will discuss in more detail how the reaction to LPO mirrors legal market adoption of many
other new ways in the last two decades.
Read the Article
Lawyers Can Find Referrals on ABA Online Social Network
December 5th, 2008
By Larry Bodine
From
Law Marketing Portal
By Larry Bodine, Esq., a business development advisor based in Glen Ellyn, IL. With
the Apollo Business Development Program, he has helped law firms nationwide get new clients
and generate millions of dollars of new revenue. He can be reached at 630.942.0977 and
www.larrybodine.com.
Lawyers will find a new way to make connections and generate referrals on the American
Bar Association's new online social network, Legallyminded.com, by using targeted matchmaking
to expand your network, participating in one-on-one private discussions or public group
threads, voting in an online poll or creating a blog.
"A lot of our members said we're joining these online communities. But we found there's a
gap between lawyers and networks like Facebook and LinkedIn. Plus there's a lot of 'noise'
there, so it's difficult for lawyers to network effectively," said Frederick L. Faulkner
IV, Manager of Interactive Services of the ABA. "It's not just for lawyers, and we're trying
to combine social networking with content."
Read the Article
Working Virtually and Hard Economic Times
November 11th, 2008
By Ron
From
Prism Legal
The legal market faces tough times but working virtually appears to thrive.
Even Law Firms Feel Strain of Layoffs and Cutbacks (NY Times, 12 Nov 2008) opens "You
know things are bad when even lawyers are getting laid off." The The Layoff List at
American Lawyer enumerates the many lay-offs, including the White & Case layoff on Tuesday.
In the face of this bad news, Law
Firm Perk of the Moment: Flextime (American Lawyer, 12 Nov 2008) reports
Read the Article
Little Things Matter for Personal Productivity
November 4th, 2008
By Ron
From
Prism Legal
File names and document titles turn out to be a big deal. Without proper file names,
it's hard to find the right document.
Where document management systems prevail, lawyers and staff often fail to provide
meaningful titles. So much so that you have to wonder how authors will identify their
own documents in the future.
Read the Article
BigLaw: Get Ready to Hire Statisticians
October 30, 2008
By Ron
From
Prism Legal
How should lawyers deal with the ever growing volume of digital data in e-discovery?
The answer likely involves far more extensive use of statistics.
Do
Your Searches Pass Judicial Scrutiny? by Wayne C. Matus and John E. Davis of Pillsbury
Winthrop Shaw Pittman (New York Law Journal, 31 Oct 2008) offers an excellent paradigm
for how to use concept search in EDD. Both implicit and explicit in their suggested
approach is heavy reliance on statistical analysis.
The authors suggest sampling data: "Counsel should isolate a random and statistically
significant sample of the relevant datasets." This is not as easy as it sounds.
Philosophically and mathematically, "random" is a difficult concept; choosing a truly
random sample turns out to be difficult.
Read the Article
Portland Law Firm Boosts Website Visitors who became Leads by 400%
October 6th, 2008
By Sean McMahon
From
Law Marketing Portal
The law firm Gilroy & Napoli dramatically boosted traffic from target clients to their
website by using a combination of search engine optimization and paid search marketing
using Google Adwords.
The firm employed sophisticated online techniques that any law firm could use, to make
certain its top 10 most important search terms appeared on the first page of search results
on Google. As a result, the firm enjoyed an increase of nine times the total number of
qualified visitors arriving at their site.
More law firms are realizing that in the midst of an uncertain economy, it is paramount
to focus on marketing efforts that increase results and reduce costs. Therefore, now is the
time for your firm to embark on acquiring new clients through the world's most effective,
and most measurable, media channel: online search engines.
Read the Article
Is the iPhone the Best Smartphone for Attorneys?
September 29, 2008
By Jeff Richardson
From
The Mac Lawyer
Apple released a software update for all iPhones, version 2.1. With this latest update,
a strong case can be made that the iPhone is the best smartphone for lawyers.
When the original iPhone was released in 2007, it was a breakthrough product because it
was both one of the most advanced smartphones ever created and also the easiest to use.
But it had some limitations that were critical for many lawyers. Most importantly, it
lacked integration with Microsoft Exchange, a feature that lawyers with Blackberries,
Windows Mobile and Treos running Goodlink have depended upon for years. When a lawyer
doesn't have full access to his or her law firm e-mail, a smartphone just isn't that smart.
The original iPhone also lacked 3G, which made web browsing slow when you were away from
WiFi, and lacked the ability to add third party software (unless you hacked it). The
original iPhone was still a marvel of design and amazingly stable for a 1.0 release, but
the missing features caused many lawyers -- like me -- to wait on the sidelines.
Read the Article
"Research Attorneys" Improve Legal Research
September 24, 2008
By Ron
From
Prism Legal
Large law firms create specialized positions to gain efficiency and improve service. Dickstein
Shapiro's innovative research attorney role is a recent example of a new and focused role.
Research Attorneys Offer Focused Services, Training (National Law Journal, 15 July 2008, by
Hollye R. Mann, Amy J. Spencer and Joanna Hudson-Therway) describes how Dickstein Shapiro has
innovated in legal research. The firm's research attorneys are former practicing lawyers. Beyond
doing legal research, they mentor and train associates on research and resources:
"The chief expertise of research attorneys is the ability to combine their
knowledge as career research professionals with their experience as practicing attorneys to
produce thorough, premium legal research.. A research-attorney department can serve as a key
member of the firm's knowledge-management team, creating and establishing methods of research
collection and retrieval to benefit the firm and its clients."
Read the Article
The Appropriate Standard of Care for Lawyers
September 21, 2008
By Ron
From
Prism Legal
The punchline of a new electronic discovery (EDD) brouhaha confirms an argument I've long advanced
with which lawyers and judges seem to struggle. Quality legal work can only be measured relative to
an alternative approach.
Many a post here has criticized lawyers and judges for assuming that whatever they do now is
right. I try to counter knee-jerk reactions such as "We can't use software to review documents, it
might make a mistake" or "We can't use offshore lawyers to review documents, it might make a
mistake". True, but hardly helpful unless you know how mistake-prone your current approach is.
Read the Article
New York Lawyer Uses Online Video to Attract New Clients
September 7, 2008
By Gerry Oginski
From
Law Marketing Portal
"Welcome, and thank you for joining me. My name is Gerry Oginski, and I'm a medical malpractice & personal
injury trial lawyer practicing law here in the State of New York." This is my introduction in every one of
my 100 online videos. They have produced:
- Dozens of clients per year in my practice area.
- A tremendous number of calls and emails every day from potential clients across the country.
- More than 50,000 views (that's not a misprint) and counting.
- One video alone has been watched over 8,000 times. The title? "Questions Never to Ask at a Deposition."
In one year alone I have created over 100 free informational videos about how medical malpractice and
personal injury cases work in New York. Importantly, I've done it all myself. No big website company, no
video guy, no tech guy. Just me: a solo practitioner from New York.
Read the Article
Tough Times in BigLaw: More Cutbacks, Bleak Outlook
August 22, 2008
By Ron
From
Prism Legal
I wish I had systematically tracked large law firm staff and lawyer reductions.
Not to single out particular firms, but I just read a couple more reports of BigLaw
cutbacks. Duane Morris Lays Off Additional Staff (Legal Week, 22 Aug 08) reports that many
of the 15 positions cut were in marketing. An expanded version of this article is in the Legal
Intelligencer.
New York's Fried Frank announces job cuts (Legal Week, 19 Aug 08) reports that Fried Frank
cutbacks "affect almost 10% of the firm's total of 730 global support staff, primarily affect
floating secretaries, part-time assistants and paralegals and library personnel in the New York
and Washington DC offices of the US firm." According to the firm, this redundancy is not a
result of the economy but rather a result of a two-year efficiency study.
Read the Article
More on SaaS: Higher Customer Service Expectations?
August 21, 2008
By Joshua Poje
From
American Bar Association
In our recently published overview of Cloud Computing / Software as a Service ("SaaS"), we discussed
several of the factors that distinguish it from traditional software - both good and bad. Some of
these factors included cost, accessibility, and security concerns. ZDNet now brings another view of
SaaS, courtesy of contributor Archie Black: customer service.
Black writes:
"In the traditional software sales model, the idea is to impress the customer in the beginning,
make the sale and collect the big check. Conversely, SaaS is a recurring revenue model where vendors
gain maximum value by retaining customers over the long term. As such, each transaction and
interaction with the customer is critical and SaaS providers must work continuously to earn the
customer's business."
Read the Article
Preservation versus Collection in E-Discovery
August 8, 2008
By Ron
From
Prism Legal
If corporations succeed in managing and preserving information, will e-discovery collection
problems disappear?
I've previously written about "e-discovery convergence," the idea that enterprise "information
life cycle" management products may reduce or eliminate the need for EDD collection.
Is Preservation in E-Discovery Overrated? at the Clearwell blog (23 June 2008) argues that because
litigation holds are inevitably imperfect, corporations should instead focus on rapid collection of
relevant documents: "the best way to take the risk out of the legal hold process is to move very
rapidly from preservation to collection."
Read the Article
Managing Confidential Information Disclosures
August 1, 2008
By David Munn
From
WordPress
A question came up recently on an ACC (Association of Corporate Counsel) listserv about best
practices in managing information received under a confidentiality obligation.
"We are trying to develop a 'best practices' process for NDAs i.e., how to keep track
of info that is received and to who it is disclosed; how to preserve it/destroy it when the nda ends
etc. Anything you have prepared in this regard would be appreciated. Thanks"
Several people on the listserv responded that they'd be interested in this information, but no one
responded that they had developed such a process, so I thought people might benefit from this. Here's
my response, supplemented with additional information about the solution provided by my company,
Pontus Global, Inc., that I didn't feel I should provide on the listserv:
Read the Article
Will Law Firm Economic Hard Times Drive New Technology Adoption?
July 14, 2008
By Ron
From
Prism Legal
Several large law firms have laid off lawyers and staff. Less publicized are other cutbacks.
I hear from friends in multiple BigLaw firms that they face pressure to reduce travel costs. If
"necessity is the mother of invention" and there is a "silver lining in every cloud," then perhaps
we will see wider adoption of collaborative technology. Much non-client-billable law firm travel
is to attend conferences or visit other firm offices. Many web-based technologies allow teams to
collaborate and people to present without anyone leaving their desks.
Read the Article
When a Lawyer Has to Leave a Law Firm: Reputation and Other Issues
July 7, 2008
By dmk
From
DennisKennedy.com
As this recent article
indicates, lawyers are more than a little nervous about job security today (I take the stats with at least
a grain of salt, but the trend is definitely interesting). That's no surprise in a time of shaky (or worse)
economic news.
As
Carolyn Elefant notes, there is far less guidance for lawyers on how to leave a job - and to leave it
professionally - than there is on how to find a job. Her new article, "
Don't Neglect Your
Reputation When Leaving A Firm," is an excellent addition to the resource list and especially timely
in this environment. It also gives me another chance to recommend her book,
Solo
by Choice.
Read the Article
Online Legal Services Update: MoFo and Minters
July 7, 2008
By Ron
From
Prism Legal
In the late 1990s, large law firms started creating web-based interactive legal advisory systems. What happened to that trend?
Market data on the number subscribers, and revenue is not available; as far as I know, the best listing of these types of
systems is my Online Legal Services list. Anecdotal evidence suggests that online advisory system development crested
around 2002 or 2003 and that many firms did not earn the hoped-for return.
We may be seeing another round of investment now; see below for two relatively new services. Here is why I think
we may see a resurgence:
Read the Article
Eversheds Report: Law Firm of the 21st Century
July 1, 2008
By Ron
From
Prism Legal
Law firm CIOs who think strategically need to understand the where the legal market and large law firms are heading.
Large UK law firm Eversheds
recently released its Law Firm of the 21st Century report. I found it provocative and had hoped to
comment about it but too much time has elapsed, so let me point you to two good commentaries on it.
Eversheds Brings Us
"The Law Firm of the 21st Century" by Adam Smith, Esq., provides both a summary and trenchant
comments, including "My take on it is that the changes expected are both more and less radical than we have imagined."
Read the Article
Excellence in eLawyering Brings New Clients to Chicago Law Firm
June 28th, 2008
By Lauren Daley
From
Law Marketing Portal
Cowell Taradash of Chicago, Illinois, launched the website www.illinoisdivorce.com
five years ago after they realized they were losing clients to low end, discount divorce attorneys.
Managing partner Wes Cowell said this was a preventive measure to stop market loss while at the
same time to gain market share. The five-lawyer firm's decision to provide legal services via the
internet proved successful:
- The site alone generates 10 to 15 percent of the firm's business.
- The availability of their services over the internet presents convenience for both the attorneys and their clients.
- The internet empowers clients to seek and obtain information regarding legal services at their own convenience.
- eLawyering saves time for both lawyers and clients by offering online forms that dramatically reduce the need for travel.
Not only has the site been great for business development, it won the American Bar Association's
2008 James I. Keane Memorial Award,
which honors law offices that successfully and innovatively deliver legal services over the internet.
The exceptional and affordable online legal services provided by the attorneys at Cowell Taradash earned
them the award for excellence in eLawyering.
Read the Article
Law Firm Marketing Opportunity: New Top Level Domains (TLD)
June 27, 2008
By Ron
From
Prism Legal
A pending change in Internet domain names creates new law firm branding opportunities.
The New York Times reports in New Flavors for Addresses on the Web Are on the Way (27 June 2008)
that the authority regulating Internet domain names, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers (ICANN), has approved custom "top level domains" (TLD). Common TLDs are .com, .edu, .org,
.net, and a host of two-letter country codes. Moving forward, at six-figure plus cost, anyone can
purchase a custom TLD. So I could purchase .friedmann or a law firm, say Skadden, could buy .Skadden.
The article does mention the confusion this may cause. But think of the branding opportunities..
www.securities.skadden or www.mergers.wachtell. Of course, this extends to e-mail addresses such
as smith@energy.sutherland or jones@antitrust.howrey. This type of naming is distinctive and potentially
memorable; it could also create style and usage challenges.
Read the Article
Computer v Human Search Revisited
June 22, 2008
By Ron
From
Prism Legal
Can lawyers rely on search to find documents in e-discovery? Recent decisions suggest perhaps not.
Craig Ball's blog post, Grimm Prognosis for ESI Search (6 June 2008) recaps decisions by Magistrate
Judge John Facciola in U.S v. O'Keefe and Equity Analytics v. Lundin and by Magistrate Judge Paul
Grimm in Victor Stanley, Inc. v. Creative Pipe, Inc.. Ball captures a central issue: "It's assumed
that lawyers are qualified to review documents and decide their relevance, responsiveness and
privileged character. But are we qualified to craft proxies for our judgment in the form of keyword
searches?"
Ball quotes Judge Grimm's ruling that testing ("utmost care in selecting methodology") is required
to rely on software searches. I'm all for process and testing and the utmost care - if applied
uniformly, including to lawyer performance on document review. Most judges and lawyers seem to assume
that lawyers are (1) qualified to review documents and (2) better at doing so than software. The
truth of either is purely an empirical question; the presumption of lawyer accuracy may well be false.
Read the Article
An Illustration of the Beyond Bullet Points Approach to Presentations
June 16, 2008
By Dennis Kennedy
From
DennisKennedy.com
I'm back home after having a great time at the bigger and better than ever Missouri Bar Solo and Small Firm
Conference. It once again lived up to its reputation as the premier conference of its kind in the US. But don't
take my word - just count the number of people from other state bars who come every year to learn ways to
improve their own conferences. I may do a blog post or two later this week about my experiences there.
Today, I thought it might be interesting to share some details about one of my presentations. The
presentation was about "Internet presence" for lawyers and the ethical issues affecting the ways lawyers
now use the Internet.
As many of you know, I'm a big fan of Cliff Atkinson's Beyond Bullet Points approach to PowerPoint
presentations and have used his style for several years.
Too often, the BBP approach gets over-simplified and described as slides with pictures and few words.
Certainly the initial reaction can be that you are seeing the opposite of the dense, text-intensive
slides that lawyers often use. But I think that misses the (bullet) point.
Read the Article
Ten Great Reasons To Use Legal Extranets
May 27th, 2008
By Kenneth Jones
From
Legal Extranet Blog
1) For corporate law departments, this is a great way to have on-line access to the status of your cases,
legal documents or case/trial calendars.
2) Legal collaboration systems provide anytime, anywhere access to case information and documents,
wherever an Internet connection is available.
3) This is a turnkey (Application Service Provider or ASP) solution, there are no servers to
set up and there is virtually no technical assistance required to set up a new collaboration system.
4) Collaboration systems can track many things -- cases, litigations, practice support
projects, vendors, budgets, etc....
Read the Article
Seven Secrets of Managing Legal Technology in Large Law Firms
June 15, 2008
By Ron
From
Prism Legal
Successful large law firm CIOs have learned many secrets to managing legal technology.
Over the last year, I wrote in this blog about maxims for managing legal technology. I collected
and refined these blog posts, which have now been published as
Maxims
for Managing Legal Technology: Unwritten Rules for the Law Firm CIO or IT Director in the June
2008 issue of Law Technology Today, an
e-zine of the ABA.
Read the Article
Ten Great Reasons To Use Legal Extranets
May 27th, 2008
By Kenneth Jones
From
Legal Extranet Blog
1) For corporate law departments, this is a great way to have on-line access to the status of your cases,
legal documents or case/trial calendars.
2) Legal collaboration systems provide anytime, anywhere access to case information and documents,
wherever an Internet connection is available.
3) This is a turnkey (Application Service Provider or ASP) solution, there are no servers to
set up and there is virtually no technical assistance required to set up a new collaboration system.
4) Collaboration systems can track many things -- cases, litigations, practice support
projects, vendors, budgets, etc....
Read the Article
Good News, Bad News: How Lawyers and Law Firms Can Maximize Media Relations
May 20th, 2008
By Janet Ellen Raasch
From
Law Practice Today
Any time the name of a lawyer or a law firm shows up in the media, it is usually the
consequence of either advertising or public relations. The two are very different.
Advertising is publicity that is paid for. As a result, the lawyer or law firm controls
the final product - the exact words or graphics that appear in the ad or the "advertorial."
Media relations is publicity that is "free" (although the firm might be paying an employee
or agency to generate it). As a result, the lawyer or law firm cannot control the final product
- the exact words or graphics that appear in the resulting editorial content.
Because it has gone through the filter of an expert outside reporter and editor, editorial
content has more credibility with the public than advertising. A good media relations program
helps a law firm balance the considerable benefits of lower cost and greater credibility against
the calculated risks that come with loss of control.
Read the Article
7 tips for improving your open rates on your E-Newsletters
May 7th, 2008
By Gail Goodman
From
Law Marketing Portal
There are no magic words you can use to get everyone on your list to open your emails, but
there are steps you can take to get more people to open them. In this article, we'll look at how
open rates are recorded, what the standard rates are, and things you can do to boost your rates.
How and When Is an Open Recorded?
An open is counted when a small 1" by 1" image known as a web beacon (invisible to the
eye) is downloaded. When this happens, the sending server records that the email has been opened.
Open rates do have their challenges. Sometimes opens are counted when they shouldn't be and
other times they aren't recorded even when the email is opened (perhaps because images are
disabled or the email is viewed as text-only). While they aren't 100 percent accurate, open
rates are an important metric and a good indicator of the success of your email campaigns. They
serve as a relative measure from email to email, providing you with a benchmark to measure future
campaigns against.
Read the Article
CRM as a Competitive Edge for Client Development
April 13th, 2008
By David E. Stevenson, Esq.
From
Law Marketing Portal
As lawyers, most of us focus on providing counsel to our clients, processing abundant
paperwork, and dutifully recording our billable hours. Marketing and client development is
often pushed to the margins of our day in favor of the client work that needs to be done.
An attorney may be brilliant in achieving results in the courtroom, but how does he or she
provide excellent service while being a rainmaker at the same time?
Lawyers aren't trained to be marketers and yet, at the partner level, they need to bring
new business into the firm. In an increasingly competitive marketplace, Darwin's "survival
of the fittest" principles apply to law firms. The "fittest" law firms are those that approach
client development in a proactive manner, instilling in their leadership the idea that constant
attention to business development is critical for success.
Read the Article
DepoDisplay: Paperless Depositions
March 21, 2008
By Neil Squillante
From
The TechnoLawyer
One of our favorite contributors, trial consultant Lynn Packer, posted a YouTube video two
days ago that showcases his DepoDisplay paperless deposition system.
Lynn has written several TechnoFeature articles for us in which he recounted his struggle to
modernize courtrooms in Utah. Therefore, it's encouraging to see his vision up and running, albeit
not in a courtroom, but in a forward-thinking Utah law firm.
Read the Article
The Fifth Dimension: Online Advertising Increasing Rapidly
March 21, 2008
By Shaun Quigley
From Law Marketing Portal
Recently we were on a call with two partners at a well-respected law firm about their media
strategy. They're commonly viewed as a high technology firm. We chatted about familiar media outlets,
then we asked them to consider online advertising. Our lively exchange came to such an abrupt halt
that we suspected the call had been dropped.
"Hello? Are you still there?" we asked.
When they confirmed that indeed they were still on the call, they somewhat sheepishly-and with
full understanding of the irony-admitted they don't yet understand the medium or believe online
advertising will deliver.
Why?
Because of a classical "thinking error." They don't respond actively to online ads themselves, thus they believe others are not motivated to notice or click though online ads either. This is exactly how great opportunities are missed.
Read the Article
Funding Law Suits: Market Discipline to Manage Legal Risk?
March 20, 2008
By Ron Friedmann
From Prism Legal Consulting
Champerty is one of the those great law school words that few think about or remember in
detail. Something to do with buying law suits being illegal. Funding them, however, may be a
different story.
Third-Party Litigation Funding Stepping up in U.K. in the Wall Street Journal Law Blog by Ashby Jones comments on large UK firms turning to outside cash to fund litigation. Jones picks up on External Funding Booms as Litigators Plot Upturn in Legal Week (20 March 2008), adding some of his own comments.
I have long thought that outside funding of litigation would bring a business discipline
and risk assessment often lacking in litigation. I left a comment at the WSJ blog:
Read the Article
Improving E-Discovery with Smart [Humans] [Technology]
March 16, 2008
By Ron Friedmann
From Prism Legal Consulting
Does finding the best way to search through huge volumes of e-data sometimes feel like the
quest for the Holy Grail?
I've previously written about applying smart search tools and using offshore lawyers to
manage e-discovery reviews more effectively. In thinking about process improvement, we should
not forget the importance of human expertise in conducting search. Better Search for E-Discovery
by Will Uppington at the E-Discovery 2.0 blog is a good summary of recent TREC research. A key
finding: one of the most effective techniques to reduce the volume of docs to review is to have
expert searchers iteratively conduct searches. As the post notes, this may be obvious but that
does not mean it's widely followed.
I think this has been true for decades and will likely remain true absent a software
revolution. So I disagree with Uppington's explanation for why iterative search by experts
does not occur in all cases: "the single biggest reason is that the technology used to perform
searches for e-discovery has simply not been easy enough for legal experts to use."
Read the Article
KM for Legal Apps
February 25, 2008
By Dennis Kennedy
From DennisKennedy.com
Judith Lamont's KM World article "KM for Legal Apps: Time is Money" gives a good picture of some
of the practical uses law firms are making with knowledge management applications. Conflict-checking,
integrating paper and electronic document management and enhanced full-text search are some of the
uses highlighted in the article.
The article also highlights a number of KM and other tech tools being used, including Microsoft
SharePoint, something on which I'm quoted in the article. As Judith points out, "Kennedy also
expects the various products used in law firms to work better together, more as an integrated whole
than a series of functionally unrelated products."
Read the Article
Legal Extranet Security Considerations
February 20, 2008
By Kenneth Jones
From Legal Extranet
Security settings and methods are critically important in the area of deploying client extranets.
Here are some of the "basics".
Firstly, we expose extranets both on the internet and intranet. Therefore, it is necessary to
protect the data with an SSL certificate so that any data flowing over the internet is appropriately
encrypted.
Within your application itself, there are several dimensions to consider. Some of the more
important areas are:
- The type of access you will grant to various types of data (submit, modify, delete). Ideally,
the access levels can vary by entity type (cases, documents, calendar events, etc.).
- The creation of a set of system privileges (to grant access to see various types of functionality)
and a set of corresponding roles granting different sets of privileges. The system roles should
correlate to functional roles within a law firm and clients of the law firm. To cite a primitive
example, one might consider creating roles for Administrators, Staff Members, Staff Attorneys,
Partners and Clients, each with a different set of system privileges (depending on the nature of
work they need to do in the extranet).
Read the Article
Planning for Legal Technology in a Recession
January 22, 2008
By Dennis Kennedy
From DennisKennedy.com
The recession winds have hit the economy at gale force levels in the last few weeks. Many
people spent a nervous day watching the stock market today.
The natural reaction to news of a slowing economy is to cut back on spending. Recession often
goes hand in hand with retrenchment, and there's little doubt that the legal profession is already
casting a nervous eye toward technology budgets.
Today, I took a look back at an article I wrote in 2001 called "A Prudent Approach to
Legal Technology Spending in a Slowing Economy." It's been one of my most popular articles.
I wondered how relevant it felt today.
The article actually holds up well, despite the outdated examples and reference to Y2K efforts.
It also reflects some of my common themes, including my stubborn insistence that the concepts
of modern portfolio theory (diversity of investments, et al.) should play a role in legal
technology strategy and planning.
Read the Article
Pennsylvania's Delta Law Group Goes Virtual
January 20th, 2008
By Joyce Gannon
From Law
Marketing Portal
If you hire the Delta Law Group to handle your divorce
or draw up a will, your first meeting will likely be
a face-to-face session during which one of the partners
videotapes an in-depth interview with you. After that,
don't expect to see him again for a very long time.
Not that the lawyer plans to skip town. But Delta is
one of a small, but emerging group of "virtual"
law firms that wants to conduct most of its business
on-line. That means the attorney you met in person will
post your video and all future case proceedings to the
firm's interactive Web site, www.makinglaweasy.com.
You'll receive a password to access the site where you
can view documents, receive court notices, pose questions
and communicate with your attorney as often or as little
as you like.
Like other virtual firms, Delta, based in Monroeville,
PA, markets itself as a low-cost, no-frills alternative
to traditional law firms because it eliminates much
of the overhead and paperwork that contribute to high
hourly rates.
Read
the Article
Taking a Firm Completely Electronic
January 3, 2008
By Dennis Kennedy
From DennisKennedy.com
A reader asks:
I am a legal assistant in need of some quick advice. My employer recently asked me to track down a powerful and efficient program that would help take the entire firm electronic- files, client information, discovery. Is there one all-powerful program, or a line-up of key programs, that you would suggest to help take us virtual?
I get asked this question in one form or another on a regular basis.
I always suggest that the questioner take a look at the latest version of Ross Kodner's Paper Less Office presentation as the starting point. Let me also say congratulations to Ross on his recent wedding.
I've always liked Ross's emphasis that scanning does not necessarily mean OCR and the presentation and article I link to above will help you understand the different factors that you should consider.
I've found that often people are really asking there is a fast, easy and inexpensive way to "go all electronic."
My personal "quick advice" on getting something workable, simple and inexpensive in place would be to take three steps:
Read
the Article
Patent Troll Cases Jump 40% in 2007
December 10, 2007
By Brett Trout
From Blawg
IT
According to Troll Tracker, the anonymous blogger with
the bounty on his head, while the number of patent cases
has not increased much from 2006 to 2007, the number
of actual defendants in those cases has increased significantly
during than period. Troll Tracker attributes to this
increase to Patent Trolls running rampant in our court
system.
Patent trolls are patent holders that do no make any
actual products. Instead, Patent Trolls derive income
by suing others on patents purchased from third parties.
According to Troll Tracker, the increase in the overall
number of patent infringements is disproportionately
due to suits by patent trolls. Troll Tracker estimates
that in the busiest patent court in the country, The
Eastern District of Texas, Patent Trolls account for
about 40% of the patent cases filed.
Read
the Article
Potential to use Legal Extranets as Brief Banks
December 4, 2007
By Kenneth Jones
From Legal
Extranet
The use of legal extranets is expanding to users within
law firms as well, most notably to promote firm-wide,
cross-office sharing of work product.
For example, the potential to share briefs and documents
in a "Brief Bank" across offices is an emerging
area of need. With collaboration technology, attorneys
can quickly and easily share work product on a secure,
web-based manner and facilitate efforts such as relying
on particular documents as "best practices"
and other strategies designed to allow attorneys and
paralegals to work in a more efficient and productive
manner.
Read
Article
FastCase and Free Legal Research for Missouri Lawyers
November 20, 2007
By Dennis Kennedy
From DennisKennedy.com
One of my side projects for the last year or so was being part of a Missouri Bar task force charged with bringing a legal research alternative as a member benefit to members of the Missouri Bar.
It was a productive and fun experience, and I'm proud to say that it resulted in both a great new member benefit and a President's Award for the task force from the Missouri Bar.
We recommended FastCase as the service provider and the service launched last summer. More details here.
We had a follow-up conference call yesterday and I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of usage the service is already getting, and the positive response it seems to be getting to this point...
Read the article
The Dangers of Do-It-Yourself Computer Forensics
November 15, 2007
By Eric Shirk
From Law Practice Today
A Do-It-Yourself, or "DIY," trend has permeated the legal industry when it comes to electronic discovery and litigation consulting services. In an effort to reduce costs, law firms and corporations are building internal teams to rely less on outside vendors, with varying degrees of success. However, certain DIY missions in litigation are fraught with peril and should be carefully examined. Such is the case with computer forensics, the discipline of digital evidence gathering and examination, which often culminates in expert testimony in a court of law.
Computer forensics and the collection of digital evidence is a field with its deepest roots originating in law enforcement. Police and government investigators use various tools and techniques to mine digital evidence, tracking down perpetrators in both criminal and civil matters. With the recent explosion of electronically stored information (ESI) and eDiscovery in litigation, computer forensics is much more widespread now, and the demand for skilled professionals has outpaced the supply. Electronic discovery now appears in most cases, as e-mails have become a main form of communication, and electronic financial transactions and money management are commonplace...
Read the article
Avoiding Lawsuits - Easy as 1, 2, 3
November 14, 2007
By Brett Trout
From Blawg IT
'Cause We're So Cool
Among the huge number of attendees and speakers at BlogWorld in Las Vegas were some of the brightest online minds on the planet. Not surprisingly, these folks' main focus was harnessing the Internet to do their bidding. While the established ventures had their cadre of lawyers, thwarting legal dangers at every corner, most smaller companies had no idea if what they were doing was simply an online version of digging their own legal grave. Emboldened by the impunity with which sites like YouTube seem to operate, many figured that even if they were breaking the law, some magical YouTube fairy was going to sprinkle magic invincibility dust over their business. You know, because their approach was so cool.
How Much Fairy Dust Do You Have
Most of the smaller companies seemed to be betting their entire future on the existence of this magic fairy dust. The fairy dust approach, however, may not be as strange as it might appear on first blush. Confronted with the crippling legal fees necessary to bring their websites into legal compliance, smaller companies often opt to funnel money toward growth, rather than prophylactics (think back to your youth). Eventually all large online companies get their legal ducks in row. It is just a question of whether you have enough fairy dust to last you until you can afford competent legal counsel...
Read the article
Should Law Firms Do E-Discovery Inhouse?
November 5, 2007
By Ron Friedmann
From Prism Legal
Should law firms do e-discovery data collection and processing inhouse?
Most large firms have - and should have - the capacity to process and collect some amount of data. The question is how much. As far as I know, only a handful of large firms have significant in-house EDD collection / processing and run it as a significant profit center.
Personally, I would avoid the risk of mistakes and challenge of keeping up with ever-changing technology. A more general issue is the role of businesses beyond pure practice inside of or connected to a firm. Law Firms Backing Away From Affiliate Businesses (National Law Journal, 11/2/07) reports that many firms are selling affiliates and few are opening new ones.
Whether a big e-discovery processing center is run as a legally separate affiliate or not, I think it raises the same issue: should law firms be in businesses other than law practice? I think that this article adds to the reasons to avoid turning EDD processing into a business venture.
Read the article
Please Don't Write Your Own Cease and Desist Letter
October 30, 2007
By Brett Trout
From Blawg IT
Blowing up in your face.
When faced with someone stealing their patents or trademarks, some companies opt to craft their own little witty missive to the perpetrator. Sometimes these letters work. More often they don't. The problem is that when they don't, the letter writer typically miscalculates the blast zone by a rather wide margin. Like Wile E. Coyote after a failed bombing, the scrivener stands addled and smoldering, wondering how things could possibly gone so horribly awry.
What is the point?
Getting an infringer to stop infringing is merely one, lesser, goal of a cease and desist letter. The primary goal of a cease and desist letter is to set the stage for a subsequent lawsuit. By laying out your rights and the application of the law to the infringer's acts, a properly drafted cease and desist letter puts the infringer on notice of the alleged infringement. The better positioned you are to win a subsequent lawsuit, the more likely the other side is to settle...
Read the article
Susskind: The End of Lawyers? I Think Not
October 29, 2007
By Ron Friedmann
From Prism Legal
Well-known legal commentator Richard Susskind again predicts the end of law practice. I respectfully disagree.
The TimesOnline is publishing extracts of Susskind's forthcoming book. The kick-off article, Will lawyers exist in 100 years? (10/22/07), links to landing page The End of Lawyers, which in turns links to book excerpts - the first is Legal profession is on the brink of fundamental change) - and comments from two well-known managing partners. The article aptly summarizes Susskind's key point:
"The driving force towards the end of lawyers as we know them is twofold: information technology and what Susskind calls the market pull towards commoditisation - carving up a lawyer's job into identifiable and discreet pieces that can be outsourced and done more cheaply by others. As a result, the jobs of many traditional lawyers will be substantially eroded and often eliminated."
After two decades in the legal market working for and with large law firms and with extensive experience in legal technology, online systems, and legal outsourcing, I do not share this view...
Read the article
Engaging Your Audience Online
October 27, 2007
By Tom Ciesielka
From The Law Marketing Portal
The "new media revolution" has taken over the Internet. Blogs, podcasts, videos and wikis are no longer only the domain of the "technophile," but are tools being used by everyone from CNN to Payless Shoes. (Seriously, even Payless has video applications on their webpage!) Many are still on the fringes of the revolution, but are beginning to see the value of this next wave of Internet technology. The question is: can implementing and understanding these new Web tools help you and your law firm bring in new business?
Over the last few years, many law firms have begun to notice the increasing online presence of both their clients and competitors, which goes beyond the standard Web site. It's no longer enough to only have a stock Web page that's purely informational. The modern Web user wants interaction. As Jason Parkman, General Manager at Hubbard One, explained at the August 2007 LMA Chicago meeting, "You need to engage your audience in such a way that they feel you are having a conversation with them, not just marketing to them."
Understanding "Web 2.0"
The Web, as Parkman describes it, has gone through three significant phases. The first phase he labels "browsing." This is your basic Web use or "surfing the Web," that is, going to specific Web sites to find content. The second phase he labels "searching." This is the Web phase that ushered in the Google Empire. Web users found it harder to find the content they were looking for by simply going to specific Web sites and started frequenting search engines that compiled lists of Web results. The third phase he labels "sharing." This phase is centered on the concept of user Web-based interaction. This is the Web 2.0 phase, where applications like blogs, podcasts, wikis and social networking sites rule the day. Most law firms have only entered the first two phases of Web use or are only just beginning to see the value of an interactive Web site.
Read the article
26 Electronic Discovery Trends for 2008
October 22, 2007
By Dennis Kennedy
From DennisKennedy.com
I greatly enjoyed getting the opportunity last week to give the keynote presentation at the 2007 Lexis Concordance Partners in Excellence. It was a great group of people and I learned a lot about Concordance, its resellers, and related products. I was especially intrigued by the MindTalent Reader / HeadCram program and expect to write about it soon.
I used the presentation as a way to look at some of what I saw coming in the next year or two in electronic discovery. I mentioned 26 trends to consider for 2008 and beyond. These are trends I'm thinking about and, although the list is extensive, I would not say it s complete. I offer a summer of the list to get you thinking about what we might be facing in the near future of electronic discovery. A discussion starter, if you will. These ideas will find their way into my future EDD presentations...
Read the article
What Direction Legal Outsourcing?
October 20, 2007
By Ron Friedmann
From Prism Legal
Two current articles raise some interesting questions about law firms and outsourcing.
Small World in Law Firm Inc. (10/07) is an interview with White & Case CFO Greg Dolan. The firm outsources some word processing to a legal process outsourcer (LPO) in Chennai. It has also opened its own "captive" or "insourced" center in Manila to handle accounting, finance, and some tech. Asked why outsource, Dolan says "we decided to do both and see which one we like over the longer term."
Now that I work for an LPO, I am not dis-interested, but I think that captive centers are unlikely to prevail long term. Scale, focus, and specialization are key reasons to outsource; running a captive does not capture these benefits. (That said, I applaud W&C's empirical testing; my Best Practices posts argue that firms should manage based on real evidence, not myth.)
Look at legal technology as an example: large law firms increasingly outsource...
Read the article
Electronic Discovery Trends and Beyond Bullet Points
October 15, 2007
By Dennis Kennedy
From DennisKennedy.com
I'm giving a keynote presentation tomorrow on electronic discovery trends at a conference of electronic discovery vendors. This audience is different from my usual audience of lawyers and that has allowed me to take some creative new approaches to the topic.
I was fiddling with the introduction this evening and went back to Cliff Atkinson's approach outlined in his essential book for presenters, Beyond Bullet Points. He has a great exercise to help you organize your introduction. I worked through the exercise and was pleasantly surprised with what came out of the exercise. It's a little long and doesn't fit the recommended template, so I'm not sure that I'll use the entire thing, but I thought I'd post it here, in part to help me get it fixed in my mind by typing it out.
Let me know what you think and whether this intro makes you interested in the presentation that will follow it...
Read the article
Law Firm Marketing for Tomorrow
October 15, 2007
By Micah Buchdahl
From Law Practice Today
Many lawyers like to be trendy and fashionable. In law firm marketing circles, you are not exactly Nostradamus when advising people with incredible predictions of "new" marketing ideas-blogs, podcasts, annual reports, CRM systems-among them. They were new and trendy many years ago, and most catch on just about the time advanced marketers are on to the next great thing.
What do in-house counsel look for? If you are a decent lawyer and have to ask, the general answer is "not you."
Should I have a web site? Hey, you just got a beeper message-1998 called. Call me.
We should cross-sell. Why? The other practice group leader is only going to steal the origination credit.
Let's do sophisticated associate development programs. Because for $165k a year, I'd hate to make you actually bill.
In the 30 years since Bates, law firms have come a long way in understanding that they need to market, and need to spend on marketing. Yet, attorneys remain frustrated as to how-relying on anyone who sounds the least bit knowledgeable to guide them...
Read the article
Blogger Eviscerates Amazon 1-Click Patent
October 18, 2007
By Brett Trout
From Blawg IT
Don't mess with bloggers.
A New Zealand Amazon.com customer, disgruntled that his order had taken too long to arrive, decided to take on Goliath, Amazon's 1-click patent. The 1-click patent is probably the most famous, and most controversial Internet-based patent ever issued.
The Problem
Until the State Street case in 1998, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) had not allowed any patents on methods of doing business. That all changed after the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that business methods could be patented. This led to a deluge of patent filings. Since the USPTO had no bank of business method patents against which to vette these new patents, the USPTO issued many patents on technology which was old or, at the very least, non-obvious...
Read the article
How to Convert from POP to IMAP and Achieve Email Bliss
October 8, 2007
By Neil Squillante
From TechnoLawyer Blog
Have you every wondered why people refer to BlackBerrys as CrackBerrys? It's not because of mobile email. It's because of synchronized email.
On a BlackBerry that connects to a BlackBerry Enterprise Server and Exchange Server, your email is the same everywhere. For example, when you send a message on your BlackBerry, that message also appears in your Sent Mail in Outlook and vice versa. The same goes for any folders you create.
If your law firm doesn't use BlackBerry Enterprise Server, you can still have nearly the same experience using IMAP, an email protocol available on most email servers and from many ISPs (we use Webmail.us, an ISP that specializes in email).
Because IMAP is server-based, your email is identical everywhere you check it - work computer, home computer, laptop, smartphone, other computers, etc...
Read the article
Less is More
October 7, 2007
By Ron Friedmann
From Prism Legal
This is the second in an occasional series of "maxims" on managing legal technology. Each one is a bit edgy - you have to decide where the line is on just how true it is!
Less is More. When trying to persuade law firm management or technology committees about doing something new, don't write a long report or provide too much detail to start. Remember, lawyers love to find fault with proposals. The more detail, the easier it is for them to find fault. Also, more is a bore. Stick to concepts and business value initially; drop the detail. With this approach, the discussion is more likely to focus on the big picture and business benefit. Tell your audience that if they like the idea, you can develop supporting detail later. They can always nix the idea then. But if they buy into a concept to start, they will be less likely to find fault with the details later. (And if someone asks for answers to details at the outset, ask them how the answer would change their decision. This can get testy but it helps point out that without knowing the big picture, the details may not much matter.)
Read the article
Social Networking for Experience Location?
October 2, 2007
By Ron Friedmann
From Prism Legal Consulting
Social networking (e.g., Facebook or MySpace) is the rage. Can it support knowledge management efforts?
The Water Cooler Is Now On The Web (Business Week, 10/1/07) reports that the software "turns out to be an efficient way to mine for in-house expertise, discover new recruits, and share information within their own walls." Ok, I admit it. I don't have much hands-on experience with social networking. And therein lies a problem. I'm more techie and adventurous than the typical BigLaw lawyer. I have a hard time imagining lawyers creating profiles and using social networking (whether public or behind the firewall) to describe their experience. So I am skeptical that social networking will solve any KM problems in the near term. Granted many lawyers are on Linkedin, but I would hardly call that a serious experience location system. Am I missing something?
Read the article
Protecting Your Blog's Intellectual Property
October 2, 2007
By Brett Trout
From Blawg IT
Intellectual Property
Wow. Intellectual Property. It's quite a mouthful. Sure, it's something you hear international playboy/patent attorneys throw around all of the time, but what does it actually mean? Intellectual property refers to laws that allow you claim ownership over certain intangible creations, like inventions, books, movies and trademarks. Next time you are in Monte Carlo playing Baccarat at the big boy table, try slipping it into the conversation. The knowing winks from around the table will indicate you have used it correctly.
IP and Blog
Okay. You know what it means, but how does intellectual property relate to blogs. Intellectual property is that part of the blog you own. Most bloggers have a copyright in their content and a trademark on their name and do not even know it. Some bloggers even have valuable intellectual property in their domain name, patentable process and/or the trade secrets embodied in email lists and what goes on behind the scenes. Unfortunately, failure to properly protect this intellectual property can cause it to move into the public domain and be lost forever...
Read the article
Reverse the Persuasion Equation (aka Don't Push on Strings)
September 26, 2007
By Ron Friedmann
From Prism Legal Consulting
This is the first in an occasional series of "maxims" on managing legal technology. Each one is a bit edgy - you have to decide where the line is on just how true it is!
Reverse the Persuasion Equation (also known as Don't Push on Strings). Many CIOs, KM Directors, and others try persuading lawyers to adopt new technology, to do something different. Change directions. Supply standard productivity tools and make sure they work well. Then provide information on options for doing better to those willing to listen. In fact, make any lawyer who wants to go beyond the standard persuade you that it's a good idea. That persuasion can be an e-mail with a couple of bullet points. Anyone who cannot take the time to do this in support of what is often an expensive change is unlikely actually to use or benefit from the new thing.
Read the article
Keeping Your Blog Out of Court
September 27, 2007
By Brett Trout
From Blawg IT
This will be the topic of my speech at BlogWorld Expo in Vegas November 8. If you plan on attending, come hear me speak and/or look me up. The first five readers who do, will get a signed copy of my new CyberLaw book.
While we are on the topic of keeping your blog out of court, Rush Nigut and Kevin O'Keefe both wrote excellent posts on a Texas mother suing Verizon for using Flickr ads of her minor daughter in an advertising campaign. While the photographer gave consent to use the photo, the subject did not. Copyright and creative commons guru Lawrence Lessig notes that creative commons licenses are designed to deal with copyright and do not purport to address privacy issues. Lessig notes that without a "model release" issues of publicity and privacy remain a problem...
Read the article
Recruiting, Paying and Retaining Lawyers: Quite a Discussion Going
September 25, 2007
By Dennis Kennedy
From DennisKennedy.com
Wow! There's been a lot of conversation over the last few days on lawyer salaries, the legal job market, recruiting and retention issues. As much as I'd like to believe that my post "The Brand is the Talent" last week set off this discussion, in fact it was Amir Efrati's The Dark Side of the Legal Job Market in the Wall Street Journal's Law Blog that kicked off the lively conversation. Bill Gratsch does a nice job of summarizing and linking to the some of the posts on this topic.
I also liked Rob Millard's America's Two Legal Professions, Gerry Riskin's Sharp Pin Approaching Associate Starting Salary Balloon, and Michelle Golden's Law Students Building a Better Profession (a great example from the LSBABP blog Michelle discusses is called High Billables & Attrition Take Their Toll on Summer Recruiting). It's worth tracking down and reading the posts on this topic...
Read the article
Legal Talk Radio on Demand: Podcasting for Lawyers
September 18, 2007
By Dennis Kennedy
From DennisKennedy.com
The latest issue of the ABA's Law Practice Today webzine has a great article called "Legal Talk Radio on Demand: Podcasting for Lawyers." It's a roundtable article about lawyers using the podcasting medium and includes a stellar cast of podcasters - Bob Ambrogi, Evan Brown, Jim Calloway, Denise Howell, Tom Mighell, and Sharon Nelson, with me thrown in as organizer and, since I was unable to resist joining in, as a contributor too.
If you have any interest at all in podcasting, you will find valuable, practical information and tips from lawyers who have been podcasting for a long time and have some of the best-known legal podcasts.
The money quote (one of many possible candidates) is from Bob Ambrogi, host of one of the longest-running, best-known and most-listened-to lawyer podcasts...
Read the article
Law Firms Going Global
September 18, 2007
By Ron Friedmann
From Prism Legal Consulting
In the last decade, many US and UK law firms have adopted an "operate globally" strategy, buying or building practices around the world. The rationale is to be where their global clients are. I think that in the future, successful global firms will need to do more than merely be where their clients are.
They will also have to operate and manage more like their clients do. Law firm management has improved but still lags corporate management and operations significantly. Take for example how big companies work. How Teams Can Work Well Together From Far Apart (Wall Street Journal, 9/17/07, $) explains how "IBM uses high-tech tools to grapple with an increasingly common problem: making far-flung teams work well together." I've read many similar articles recently about global teams and working virtually...
Read the article
What exactly is a "work for hire"?
September 18, 2007
By Brett Trout
From Blawg IT
It is not what you think.
Next to "fair use," "work for hire" is probably the most misunderstood concept in copyright law. Under 17 U.S.C. 101, a "work made for hire" is:
a) A work prepared by an employee within the scope employment; or
b) A work (if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work should be considered a work made for hire) specially ordered or commissioned for use as:
a contribution to a collective work,
a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work,
a translation,
a supplementary work (forewords, afterwards, editorial notes etc.),
a compilation,
an instructional text for use in systematic instructional activities,
a test,
an answer material for a test, or
an atlas.
You can't put a square peg into a round hole...
Read the article
The Brand is the Talent
September 17, 2007
By Dennis Kennedy
From DennisKennedy.com
Gautam Ghosh's post, "The Brand is the Talent," (also seems to work if you say the talent is the brand) makes some great points and directs you to a short, pithy video of Tom Peters speaking (on a slide that says "Brand = Talent") and a blog post from Peters called "Competing To Achieve Excellence: You Are Your Only Competitor!".
Ghosh singles out a passage in Peters' post in which Peters says in part:
it's not an externally directed "war to snatch talent from the other guy" by "being more aggressive than the competition"-but an internally directed competition against ourselves (and our outrageously strong beliefs about people) in which we aim to create an unimaginably attractive workplace.
I also like Peters' comment that:
I contend that the bedrock of finding and keeping and co-creating with great folks is not about clever tools to induce prospective "thems" to "shop [live] with us," but a 99% internal effort to create such an exciting, spirited, entrepreneurial, diverse, humane "professional home" that people will be lining up by the gazillions (physically or electronically) to try and get a chance to come and live in our house and become what they'd never imagined they could become!
Peters also links to a set of his slides on the topic...
Read the article
Changing Role of Practice Support Lawyers
September 14, 2007
By Ron Friedmann
From Prism Legal Consulting
Knowledge management in North America has long had a different flavor than KM in the United Kingdom.
At the risk of oversimplifying, UK firms have focused on a relatively labor- and human-intensive KM, relying heavily on practice support lawyers (PSL). In contrast, the US firms have focused on relatively technology-intensive KM, relying far more on software than on humans.
The traditional role of the PSL, however, appears to be changing. One sign of the change is the upcoming September 20th conference in London, Capitalising on the client-focused professional support lawyer role by the Ark Group. I have co-chaired Ark KM conferences in the US, so know that Ark gives careful thought to constructing an agenda that reflects current issues...
Read the article
Enterprise Search for Large Law Firms
September 11, 2007
By Ron Friedmann
From Prism Legal Consulting
Enterprise search is a hot topic for large law firms.
I recently cited John Alber's excellent article on enterprise search. Another leading thinker about search is Oz Benamram, the mover behind Morrison & Foerster's AnswerBase (AnswerBase article; AnswerBase demo).
In a message circulated to an ILTA listserv, Oz wrote about two additional search considerations (quoted with permission):
1) Search Engine vs. Enterprise Search:
John focused on the differences among search engines. Even even the most accurate search engine, however, is likely to yield too many results merely because most firms have so many responsive documents. What good enterprise search systems, such as Recommind's, do to solve that problem, is to provide users with context to (i) further narrow down the results list and (ii) determine the value of each result.
For example, after searching for a "motion to dismiss" you may want to narrow down the results by jurisdiction, court, or judge, and select only those that won. You may want to focus on motions written by a specific individual or by the author's practice group, or that were used when Bryan Cave was on the other side...
Read the article
The Future of Law Practice Management
September 9, 2007
By Ron Friedmann
From Prism Legal Consulting
The College of Law Practice Management annual meeting took place on Saturday, September 8th. We spent the morning examining the future of law practice management.
Our wide ranging discussion is hard to summarize in a few words. For each of the several broad topics we covered, I offer below a few of the observations and comments that struck me as most interesting.
Law Firm Marketing
- A leading marketing expert believes that law firms have, by and large, blown branding.
- The huge success of leading law firms inhibits marketing. Hungry firms will innovate. Except for lock step Magic Circle
- Marketing is about content and blogs are best way to get content out on the web. [ok, said and reported by a blogger.]
- Alternative billing is the future - it has been for a long time and will be in the future...
Read the article
Legal Extranets - They are Not Just for Large Firms
September 9, 2007
By Kenneth Jones
From Legal Extranet Blog
We often receive inquiries from small firms, sometimes very small firms with 1-3 attorneys, regarding legal technology and litigation support extranets.
From these types of firms, the interest is generally a bit different from that of large nationwide law firms or Fortune 500 companies. Unlike the larger entities, who typically are interested in connecting large workteams spanning multiple locations and organizations, these firms are often interested in an ASP type law firm extranet solution which will allow them to outsource some of their key functions (sometimes case management, sometimes task management, sometimes document management, sometimes all of the above)...
Read the article
Winning the Battle for Legal Talent with Technology
September 5, 2007
By Dennis Kennedy
From DennisKennedy.com
A while back, I had a great conversation with Frank Gillman, Chief Technology Officer of Allen Matkins LLP, about the different ways that lawyers could use technology to attract and retain lawyers and other professionals. Our conclusion was that there were many underused and untapped opportunities - some quite simple and inexpensive - to use technology in these areas.
Fast forward a few months (and after starting associate salaries took another big bump up into the $150,000+ range at leading US law firms). Andrew Sandler at Aspen Knowledge called me about kicking off the Strategic Speakers Series that he was planning. He wanted to produce a series of video webinars that addressed legal technology with a strong business focus. His goal was to give law firm decision-makers information on ways to think strategically about technology in law firms and to place technology squarely within the business needs of a law firm.
That's the approach I like best, and I also really enjoyed working with Andrew on a video webinar about best practices for technology committees last year...
Read the article
Making the most of Web 2.0
September 2, 2007
By Collin Canright
From The Law Marketing Portal
Web 2.0 is both "techniques" and "technology." There are marketing trends and techniques that underlie Web 2.0 and maybe even caused the term to be coined. And there are technologies, few of which are new, that support those techniques and make the media experience much richer, both in terms of the types of media you can use to communicate over the web and, most important, the ultimate communication experience for your clients.
Networking
Networking and connectedness are at the heart of what people are calling variously Web 2.0, the new media, online media 2.0, and other such tags. Social networking sites that tie a lot of these techniques together, as we'll see later this evening.
I want to stress that what we're talking about here is online networking, networking in a traditional sense done online, in a way that extends your ability to make contacts beyond your own geographical boundary...
Read the article
Prospecting for Clients with Competitive Intelligence
August 24th, 2007
By Larry Bodine
From The Law Marketing Portal
After a brief, ritual flirtation with Moneypenny, Agent 007 was usually sent off to Q to make sure he was fitted out with the latest equipment before he embarked on his next assignment. Competitive intelligence experts at top law firms today have at their disposal an array of cyberweapons that are, if equally potent, somewhat less life-threatening.
Today's CI tools can help firms prospect for new clients; profile existing clients (in order to cross-sell to them, or guard against raids from competing firms; target opportunities in unfamiliar industries; headhunt lateral hires; spot trends in litigation by company, practice area, or law firm; profile competing firms and study their client lists; and determine client share, or how much of its total business a client company is actually sending the firm.
The roots of CI software are in bean counting. But time-and-billing software quickly evolved into sophisticated financial analysis tools. Don Murray, of Seattle's Serengeti Law, was an early pioneer, and in the late nineties demonstrated the value of such tools for analyzing who in the firm was actually delivering the most bang for client bucks, or the most black ink for the firm's bottom line -- or, with good luck, both...
Read the article
Knowledge Management and Social Tagging and Bookmarking
August 23, 2007
By Ron Friedmann
From Prism Legal Consulting
Lawyers seldom actively contribute know-how to knowledge management systems so KM professionals increasingly turn to alternatives. One interesting approach relies on user self-interest to create KM value by inference.
Almost everyone knows what it means to bookmark a web page. Originally, bookmarks were private, for the convenience of the user to find the same web page again.
Part of the "Web 2.0? revolution is "social bookmarking or tagging." In brief, if enough users tag a page as relating to a topic, search engines can better find and rank that page. For example, if every reader of this blog tags it with "KM" using a service such as del.ico.us, this blog would rank higher in search results than other KM resources with fewer such tags. The premise is that self-interest drives users to tag content and that collectively the tags serve as "votes" on the value of the page...
Read the article
Legal Process Outsourcing Universe Expands Again
August 19, 2007
By Ron Friedmann
From Prism Legal Consulting
The number of legal process outsourcing (LPO) companies continues to grow.
Joy London and I have updated our Outsourced Legal Services list: it now includes 100 LPOs, up from 77 in just three months since our last update.
Some notes about our list: It reflects published sources (web sites and articles). It does not distinguish between companies that may have 2 people versus those that may have 2000. We no longer check existing entries for each update. Instead, we now indicate the date we first added the LPO to the list and the date we last checked the web site; we hope to check web sites at least annually. As always, we welcome additions and corrections (e-mail to info at prismlegal dot com).
Some observations:
- Anecdotally, it appears that more and more LPOs offer offshore document review. Reading vendor web sites, however, it can be be hard to distinguish between responsiveness and privilege reviews versus more limited ojbective or subjective coding...
Read the article
Electronic Discovery Trend to Watch: Technology Counsel
August 13, 2007
By Dennis Kennedy
From DennisKennedy.com
Ron Friedmann's post, "Why Specialists Should Manage E-Discovery," provides an excellent introduction to and arguments for the use of specialized lawyers dedicated to managing electronic discovery efforts. It also points to Ron's recent white paper, "4 Ways an eDiscovery Attorney Can Make Your Firm More Successful." I highly recommend the post and the white paper.
The money quote (from the white paper):
[Fullbright & Jaworski's Laurie Weiss] notes that the translation between law and technology is key. "E-discovery lives in the space between law and technology," she said. "And mistakes happen in that vacuum. Our e-discovery and information management practice is working to fill that vacuum."
When I speak about trends in electronic discovery, I highlight the growing role of litigation support managers in the everyday practical aspects of electronic discovery. The time of the litigation support manger has definitely arrived.
The arrival of eDiscovery attorneys makes great sense to me, but, as Ron notes, we are in the early stages of the development and evolution of this role...
Read the article
Litigation Holds: Best Practices for Protecting Your Company's Email Data from Inadvertent Loss and Spoliation
August 13, 2007
By R. Jeffrey Graham
From Law Practice Today
Corporate litigation is a costly, time consuming proposition. There are several traps a company can fall into in the very early stages of litigation if it's not aware of its preservation duties and has an effective strategy and procedures to ensure that responsibilities are met. One of the major traps is not ensuring that responsive record deletion has stopped when litigation is anticipated or pending. The rise of email as a universal business platform for both communications and transactions has made email and other collaboration related documents a prime target for electronic discovery. Yet, due to the transitory nature of email and the distributed systems in which it resides, identifying the correct documents to hold and then ensuring the hold is carried out presents a major challenge for organizations of all sizes. This article will make the point that current best practices and litigation risk management for messaging environments dictate a detailed, hands-on approach to ensure end-users are aware of and follow litigation hold instructions. We will look in detail at two ways to ensure email deletion is stopped using the Microsoft Exchange email system to illustrate our point...
Read the article
Why Specialists Should Manage E-Discovery
August 13, 2007
By Ron Friedmann
From Prism Legal Consulting
Every litigation practice may soon need its own e-discovery attorney.
I recently wrote a white paper for Renew Data called for Renew Data discussing the emerging role of "e-discovery lawyer" (see my prior blog post, Managing E-Discovery (EDD) . You can now read it here at primslegal.com: 4 Ways an eDiscovery Attorney Can Make Your Firm More Successful
The four reasons are
- Build the Right Team to Handle a Complex Problem
- Master the Intersection of Law and Technology
- Develop EDD Best Practices to Minimize Risk and Make Life Easier
- Advise Clients on E-Discovery and Litigation Readiness
Read the article
Recruiting Lawyers in BigLaw: Where is the Technology?
August 6, 2007
By Ron Friedmann
From Prism Legal Consulting
Lawyer recruiting is in the news. Given the cost and the stakes, BigLaw should be doing more with technology to recruit.
Annual Survey Shows the New Reality of Associate Life (American Lawyer, 9/07) reports on the challenge large law firms face recruiting new talent:
"First, in the short run, the war for talent will become more ferocious. Second, the cost of talent will only increase. And third, the need for firms to differentiate themselves will become apparent even to the hidebound."
And how well does BigLaw do differentiating itself? Not so well. A related article, Is This Any Way to Recruit Associates? reports that
"Students also have problems vetting firms. They aren't helped much by firm marketing materials, which often say the same thing and make firms indistinguishable from each other. 'They all tell you they have great clients, and they work hard but [have] a very collegial atmosphere,' says the Stanford student. 'It's the same discourse over and over again.' Because so many firms look alike to students, they are now making several visits to firms after they get offers - simply to find a reason to pick one firm over another."
This article also reports that firms "spend as much as $250,000 to recruit a single summer associate." Given that huge cost, one might think that firms would take special pains to differentiate themselves or to manage the recruitment process. But there's scant evidence of that...
Read the article
Off-line with Web 2.0 apps?
August 4, 2007
By Unknown
From Affinity Law Office Technology Blog
While Web 2.0 applications (software that runs in your web browser) may be the future of law office computing, the primarily shortcoming is the current inability of those programs to work and access your data when you don't have an Internet connection. Web 2.0 application providers appear aware of this shortcoming, and are beginning to offer solutions.
Google is probably the best-known purveyor of Web 2.0 applications with its Google Apps suite. Recently it released its Google Gears API that will eventually lead to the ability to copy your data to your local PC, work on it while off-line, then seamless sync your data back to its on-line repository. So far, this ability to work off-line is limited to the Google Reader RSS application. But once it expands to the full Google Apps suite, we could see law office users more willing to try Web 2.0 apps. This will also depend on the ability of Web 2.0 application providers to assure security and confidentiality of a firm's data.
Read the article
Electronic Discovery: Six Months after the FRCP Amendments
August 1, 2007
By Dennis Kennedy
From DennisKennedy.com
Amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure became effective in December 2006 with expectations that they would constitute a sea change in electronic discovery practices in the US. Has that actually happened?
In The New Federal Rules on Electronic Discovery: The First 180 Days, John Tredennick, Craig Ball, Joe Kashi, Sharon Nelson, Browning Marean and I have a roundtable discussion about the real-world impact of these rule changes. It is informative and it will make you think. We deal with the changes we've seen (and haven't seen), native file production, state court developments, and then check our crystal balls for predictions.
There are many choices for the money quote in this excellent article, but let me give my money quote award to John Tredennick, who says:
As the volumes of native files continue to mount, there is little chance of going back to paper discovery. There aren't enough trees in the forest for one thing, let alone enough printers to spit out the paper. And, our clients would go broke trying to manage the process. No, electronic discovery is here to stay and paper discovery is on the way out. That means new techniques will have to be developed to handle the mountain of electronic content and lawyers will have to get comfortable with the fact that they will not be able to review every document.
The article is part of an excellent new issue of the ABA Law Practice Management Section's new webzine Law Technology Today, of which I am a member of editorial board. I invite you to check out the entire article because you will be rewarded with some useful, practical articles and great information.
Read the article
Alternatives to Law Firms for EDD Document Review
August 1, 2007
By Ron Friedmann
From Prism Legal Consulting
Price umbrellas and inefficiencies create market opportunities. At least so it seems when it comes to reviewing discovery documents in litigation.
General counsels complain about law firm costs to review documents flowing from e-discovery (EDD). The market is listening. One year ago, I blogged about offshore options for document review. Recently I've come across some US companies that review discovery documents. The list here is likely not complete (identifying review companies by web searching is hard):
- Barrasso Consulting
- Black Letter Discovery
- De Novo Legal
- DiscoverReady
- Digital Mandate
- Huron Consulting Group (which acquired Nextra)
There are probably lines to be drawn in the market among consulting companies that focus on managing the discovery process, staffing agencies that also provide facilities (and I understand more and more are doing so), and companies focused primarily on document review...
Read the article
Will the operating system become irrelevant?
July 27, 2007
By Unknown
From Affinity Law Office Technology Blog
The current (August 2007) issue of Laptop Magazine, perhaps the best mainstream technology publication for lawyers interested in mobile computing, has an article on the 50 best Web 2.0 sites. Of particular interest is the list of productivity sites ranging from office suites to email to calendaring. Not mentioned, but beginning to have an impact, are on-line payroll processing sites and even the beginning of time/billing/practice management sites.
What is Web 2.0? In simplest terms, it describes sites that allow you to run applications from within your web browser instead of on your computer. This has many advantages. You don't have the burden of installing and updating the application. That is handled by the web site owner. And if you are running any standard browser, your operating system is irrelevant. You could be on a Windows PC, Mac, Palm Treo, Windows Mobile smart phone, Linux computer, etc. And you are not tied to any particular computer. You can typically log into your account from any computer in the world that has Internet access...
Read the article
New Survey: Getting New Business with Web 2.0
July 26, 2007
By Larry Bodine
From The Law Marketing Portal
What exactly is Web 2.0 and how can law firms profit from it? This was the central question that Canright Communications of Chicago and The LawMarketing Portal asked in a survey conducted in June with Evalueserve.
Web 2.0 will boost law firm revenues, support marketing efforts, improve communication with existing customers and help get new clients, according to the survey.
At the same time, the survey shows that lack of knowledge and expertise of Web 2.0 techniques provides the greatest challenge for organizations.
The term "Web 2.0" refers to a wide range of online services, networking techniques, and software systems applications to foster communication and participation. The techniques and technologies of Web 2.0 are transforming marketing, public relations, and publishing...
Read the article
E-Discovery - Problem or Opportunity?
July 23, 2007
By Ron Friedmann
From Prism Legal Consulting
E-discovery (EDD) press coverage suggests problems galore. Have we lost sight of the real purpose of discovery in litigation?
E-discovery means more than producing relevant, non-privileged documents. It means winning by telling the best story possible. So much of recent EDD discussion revolves around doing it right and avoiding disaster. Reported judicial opinions self-select for problems because absent a problem, no opinion issues. There's no equivalent judicial mechanism to learn about winning discovery strategies. Nor is there any other apparent mechanism: clients and vendors seldom share details of their victories.
I would like more press and conference coverage on how to use the available tools to achieve outstanding results. Stories along the lines of "I used the text of the ideal incriminating e-mail as my search and that led me to a treasure trove of documents that helped win my case. Or "Mapping documents, e-mail, and calendar entries on a date line proved a perfectly innocent explanation for events that plaintiffs alleged constituted intent to defraud." EDD defeats are well-documented; it's time to start telling victory stories.
Read the article
Using Data Classification Solutions for Legal Regulation Compliance
July 13, 2007
By Eric D. Madison
From Law Practice Today
No matter how large or small an organization, managing data storage is generally a challenge for the Information Technology (IT) department, and it's becoming more challenging every year. IT has always had the charter to manage the storage and protection of data, but in recent years new responsibilities have emerged to include data security, long-term archival strategy and the basics of regulatory compliance requirements. If that weren't enough, IT is also being called upon to manage detailed data discovery and compliance requests, which shift into high gear when legal discovery becomes a necessity. Compliance and legal discovery in civil cases are complex issues for IT because they usually involve large amounts of data and require IT to interface with not only multiple internal departments but also external personnel such as opposing IT departments, general counsels or sometimes even representatives of the court. The intent of this article is to advise and guide IT professionals on how to select tools that will help them meet the new legal discovery and compliance requirements.
Compliance in these cases became much more complex due to changes in last year's Federal Rules for Civil Procedures. Addressing these new rules requires IT to discover the actual content and overall themes of the millions of files and emails within an enterprise's data storage complex. The rules require all files and emails with content pertaining to the suit to be submitted during the discovery phase...
Read the article
Innovative Uses of Legal Technology
July 9, 2007
By Ron Friedmann
From Prism Legal Consulting
Technology innovation is alive and well in large law firms.
Later this week, The College of Law Practice Management will announce the winner(s) of its InnovAction award. Leading up to this, the College has been blogging each application entry. [I am a Trustee of the College but not involved in the InnovAction judging.]
Several entries posted so far are based on technology:
- Foley & Lardner's Private Equity Matchmaker "brings together Foley clients from around the world who are seeking capital with those who are actively pursuing private equity investment opportunities."
- Holland & Hart's internet-based compliance management system helps its "clients increase the return on training investment, improve employee knowledge and understanding of policies and regulations applicable to their businesses, and automate retention of training records."
- Reed Smith's IP Management Mapping Program "provides a web-enabled "snapshot" of an IP portfolio in real time in presentation-ready format...
Read the article
Inkjet Versus Laser, and the Future of Printers
July 9, 2007
By Neil Squillante
From TechnoLawyer Blog
Thanks to Silverbrook Research's Memjet, HP's Edgeline, and Kodak's EasyShare we might someday look back at 2007 as the year the inkjet printer began to leapfrog the laser printer in terms of speed and cost per page.
A few weeks ago, Databazaar Blog published five interviews about the printer industry's past, present, and future with five printer pundits. They all agreed on the importance of 2007, but offered different forecasts of the future. However, they did agree on one issue - inkjet versus laser.
For example, Vince Ferraro of HP felt that both inkjet and laser printers would continue to play important but different roles in offices. Inkjet supplies analyst Andy Lippman of Lyra Research noted that even today "25% to 35% of all desktop inkjet devices are installed in a business environment." He expects this percentage to grow, but not necessarily at the expense of laser printers...
Read the article
TWiL, Avvo, Lawyer Ratings and Beyond
July 8, 2007
By Dennis Kennedy
From DennisKennedy.com
I've been off the grid the past week at the annual firm retreat (expect some modest changes in the focus of this blog in the coming months).
I did have the chance to record a This Week in Law podcast last week and it's now live and ready for downloading and listening. The episode is called Rate-a-Lawyer and focuses on the launch of the new Avvo lawyer rating site. In the episode, Denise Howell leads the discussion about Avvo and its implications with Avvo CEO Mark Britton, Ernie Svenson, Mazyar Hadayat and me.
The episode is long by podcast standards, but I encourage you to listen all the way to the end. There's a lot of good discussion and this podcast lets Mark Britton tell his side of the Avvo story to an extent that I haven't seen before, and I learned a whole lot from hearing Mark talk about the service. If you've followed the Avvo story, you'll find this discussion quite interesting. I also suspect that you'll be intrigued by some of the directions the conversation goes...
Read the article
Do's and Don'ts of High-Tech Trial Presentations.
July 6, 2006
By Andy Seldon
From Law.com
Four years ago, our courtrooms in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota were equipped with new technology tools, including digital document cameras, real-time feeds, video and audio conferencing, and more.
Since then, I've witnessed effective and ineffective use of courtroom technology by attorneys, support staff and trial consultants. Here are 10 common mistakes:
1. Failing to learn and exploit technology. When a courtroom is equipped with technology, the judge and jury expect lawyers to use it successfully. Simply knowing how to operate the technology is not enough; you must be comfortable and facile. And it's not enough to delegate -- even if you have experienced support staff or consultants handling the mechanics, you must demonstrate a solid grasp of technology if you are going to hit the mark.
Technology should feel effortless. Any interruptions, such as fumbling with controls on the document camera, can have a negative impact on the outcome of your case. If jurors perceive that you are a novice with courtroom technology, they may question your legal expertise as well...
Read the article
Stop Competing and Head for the Blue Ocean
July 5, 2007
By Edward Rholl, Esq.
From The Law Marketing Portal
Jeff Aresty had a problem. A Boston, Massachusetts-based lawyer, Aresty has a boutique practice focused on international business. After decades serving clients on several continents in commercial and litigation matters, Aresty founded the Internet Bar Association (www.internetbar.org) in 2005 and currently functions as President.
The problem? How could he serve as President of Internet Bar and simultaneously manage, and grow and reinvent his law practice to change with the times? Aresty simply didn't have enough hours in the day to do both. Internet Bar, as the first truly global online association of lawyers and other industry stakeholders, demanded a larger percentage of Aresty's time as it matured. He had to find a way to serve his clientele in a new way-to offer some kind of valued service that didn't depend on transactional work, but still fulfilled a common need his clients had.
The answer? Aresty headed for the Blue Ocean...
Read the article
Don't get caught in iPhone hype
June 29, 2007
By Unknown
From Affinity Law Office Technology Blog
Now that the Apple iPhone has finally been released, it is all too easy to get caught up in the hype. If you are a lawyer or law firm staff member and you are looking for a mobile business tool, the iPhone isn't it. You'd be much better off with a Palm OS-based Treo such as the 700p or 680.
The iPhone has an attractive design, but it is more a mobile entertainment system than a business-class productivity tool. And if you find the ability to sync with your practice management system's calendar and contact list valuable, forget about the iPhone. It can't do it. And if you use MS Exchange with Outlook for your email instead of an ordinary POP account from your ISP, the complications and compromises associated with switching your email to the iPhone will frustrate you.
As technology consultants, we know that some of the lawyers we support will rush out and trade in their Treo or other smart phone for an iPhone, then call and ask us to make it work with their existing software. In most cases, that will be an impossible task...
Read the article
FRCP And MetaData - Avoid The Lurking E-Discovery Disaster
June 29, 2007
By Dennis Kennedy
From DennisKennedy.com
An excerpt of a recent white paper I wrote for e-discovery vendor Workshare has been published as an article in Metropolitan Corporate Counsel magazine and is available online here.
The article, "FRCP And MetaData - Avoid The Lurking E-Discovery Disaster," takes a look at how document metadata is addressed by the recent amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure relating to electronic discovery.
The money quote:
The new rules do not set up requirements, regulations or specific guidelines for the handling of metadata and specific metadata issues. However, they clearly leave no place for organizations and their legal teams to hide when it comes to metadata. The rules clearly bring the consideration, discussion and handling of metadata to the surface in every case, and eliminate any argument that metadata is not a part of modern discovery practice.
I suspect that most, if not all, readers of this blog already knew that, but I'm always surprised by how slowly lawyers in general are reacting to this changing reality.
And, yes, I will write white papers on a selective basis for legal technology (and other) vendors.
Read the article
Rewarding Lawyer Efficiency
June 29, 2007
By Ron Friedmann
From Prism Legal Consulting
In the billable hour world, lawyers have little incentive to be efficient. This could change. Consider Howrey's change in associate compensation.
One the one hand, I've never believed that many lawyers are intentionally inefficient to rack up hours. On the other hand, billable hour targets or quotas do not create incentives to look for ways to practice more efficiently.
So I was fascinated to read Howrey to Ditch Lockstep Compensation for Merit-Based Model (The Recorder, 6/29/07), which reports that the firm "will introduce a merit-based system of advancement and compensation for associates. writing, deposition, trial practice and client presentation skills will be considered..."
Read the article
Using Technology to Assess Legal Risk
June 28, 2007
By Ron Friedmann
From Prism Legal Consulting
Legally solid contracts may not be good for the business.
That's a conclusion in Best Practices: Assessing And Managing Legal Risk in the June 2007 newsletter of International Association for Contract and Commercial Management. The article cites studies suggesting that well-tuned legal contracts may not be economically logical. For example, "contract terms and procedures have caused resolution of claims against suppliers takes more than 5 times longer in the US OEMs compared with companies like Toyota and Honda."
It also suggests that technology can help rationalize contract drafting "by enabling consolidation of data and experiences and the ability to make portfolio assessments." This is another example of "evidence based law," that is law practice based on empirical data rather than myth.
At minimum, the article raises an interesting question for law departments and firms that have standard contracts, even carefully vetted ones. Are they drafted to optimize business outcomes? And do you have longitudinal data to track outcomes so that you can adjust terms in the future? Contract management systems have many benefits; now add the potential to improve contract terms.
Read the article
Pollard's Laws of Communication, Collection and Collaboration
June 27, 2007
By Dennis Kennedy
From DennisKennedy.com
Dave Pollard's post "Knowledge in the Workplace: Have It Your Way" is one that I expect to be revisiting time after time. He's captured so much of what I've been thinking about collaboration tools and pushed my thinking in some new directions. I can't recommend this post enough.
Money quote #1:
Recently I devised what I called Pollard's Law for communication and collaboration tools ("they have to be simple and ubiquitous and meet an urgent need, or they won't be used").
Money quote #2:
Humans, at least modern ones, have a predilection for wanting to own, rather than share, such bodily extensions, so they are available precisely when, where and how we choose to use them. In the workplace, too, people want their own stuff -- their own phones, offices, PCs etc., even when they may be unnecessary to the effective performance of their jobs. So perhaps it is not surprising that we want the information that we get in the workplace, our way, in our own space, organized in the way it makes sense to us.
Money quote #3...
Read the article
Technology for Business Development v Marketing
June 26, 2007
By Ron Friedmann
From Prism Legal Consulting
I recently blogged about assessing the ROI of marketing investment in law firms. That posted generated a response distinguishing marketing and lead generation.
I posted Law Firm Marketing and Technology - Return on Investment (ROI) to the College of Law Practice Management Blog. College Fellow and law firm business development expert Ann Lee Gibson posted a reply response with interesting observations.
I expressed surprise that marketing departments don't track ROI. Gibson's reply, More on Law Firm Marketing and ROI - It's Really about Biz Dev raises good points. She discusses the difference between marketing and business development / lead generation; the money quote:
I'm just saying that the less interesting question to me is, "Why aren't firms determining their marketing ROI?" and the more interesting question is, "Why aren't firms actually developing cogent BD [business development] plans with specific and measurable objectives and devoting specific marketing resources (PR campaigns, bespoke seminars, conference appearances, private publications, publications in the legal and other trade presses, etc.) and specific BD resources (for getting-to-know-you visits and needs interviews and pitches and RFP responses) toward those plans, and commit to managing the plan throughout the entire year?"
The distinction between marketing and biz dev / lead generation is big. Law firm CIOs and IT directors need to understand the difference. Ideally, when marketers come knocking on your door, you would steer them toward BD, but that may be more than is possible from the IT side.
Read the article
PERCOLATING TRENDS ...
June 22, 2007
By Monica Bay
From The Common Scold
It's always incredibly helpful to attend LegalTech -- although admittedly overwhelming -- because I get to listen to and talk to a lot of people in two solid days of meetings, meals, and panels. And in so doing, one of the benefits is that trends just percolate up.
I just wrote a mini-essay in LTN (p5, July) about a huge trend that I've noticed this spring -- that EDD vendors who are changing from a "reactive" approach to e-discovery in favor of a "consulting" approach. (That plus a definite power shift to GCs in determining technology tools.)
Kroll is the latest EDD vendor to announce a new consulting arm -- Ontrack Consulting -- and I'm sure there will be more. Clearly, were at "EDD 2.0" -- or maybe 3.0 -- as the focus moves to "litigation readiness" rather than reacting to a particular lawsuit.
Other hot topics that seem to be bubbling...
Read the article
What's YOUR Lawyer Rating?-The Lawsuit Against Web 2.0 Lawyer-Ranking Site Avvo
June 21, 2007
By Stephen Stine
From American Bar Association
On paper, Avvo sounds like it could become a Zillow for the legal field-find out how you and your fellow lawyers rate! Unlike Martindale Hubble, Avvo assigns a numerical rating (1-10) to lawyers, based on information from state bar associations, court records, lawyer websites, and other sources, filtered through Avvo's proprietary lawyer-ranking algorithms. However, not everyone is happy with the ratings system, claiming that it is arbitrary and can hurt their reputation (among other anomalies, according to CNET, some convicted felons have received "higher numeric scores than law school deans")- a lawyer in Seattle has filed a class-action lawsuit against the company. Read more below-how do YOU rank in the Avvo rating system...
Read the article
Talking About GPL and Creative Commons for Bloggers
June 20, 2007
By Dennis Kennedy
From DennisKennedy.com
Thanks to Charles Stricklin and Aaron Brazell at the WordPress Podcast, I got to join them and answer questions and talk about intellectual property and licensing issues facing bloggers, with a special focus on Open Source licenses, the GPL (GNU General Public LIcense), and the Creative Commons licenses. We also talked a bit about GPL 3.0. I had a great time talking with Aaron and Charles and recommend their podcast, especially for WordPress users and those thinking about moving their blogs to WordPress. It's episode #26 for the WordPress Podcast and the episode is here.
The idea of the podcast was to give a general overview of these issues and give people a general framework for considering the licensing issues. There are a lot of misconceptions and questions about these licenses. I hope that the podcast contributes to the general discussion and shows people the nuances and difficulties of some of these issues. I might have raised more new questions than I provided answers...
Read the article
Law Firm Marketing and Technology - Return on Investment (ROI)
June 18, 2007
By Ron Friedmann
From Prism Legal Consulting
Last week I blogged about an LMA law firm marketing technology seminar. I was impressed to learn the technology but surprised that BigLaw does not track marketing return on investment (ROI).
In the Q&A, I asked if and how the panelists measure the ROI of their marketing. By and large, they agreed that you cannot do so.
This surprised me. Big firms spend 2% of revenue on marketing without knowing the ROI. Yet many firms avoid knowledge management spending, supposedly because they cannot assess ROI. Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds - or is it just sour grapes?
Tracking ROI, however, is not that hard. At least not for lead generating activities (in contrast to branding). In consulting to vendors, I have seen sophisticated analysis of the cost per qualified lead. Much law firm marketing - sending e-mail updates, hosting seminars or webinars, publishing articles, speaking at conferences, or writing a blog - is ultimately about lead generation...
Read the article
Seven Step Guide for Knowledge Management Initiatives in Corporate Legal Departments
June 18, 2007
By Dennis Kennedy
From DennisKennedy.com
Thanks to Jack Vinson, one of my favorite KM gurus, for the pointing out this one.
Keith Ecker has written an excellent article on KM projects called "Knowledge Management: A Step-by-Step Guide to KM Initiatives (pdf)" in the June 2007 issue of Inside Counsel magazine. On the one hand, it's a solid introduction to KM projects and the seven steps give a useful simple framework for considering the issues. More important, its examples and quotes are chock-full of practical advice and distilled wisdom about the current state of the art in KM and what you can do to enhance the likelihood of success in your KM projects. The article focuses on corporate legal departments, but the lessons can be applied in law firms and other organizations as well.
The seven steps listed in the article:
- Create an objective
- Sell it
- Appoint a leader
- Get buy-in
- Leverage existing technology
- Consider other stakeholders
- Maintain it
I had a very enjoyable conversation with Keith about this subject for the article and am quite pleased with the two quotes he used from me that he took from our extensive and wide-ranging conversation.
Read the article
Technology for Law Firm Marketing
June 14, 2007
By Ron Friedmann
From Prism Legal Consulting
Law firm marketing has come a long way in a decade. An LMA seminar today made that clear. And it holds some lessons for knowledge management and IT professionals.
The DC chapter of Legal Marketing Association (LMA) today hosted a seminar, "Technology Matrix - Building effective knowledge sharing and using it to plan strategy and track ROI." Panelists were Mark Greene, Chief Marketing Officer, Nixon Peabody LLP; Catherine Bishop, Chief Marketing Officer, Blank Rome LLP; and Steve Bell, Director of Sales, Womble Carlyle, Sandridge & Rice, PLLC.
All three firms have sophisticated IT architectures that integrate multiple systems to support marketing and sales. Some interesting points:
- If firm management does not have a business perspective, marketing will fail
- Use a taxonomy to categorize matters; that's the basis of all business analysis
- "All data should have its own home" (aka a single authoritative source for all data)
- SharePoint is an excellent platform to deliver disparate data and reports to lawyers and staff
- Business intelligence tools (e.g., Redwood) can provide key data for marketing
- Software, complex as it may be, is the easy part; changing culture and behavior is much harder
- Very few lawyers use CRM
- Contests and competition are an excellent way to motivate lawyers to contribute data to marketing efforts
Lessons for KM: Marketing faces similar issues...
Read the article
How to Develop an Online Brief Bank
June 13, 2007
By John Powell
From Law Practice Today
Advanced technology has allowed for greater ease in creating and maintaining a brief bank. Now, a full-text searchable brief bank has a user-friendly interface, similar to Google, but customizable and with quick updates.
The Criminal Defense Resource Center (CDRC) of the Michigan State Appellate Defender Office (SADO) has been serving the Michigan's criminal defense community since 1977 through a host of printed trial manuals, case summaries, newsletters and an indexed brief bank. In June, 1996, SADO launched its web site complete with a full-text searchable brief bank of all its printed materials. While the original search engine, Folio Views, powered the web site for years, recently it was updated with a much easier and user-friendly interface. With today's technology, almost all organizations can easily create and maintain a brief bank even on a shoe-string budget.
In December, 2006, the Criminal Defense Resource Center launched its second generation Brief Bank powered by the Coveo (www.coveo.com) search engine. The relatively simple user interface appears much like the popular search engine, Google, while the back-end is fully customizable and allows for quick updates to the Brief Bank...
Read the article
Law Firms: Use Competitive Intelligence to Make Better Business Decisions
June 13, 2007
By Janet Ellen Raasch
From Law Practice Today
What do the top firms have in common? Competitive intelligence, or CI. Rise above the competition by using a program for collecting, analyzing and managing outside information.
In the increasingly competitive environment for legal services, most law firms recognize the need to make intelligent business decisions. Decisions made in a vacuum - based on (often faulty) internal assumptions - do not fill the bill. Truly intelligent business decisions are made within the context of a law firm's external competitive environment.
The way to accomplish this is through the use of competitive intelligence (CI) - a systematic and ethical program for the collection, analysis and management of outside information.
CI can be gathered from many sources - including public records, publications, the Internet, surveys and personal interviews. This information can be used to win new clients, cross-sell to existing clients, evaluate merger and acquisition opportunities and decide whether to add a practice area or open a new office...
Read the article
Eversheds Outsources IT Systems: Sign of the Law 2.0 Times?
June 11, 2007
By Dennis Kennedy
From DennisKennedy.com
In my writings and presentations over the years, I've often commented that law firms need to take a good hard look at what business they are really in, what are their core competencies, and whether it makes sense for firms to continue to try to handle all IT operations in house. This is especially true in the case of large electronic discovery efforts.
TheLawyer.com reports that Eversheds has asked itself those questions and decided to outsource its IT systems.
The money quote:
Eversheds UK managing partner Bryan Hughes said: "We're a law firm, not a specialist IT provider and this, coupled with the fact that we had finite internal resources, meant that we could never be at the cutting edge of legal technology."
The short article also indicates that we might be seeing the start of a trend, especially in the UK. There's much to think about in both the above quote and the few paragraphs in this article...
Read the article
New Online Legal Services
June 8, 2007
By Ron Friedmann
From Prism Legal Consulting
The online legal services market (for interactive legal advice) has been quiet - until now.
Earlier this decade, many law firms developed and promoted online legal services. To my chagrin (some readers know that I had a personal stake in virtual legal advisors when I worked for Jnana) the level of activity seems to have fallen. So I was pleased to see the news in Legal Week that Allen & Overy has released a new online service called Diligence.
From the Allen & Overy Diligence web page: "diligence is a secure on-line legal risk management resource covering pre-insolvency enforceability issues in connection with trading derivative transactions with different counterparty types on a cross-border basis." Interestingly, one of the cited benefits is...
Read the article
Birth of the Blawg - A Historical Visit and Thoughts about the Future
June 5, 2007
By Dennis Kennedy
From DennisKennedy.com
First, let me recommend Bill Gratsch's fascinating post he subtitles "From There, To Here, To Where?" in which he discusses law-related blogs past, present and future, and suggest that you follow it up with Bob Ambrogi's "Blawgs: From There to Where?" which nicely acknowledges the role Bill played in helping organize access to blawgs.
I especially liked Bill's overview of the early days of lawyers blogging and his rumination about the future of blogs, but I was struck by the ways his post paralleled the ideas I've been trying to turn into a post for the last few days.
I've been traveling a lot the last week, including a quick trip to New York for meetings. I had a very limited amount of unscheduled time and Marty "The Trademark Blog" Schwimmer and I were hoping to have the chance to get together the only evening I was there. Actually, it was more than hoping - we were working really hard to make that happen and Marty wanted me to come to his house and meet his wife and children...
Read the article
Increase Marketing Results with Online Video
June 4, 2007
By Greg Buhl
From The Law Marketing Portal
With the proliferation of online video and the increase in audience choices as to where, when, and how they interact with online content, video has become a viable, extremely beneficial and cost effective marketing tool for corporations -- and potentially for law firms. When integrated effectively, online video can significantly increase the results of your outbound marketing campaign, whether it is an online banner program, email marketing program, website or event.
Internet users today are presented with direct response choices not available in any other advertising medium. With the click of a mouse, a user can initiate an IM session, talk directly with a live agent, initiate an offline phone call, generate an email to a representative or send a viral message to a friend. All are trackable campaign components that can assist in measuring ROI. Considering the measurable value of these campaign components, and how video can be used to generate the response option that you include, it is essential to consider your message and not fall into a trap of using video just for the sake of using video.
Within your online communication, video will serve as a call to action for viewers. While a 30-second television spot may generate interest across a wide-ranging television audience, it does not automatically resonate with a segmented Internet audience. The video component of your Internet campaign will be more effective targeted to a specific audience with a specific offer or service, and with an appropriate selection of direct response options...
Read the article
Alabama issues formal opinion on metadata
June 1, 2007
By Catherine Sanders Reach
From American Bar Association
The Alabama State Bar Office of the General Counsel has issued a formal opinion (2007-02) on the propriety of mining metadata. In short, in response to the question: "Is it unethical for an attorney to mine metadata from an electronic document he or she receives from another party?" comes the answer: "Absent express authorization from a court, it is ethically impermissible for an attorney to mine metadata from an electronic document he or she inadvertently or improperly receives from another party." However, the comments to the opinion note a caveat in regard to mining metadata when involved in electronic discovery.
This opinion mirrors the attitude taken by opinions set out by New York and Florida. For more information on metadata, including cites for the opinions from New York, Florida, Maryland, and the American Bar Association, as well as other issues regarding technology and ethics, see "Metadata and Other Things That Go Bump In the Night" and "Ethics and Technology: In Perfect Harmony" and follow the links in purple text for more information.
Read the article
The Advantages of VOIP (Voice Over Internet)
May 28, 2007
By Ron Friedmann
From Prism Legal Consulting
One of my new productivity tools for 2007 is a VOIP business phone. This post will interest readers in small offices or in their personal capacity more than those working in large organizations.
[To learn more about VOIP, click the more link below.]
I recently converted my business phone line from a traditional copper phone line to Sunrocket brand VOIP. The two big benefits are easier management of voice communication and lower cost.
Sunrocket offers a very simple web interface to manage the phone. Examples:
- Forward with one mouse click. (With my local phone service, forwarding is very clunky.)
- Receive a text message and/or e-mail alert of new voice mail messages.
- Listen to voice mail on my PC, in a web interface. This is easier than listening by phone because all the controls (pause, replay, save, delete) are obvious - no arbitrary numbers to remember. Separately, I recently traveled to Europe where listening on the web was much easier than finding an easy and inexpensive way to call my business line.
- Review call logs (missed, incoming, and outgoing).
- Control the number of rings before callers get voice mail.
- Pick up messages by phone from a pre-determined phone number (in my case, my mobile) without having to punch in codes.
These and other great features are typically unavailable on traditional phones...
Read the article
We Solve the Problem says Godwin Pappas Website
May 23, 2007
By Natalie G. Perry
From The Law Marketing Portal
More than a year ago, our firm decided we needed to overhaul our web site and come up with a fresh new look. As a leading litigation firm in our market, we know our industry. After doing extensive research among our competitors and about the design features currently available, we had a general idea of what we wanted. We wanted something new and interesting, and we saw Flash technology as a way to achieve that goal. We had our internal and external designers come up with several variations of a clean, modern look for our home page that would incorporate the use of Flash technology to show mini-movies.
These variations were taken to our web page committee where, over the course of several meetings, we narrowed down our selection. The committee was composed of 12 attorneys, two administrators and the three of us from Marketing. One of our biggest challenges was to achieve cohesion among all these different personalities.
At the beginning of this year, our firm changed its name. This was one of those sudden changes that required efficient scrambling on the part of our department in order to quickly put a new branding campaign in place to get our new name and logo into the market. Our objective and challenge was to incorporate the firm's new brand into an updated look for our web site while still retaining key elements of our logo such as our "red bar" and our 'We Solve the Problem"T tagline...
Read the article
The Future Of Legal Outsourcing
May 23, 2007
By Ron Friedmann
From Prism Legal Consulting
The Future Of Legal Outsourcing: What Every Law Firm And Corporate Legal Department Needs To Know. That's the topic of a panel discussion at the ALM Outsourcing Conference 515pm session.
[This blog post comes to you live from the ALM-sponsored Legal Industry Outsourcing Forum (May 23, 2007, NYC). Notes and comments are real time with minimal editing and posted as a session ends. I am taking notes in Microsoft OneNote, so use the outlining format.
This is the last post of the day. Hope that readers find this helpful. I realize the format is not great but that's a price for being real time]
Panelists
- Jason Brennan, VP, Legal Services, OfficeTiger
- John Croft, President, Global Sales and Marketing, Integreon
- Bradford W. Hildebrandt, Chairman/Founder, Hildebrandt International
- Peter S. Pantaleo, Partner, DLA Piper US LLP
1. Where is LPO going?
a. John Croft
i. Trend is unstoppable. Support is easier to understand. At Integreon, the LPO part has huge momentum. For example, at a top five UK firm.. The litigation partner at the law firm talked to his COO about a huge litigation matter for a long-standing client. He said I am competing for this client's work in the open market. I have heard about offshore document review. While we could do this internally, I need to add value for this client. Our value is to win the case, we can let someone else do the document review. This is a firm that had not outsourced document review that is now doing so.
b. Jason Brennan
i. Firms are focusing on boosting revenue and reducing cost. They are thinking about new services to clients, enabling lawyers to work on higher value work...
Read the article
Enhancing Expert Witness Trial Testimony: Collaboration Between Testimony and Technology
May 2007
By Timothy A. Piganelli
From Law Practice Today
Visual evidence can be a great advantage in the courtroom. Here are some common problems and suggestions on how to enhance and clarify the presentation and testimony of your expert witness.
Introduction
Trial verdicts can, and have, turned on the testimony of the Expert Witness. Preparation of the testimony, supporting evidence and demonstratives can make the difference between a win and a loss. Enhancing the testimony of the expert witness with technology tools can give you an advantage in the courtroom.
Retaining an expert witness to assist with evaluating and explaining case issues is a common occurrence in litigation. In almost every case, the expert's testimony is a necessity and is expected by jurors and judges. This is especially true in cases where the issues are difficult to interpret and define. Most jurors don't have the topical depth of knowledge needed to sort through the myriad of concepts or ideas they must consider in order to properly render a verdict for most complex or technical cases. In order to assist in that effort, the expert witness is a critical component to advancing the party's theories in trial or at various stages of the case.
Read the article
Wall Street Journal: Contract Lawyers Go Home
May 17, 2007
By Ron Friedmann
From Prism Legal Consulting
I have long argued that deploying armies of domestic contract lawyers to review documents in e-discovery is not a sustainable practice.
Search Software Gets Boost From New Rules in the Wall Street Journal (5/16/07) explains that the December 2006 amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure are driving new corporate spending on e-discovery software and services.
The article quotes a Gartner Group analyst: "Electronic-discovery software eliminates the need to have lawyers conduct extensive data reviews." Really? Can we send home the thousands of contract lawyers reviewing documents at this very moment? I think not. Perhaps this quote was taken out of context, but even with foreseeable software advances, lawyers will still spend much time reviewing documents...
Read the article
TrialDirector 5.1: Read Our Exclusive Report
May 16, 2007
By Sara Skiff
From TechnoLawyer Blog
In today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, lawyer and legal technology legend Dennis Kennedy covers a trial presentation program, a digital pen, and a digital notepad. Don't miss the next issue.
Below you'll find one of the three articles from today's edition:
Stay One Step Ahead of Judges and Juries
By Dennis Kennedy
The television generation long ago took its place among jurors and judges, and now the online generation is doing the same. As a result, lawyers have gradually moved from flipcharts, foam board illustrations, and videotapes to the digital medium...
Read the article
PowerPoint and Other Technologies in the Courtroom: What's Happening in 2007
May 14, 2007
By Dennis Kennedy
From DennisKennedy.com
Adam Lynn's article, "Fancy gadgets replace oratory in courtrooms," paints a good picture of what lawyers are doing with PowerPoint and other technologies in the courtroom in 2007. It's a good read for both trial lawyers and those who hire them.
I'm quoted in the article on one of the points about courtroom technology that has always intrigued me most - how the greatest impact of presentation technology might be how it improves the organization and efficiency of case presentation and results in more streamlined and better organized trials than those done using traditional methods.
The money quote comes from Todd Flaming, one of the most knowledgeable trial lawyers I know about using courtroom technology:
"At a presentation I recently gave to a room of 150 to 200 lawyers, almost every one raised his hand in response to my question: 'How many of you have used PowerPoint or an electronic presentation program in a closing?'"
For those of you interested in the history of legal technology...
Read the article
Online Legal Service for Consumers
May 10, 2007
By Ron Friedmann
From Prism Legal Consulting
During the dot-com boom, several start-ups offered business to consumer (B2C) legal web sites. Offerings varied but all failed. Now, we are seeing a re-birth, backed by heavy hitters.
Avvo is a new start-up founded by executives with experience at successful web businesses. Today, Avvo announces that "that former LexisNexis CEO Lou Andreozzi has joined Avvo's board of directors. In addition, Stanford Law Professor Deborah Rhode and former president of the American Bar Association and law firm veteran Robert Hirshon have joined the company's legal advisory board."
The home page says "We are currently in 'stealth' mode, so we cannot say too much. However, we can say that we are dedicated to helping consumers better navigate the highly confusing legal industry, and we are building something that no one else has built before." So I don't know what service(s) will be offered...
Read the article
Electronic Discovery in Simple Auto Accident Cases
May 9, 2007
By Dennis Kennedy
From DennisKennedy.com
Lawyers who resist the very notion of electronic discovery often use the "simple" auto accident as an example of a case where electronic discovery is not required. I usually give a few counter-examples, but find that I do not persuade many of the lawyers who have this point of view.
The CNET.com article "Is your car spying on you?" by Robert Vamosi just might open a few eyes and cause lawyers to rethink how pervasive electronic discovery is really becoming.
The money quote:
Since 2000, most domestic automobile manufacturers, namely General Motors (GM) and Ford, have been quietly installing what are technically called Motor Vehicle Event Data Recorders (MVEDR).
You don't need to be a meteorologist to see which way the EDD wind is blowing.
The article is also a must-read for the discussion of privacy, criminal investigation, insurance, and other issues raised by these devices.
Read the article
Powerful Formats
May 8, 2007
By Monica Bay
From The Common Scold
Roberta Gelb, a key member of LTN's Editorial Advisory Board, and head of Chelsea Office Systems, has a terrific article on Law.com about the power of formatting! Check out "Beware the Hidden Costs of Bad Formatting."
The article was originally planned for LTN, but I suggested to Roberta that it would work MUCH better on Law.com -- because she could demo the formats she's talking about. Ah the power of the web! Ain't it kewl!
Read the article
The Ethics of Offshoring Legal Work - Part II
May 3, 2007
By Ron Friedmann
From Prism Legal Consulting
Another bar authority has analyzed offshore work and concluded that, subject to certain caveats, offshoring is permissible.
In October, I reported on a NYC Bar Association ethics opinion on offshoring. Now, the San Diego County Bar Association has issued Ethics Opinon 2007-1, which analyzes in details a factual scenario of a California lawyer who outsources significant substantive aspects of legal analysis to lawyers in India. It's a long opinion that answers three questions. In my reading (and - remember - I don't practice law), subject to some reasonable caveats, offshoring is permissible.
Thanks to Mark Ross of Lawscribe for pointing out this opinion. He has also written a good analysis of it at his blog, Legal Process Outsourcing...
Read the article
Reporting Flexibility
May 01, 2007
By Kenneth Jones
From Legal Extranet Blog
Be sure, when developing a legal extranet, to provide clients various options in terms of the type of reports that they will need. Some clients will want "pretty" PDF reports which are simple "push-button" reports which they can either print or save to their hard drive for quick and simply electronic distribution (be sure for these report that you place the appropriate confidentiality and disclaimer language as well as the date/time the reports are generated on each report during the programming phase of the project since this information can not be added in an ad-hoc manner when reports are constructed) .
Others will want the ability to print simple reports (in HTML) directly from the browser with no plug ins because they prefer the simplicty of basic reporting. Others will want to export the contents of a report they run to Excel so that they have the flexibility to modify the...
Read the article
UK Legal Advice from India
April 27, 2007
By Ron Friedmann
From Prism Legal Consulting
If you live in the UK, now you can get low-cost advice from lawyers in India.
A Bob Ambrogi blog post alerted me to UK-based Expert Legal Advice. Consumers buy chunks of time in advance and receive advice by e-mail. The company offering the service is English but the lawyers are in India. Nothing I found on the site suggests that lawyers licensed in the UK supervise the work. (The terms & conditions page was not available when I visited the site.)
I don't expect to see a service like this in the US as it would probably be the unauthorized practice of law (UPL).
Read the article
Resisting the Temptation of Declaring Email Bankruptcy
April 26, 2007
By Dennis Kennedy
From DennisKennedy.com
Dealing with email can get you down. In one of the key moments in Internet history, Larry Lessig famously declared email bankruptcy, announcing that he had gotten so far behind in answering email that he was simply going to start over fresh.
It's a tempting thought - and something I've given a lot of thought to lately. There are undoubtedly several of you now reading this post from whom I have an email that needs a reply. I've been describing my inbox as a cringe-inducing zone
However, Anne Zelenka has some great suggestions to reduce the burden and offers some promising alternatives to declaring email bankruptcy in her post "Before You Declare Email Bankruptcy."
One of Anne's suggestions makes the money quote...
Read the article
Law Firms Starting to Get It?
April 24. 2007
By David Munn
From Legaltech.com Blog
I've tended to be somewhat critical of US law firms for not adopting practices that would allow them to serve their clients more efficiently and cost effectively. So I do try to take note when I learn of a law firm taking a different approach. Here's a short list of some interesting items I've run across recently.
Legal OnRamp "Legal OnRamp provides content, connectivity and execution services to help legal professionals deliver higher quality work in less time and lower cost. We're working with leading professionals from major corporations and leading law firms to provide technology and services that will meet the business imperatives of the future."
You can read more about Legal OnRamp on the Adam Smith, Esq. blog.
Law Firms Adopting Six Sigma. There may be a reason this hasn't been getting a lot of attention. Larry Bodine wrote in 2004 on his LawMarketing Blog that "The law firms are keeping it secret that they've adopted Six Sigma, because it's such a huge competitive advantage." However, you can find a presentation about how Morgan Lewis is using Six Sigma in its mortgage loan practice here. According to Richard Sabat, a Six Sigma Green Belt at Morgan Lewis, they have been able to reduce time charges by 25% while significantly increasing quality. I wouldn't be surprised to find that they have also made their clients more efficient by adopting this program...
Read the article
Is the legal profession finally positioned to take advantage of the technology revolution?
April 20. 2007
By David Munn
From Legaltech.com
I find it fascinating how certain themes sometimes come together in interesting ways all at once, and this is even more interesting to me now, as I'm just finishing reading Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point.
A reader posted a comment yesterday asking about an item I had written more than a year ago called "A Glimpse of the Future?" In that post I referred to something I had seen that I thought had the potential to cause a revolution in the way corporate counsel practice. I hadn't thought about that in a while.
I still can't talk about the specifics of what I was referring to, but the general theme is no longer terribly novel. It has to do with the convergence of two major trends. The first it that the web (Web 2.0 if you like) is giving us access to powerful technology that is much easier to use than previous generations of software. The second trend is the outsourcing of legal work.
I haven't written about outsourcing for a while, but, starting with the outstanding IACCM/Americas conference in New Orleans last week, and continuing with several items that have crossed my desk this week, the inevitability of that trend is really hitting home.
Several of the speakers at the IACCM/Americas conference talked about how they are using offshore resources, including lawyers, for some of their contract functions. Then yesterday I saw...
Read the article
Are Lawyers Doing Work That Should Be Done By Machines?
April 19, 2007
By Dennis Kennedy
From DennisKennedy.com
Good question. Important question. Maybe the Big Question.
Ron Friedmann offers his insights into the question in a post about an article in which Cisco's Mark Chandler raises the question in the context of document review in electronic discovery.
The money quote from Ron:
I've written previously that the choosing the best document review approach - US contract lawyers, offshore lawyers, or software - is an empirical question. Chandler adds anecdotal evidence that computers do better than humans, at least considering cost.
I ruminated a bit about the question outside the context of electronic discovery...
Read the article
UltraVNC: Read Our Exclusive Report
April 18, 2007
By Sara Skiff
From TechnoLawyer Blog
In today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, lawyer and legal technology legend Dennis Kennedy covers a free remote access tool, document management software for small law firms, and a utility that converts PDF files into HTML and other formats. Don't miss the next issue.
Below you'll find one of the three articles from today's edition...
Read the article
Configuring a case management area for a client
March 22, 2007
By Kenneth Jones
From Legal Extranet Blog
When working with new clients, it is critical that one conducts an initial business requirements gathering session. This session should attempt to identify many things such as.
- The data points which need to be tracked.
- The reports a client will need.
- Security requirements of the client -- who should see what cases and documents, who is authorized to enter/review/update/delete data, who should have access to certain system functions, and who is the system administrator.
- Discussion of the system administrative data (lists of required law firms, courts, defendants, case types, etc..) so the extranet dropdown boxes shall contain this data.
Once these items are defined, the implementation project manager should document these (in writing) and gain client signoff on the requirements. He/she can then take the requirements back to the technical implementation staff to develop, if needed, a set of functional specifications and project plan to implement the requirements...
Read the article
Records Management and E-Discovery
April 10, 2007
By Ron Friedmann
From Prism Legal Consulting
Is e-discovery the tail wagging the dog?
Consider the stages of EDD, each costly:
- identify sources and custodians,
- preserve data,
- collect data appropriately,
- convert data into usable formats,
- review data for responsiveness and privilege,
- produce data to opposing parties, and
- manage the overall effort.
Previous posts have discussed reducing review costs with offshore lawyers or more reliance on software. A better way is re-think the steps leading to review (identifying, preserving, etc.) Doing so is a double win: direct cost savings for those steps plus indirect savings by ending up with fewer documents requiring review.
Enter corporate records management (RM). Companies seek RM solutions that simplify tracking digital data and help prepare for litigation. I've suggested such convergence (E-Discovery Convergence at Hand? and Compliance and E-Discovery: Long Term Convergence?). Now, The Forrester WaveT:Records Management report (Q1 2007), available courtesy of CA here, observes that litigation is the "hot driver" of records management (RM). Forrester writes that today...
Read the article
Scribd: A New Publishing Experiment
April 3, 2007
By Dennis Kennedy
From DennisKennedy.com
Neil Squillante of TechnoLawyer fame has an excellent appreciation of the potential of an interesting web service called Scribd today on the TechnoLawyer Blog. As he notes, I've also found it intriguing enough to do some experimenting with it.
I had seen a few mentions of Scribd being described as a YouTube for documents.
Neil hits a home run with his analysis of the possibilities of Scribd. My thinking, until I read Neil's post, was much simpler.
I thought about the number of documents, mainly PDFs, I have lounging around on my hard drives, not doing any work for me or anyone else. A great example is seminar handouts I've done over the years.
I typically don't put those documents up on my website or post them to my blog. For any number of reasons.
Scribd seems to offer a way to easily put documents, especially large ones, up on the web without using up your own hosting space. And, if Scribd catches on, it potentially opens up a secondary audience for documents that are otherwise sitting on my hard drive...
Read the article
Dos and Don'ts of Online Legal Video
April 3, 2007
By Neil Squillante
From TechnoLawyer Blog
Not that anyone asked, but below I've placed my top five dos and don'ts for online legal video:
Do:
- Write a screenplay or storyboard before you shoot any footage. It's no different from a deposition - you need to prepare.
- Use quality microphones. Sound is more important than video quality, especially on YouTube, which uses an inferior Flash format that makes everything look blocky. If people cannot make out what you're saying, nothing else matters.
- Shoot your footage in locations that have lots of light. Nothing looks worse than underexposed video. Better to use a cheap camcorder with lots of light than a high-end HD camera in low light conditions.
- Hire a director/editor even if you're an avid hobbyist. A professional will provide insights that will improve the project.
- Provide useful information or tell a good story. Otherwise, what's the point?
Don't...
- Convert your PowerPoint presentations to video. They don't translate well. If you do, at least add a voiceover to discuss each slide. Remember, silent movies went out of vogue some 80 years ago...
Read the article
High Powered Panel Considers Impact of E-Discovery
March 26, 2007
By Ron Friedmann
From Prism Legal Consulting
Last week I attended a great e-discovery forum: "And Justice for All: How the Electronic Information Explosion is Transforming the American Legal System." H5 Technologies assembled an outstanding panel (listed below), moderated by Prof. Arthur Miller.
The 2-hour long panel discussion explored the impact of the explosion in electronic data on litigation, government record keeping, and privacy. I will focus on a few highlights from the litigation portion.
A big theme was the ability of lawyers to find relevant documents. One panelist thought that business should organize information anyway, so it shouldn't be that hard to find documents if they just did this. Another replied "no," if organizing data had value, then business would do so (a view I share).
Professor Miller suggested that perhaps lawyers have always been bad at finding documents and now still are, so what? A classic Socratic question but I was surprised to hear one panelist agree, saying what documents are found matters not since only a tiny percent are used at trial: we only need the important items, collections have much duplication, and litigators have always had nagging doubts about missing something critical. I can't square that view with mounting the best case possible and fulfilling production requirements...
Read the article
No Malpractice Insurance for Law Firm Blogs?
March 22, 2007
By Dennis Kennedy
From DennisKennedy.com
As I often say, if telephones were introduced today, there's no way that the use of telephones by lawyers would be approved under today's ethical and regulatory environment for lawyers. Just think of all the horrible things that can happen when lawyers use telephones.
Like faxes, emails, and websites before them, the "new technology" of blogging has seemed to flummox bar regulators who are unfamiliar with what blogs actually are.
The (over)reaction to blogs continues to surprise me. Let me say this as simply as I can. Blogs are simply one kind of website. The rules on lawyers' use of websites have actually reasonably clear and well-settled since about 1997. At least until the publicity blogs have received in the last two years. Since then, as I have said before, it has really become impossible to determine how blogs will be treated or to predict how regulators will deal with blogs, as the recent New York rules illustrate.
That said, there's been a modest movement toward more reasonable thinking about blog regulation since the New York regulators listened to comments to their proposed rules and made a few changes, even though there's no consensus how even those changes apply to blogs...
Read the article
Hidden Danger of Knowledge Management
March 15, 2007
By Ron Friedmann
From Prism Legal Consulting
Sun General Counsel Michael Dillon's blog post Contracts with clarity implicitly raise this question. Dillon describes an effort at Sun to simplify contract language. He notes that
"attorneys seldom create agreements from scratch. Instead, in the interests of efficiency, we build off existing templates and add additional language covering any contingencies that we have experienced or imagined. When the next attorney uses your template, he or she rarely challenges the necessity of the additions that you have made. With each revision, the agreement grows in size and complexity.. The result is lengthy and verbose documents that create more ambiguity than they resolve."
KM is all about re-use. How many lawyers try to simplify as Dillon suggests? Simple requires re-thinking, not re-using. I am not sure how many Practice Support Lawyers fundamentally re-think documents when they develop models. And re-using the last deal's documents certainly does not encourage simplification.
I've seen the high cost of a bad model document. I was recently involved in negotiations for a complex service as an IT department's business representative on a team of lawyers. We spent 50% of our time just trying to understand the provider's convoluted contract. The provider believed its document was clear, complete, and consistent. It was not. Frequently, after multiple discussions about a clause, the provider would finally say "Oh, now we see your point, we can change that language." Once they clarified the language and we understood what it meant, we could either accept or negotiate on the business merits.
I am still a KM advocate, but Dillon's post illustrates that KM has the potential to close our eyes to altogether better approaches.
Read the article
The Electronic Discovery Continuum - Accelerating Complexity
March 14, 2007
By Dennis Kennedy
From DennisKennedy.com
I've been thinking about electronic discovery lately, in large part because we've been working on the LexThink "Litigation 2.0" event. Expect more details soon and please contact me or Matt Homann and we'll get you on the mailing list.
I've also just finished a new "Thinking E-Discovery" column with Evan Schaeffer and Tom Mighell that will appear on the excellent DiscoveryResources.org website (I'm so pleased that DiscoveryResources.org is a sponsor of this blog, because I am a big fan of the site and appreciate the high quality of information collected there). The column will interest many lawyers - I haven't yet seen an article that covers the topic we've chosen. That's called a teaser. That word might also apply to the previous paragraph.
But here are two things that caught my attention today that illustrate two points I make in my EDD presentations.
1. The concepts are easy, but the details can get complicated very quickly. Yes, we all know that digital information today can be stored in a variety of places, and that you need to extend your net to capture that information. However, it will often surprise people to find where that data is stored, often right under our noses, and how something once invisible becomes so obviously an issue once someone points it out to us.
Today's example is copiers and the tip comes from David Ma's techblawg in a post called "from the 'another security headache' department" that highlights a Wired article on the storage capabilities of copiers...
Read the article
Create Successful e-Marketing Campaigns
March 8, 2007
By Suzanne Chaudhry
From The Law Marketing Portal
No wonder that online marketing activities are popular with marketers. For a reasonable outlay, an organization can be perceived as being dynamic and forward thinking. Communication is sent direct to your target audience and can be measured. But investing in digital communications arguably has more potential pitfalls than traditional promotional activities. How can you ensure your campaign is a success and doesn't end up with you being accused of spamming your valuable clients and contacts? Here's a six-step process that has worked for us and helped to keep our projects on track.
1. Clearly define your objectives
What is it that you are looking to get out of your campaign? Is it to generate leads, create awareness or achieve click-through sales? Email marketing should be used in a strategic way - not just as a cost-effective option.
Law firms have a lot to gain from a successful campaign, not least in helping to build relationships with key clients which provide real value. It is important not to forget that existing clients will have just as much reason to give you their repeat business if you are reaffirming their positive image of the firm...
Read the article
Forms vs. Functions
March 7, 2007
By Michael Trittipo
From Technically Legal
Damien Riehl writing in the Computer Law Section blog notes a recent 9th Circuit decision holding that a company operating a bankruptcy petition preparation website was engaged in the unauthorized practice of law.
The decision seems sound given its facts, and the Court says that its decision is about only those facts, not to the use of forms or software generally. The decision emphasizes the following:
Frankfort held itself out as offering legal expertise. Its websites offered customers extensive advice on how to take advantage of so-called loopholes in the bankruptcy code, promised services comparable to those of a "top-notch bankruptcy lawyer," and described its software as "an expert system" that would do more than function as a "customized word processor[ ]."
That emphasis allows one to wonder, though, whether a company that charged the same, and produced the same forms, but whose pitch was different, could escape the "unauthorized practice" decision. What if a company's pitch was...
Read the article
The Multimedia Lawyer
February 2007
By Joe Kashi
From Law Practice Today
Take advantage of the persuasive power of multimedia. Modern technology has allowed for increased accessibility and lower costs of resources such as digital cameras, printers and software. As multimedia presentations encourage memory retention, why not take suggestions for some quick and effective approaches.
Since Daniel Webster, and probably since the Magna Carta, lawyers have used vivid and evocative words in an occasionally successful effort to paint mental pictures for the trier of fact and to evoke emotion. However, anyone who has tried a few cases soon realizes that people neither use nor interpret specific words consistently and that it's all too easy for a fact finder to either misinterpret our word pictures or miss the point entirely when we try a case using a predominantly verbal approach to persuasion.
Such a hit or miss approach is incongruent with our professional obligation to present a case both accurately and persuasively. The ineffectiveness of a predominantly verbal trial technique becomes even more evident as we enter the maturity of the music video age, working with mature and responsible jurors who grew up with video games and ubiquitous Blackberry coverage rather than reading columns of gray text in The New York Times...
Read the article
Wikis for Lawyers, Email Vaults, and Legal Tech Trends in the UK
February 14, 2007
By Dennis Kennedy
From DennisKennedy.com
A few pointers to some of my new articles and a link to a fascinating response to my recent legal tech trends series from Tim Travers.
First, Tom Mighell and I have an article called "Wikis for the Legal Profession in the new issue of the ABA webzine Law Practice Today. It's designed to be an introduction to the notion of wikis, with lots of links to great resources and some suggestions on how the legal profession is using and might better use these collaboration tools. As usual, there are plenty of great articles in this issue of Law Practice Today, but let me single out an article called "How to be More User-Friendly" by my friend and fellow St. Louisan Wendy Werner.
Second, I occasionally get asked why I don't write about new products very often on this blog anymore. Well, it's because I'm writing about new products in the TechnoLawyer Newswire. The latest issue covers Symantec's Enterprise Vault (an interesting email archiving tool) and two other products that will interest lawyers. The NewsWire is free to registered subscribers. I encourage you to join up.
Third, I really enjoyed the point-by-point response UK blogger Tim Travers made to my recent legal technology trends for 2007 series...
Read the article
Dennis Kennedy's Legal Technology Trends for 2007 (Short Version)
February 13, 2007
By Dennis Kennedy
From DennisKennedy.com
By the end of 2007, we will be talking about a clear and growing digital divide between technology-forward and technology-backward lawyers and firms and a subtle restructuring of the practice of law.
The uncertainty and confusion over new Microsoft versions and electronic discovery will create a a lull in legal technology. Some will take advantage of that lull to re-evaluate and refocus, but many will not. There will be many opportunities to increase your competitive advantage, especially for lawyers, firms, and technology committees who keep their focus on the following seven trends.
1. Reacting to Microsoft.
With a new Windows release and a new Office release, Microsoft will be the center of attention in 2007. Deciding how to react to Microsoft issues will top most agendas.
A. Upgrading to New Microsoft Versions.
Windows Vista has a welcome emphasis on security and Office 2007 has a new interface and document format. Vista will probably require hardware upgrades. The decisions won't be easy, but they can't be avoided and will dictate other choices.
B. Macintosh and Linux.
One reasonable reaction to Microsoft is to consider non-Windows operating systems. The Intel-based Macintoshes have changed the thinking of many lawyers about Macintosh. Linux has an excellent track record, especially for servers.
Read the article
The making of an e-discovery practice
February 08, 2007
By Kenneth Jones
From Legal Technology Blog
The new Federal Rules on Electronic Discovery, which went into effect December 1, 2006, were considered by some to be an administrative compliance burden for companies, organizations and law firms alike. However, at Sedgwick, a small team of attorneys saw these new regulations as an opportunity to develop a unique set of legal services for the firm. This new practice expanded, beyond the practice of compliance counseling, into new frontiers that include technology-based capabilities assisting companies in the implementation of the policies, procedures and best practices often recommended to corporate and institutional clients.
So, how did this all begin? In early 2006, two Sedgwick partners, Keith Casto and Kenneth Rashbaum, identified the need to counsel companies with respect to changes in business practices driven by the new Federal Rules. These needs included the requirements that organizations track and manage electronic information, implement appropriate and reasonable records retention policies for electronic records, execute litigation holds on electronic information as needed, and comply with new regulations, timing and benchmarks related to the identification and exchange of such data during the litigation discovery process.Further complicating these issues was the fact that case law varies in federal and state courts, and also differs considerably from state to state. For example, some states have many regulations, statutes and precedents in this area, while other states have incomplete and limited prior materials in this area...
Read the article
Favorite Tips for Building an Audience for a Blog
January 20th, 2007
By Larry Bodine
From The Law Marketing Portal
A columnist on the San Jose Mercury news sent out a call for help: Specifically he was asking for help in building an audience and also getting his blog's audience to engage - very few people were leaving comments.
The famous Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble responded with 11 tips (that garnered 60 comments by late January 2007). The tips are on practical and powerful -- any blogger can use them to promote his or her own blog. Who doesn't need a bigger audience? If journalists need help, lawyers and legal marketers do too...
Read the article
Using extranets to facilitate electronic billing
January 16, 2007
By Kenneth Jones
From Legal Extranet Blog
Another interesting use for legal extranets is to facilitate electronic billing. How might this work?
One might, for example, deploy a series of extranets (one for each law firm a client selects to represent them in a case). These extranets can be linked to a main case management database and help to control and manage the billings for a large, mass-tort litigation. Using this technology, one can assist a company in being sure all billings are posted to active claims, that billings are attributed to the appropriate local firm, that billings are associated with specific plaintiffs (rather than to a general number) and that all submitted bills contain no plaintiff typographical errors or any basic arithmetic errors.
The implementation of these management techniques can help to ensure that all the billings received on a case are valid and are in support of open and active cases, all of which might, arguably, be helpful to a client ensuring that the funds allocated to the defense of a set of matters are spent in a wise and appropriate manner.
Read the article
Questions General Counsels Should Ask
January 4, 2007
By Ron Friedmann
From Prism Legal Consulting
Last post I suggested ways law firms could better serve clients. General counsels can also take steps to get better service from their outside counsel.
If I were a GC, here are questions I'd ask my law firms:
- Do you actively manage and budget matters? Just drafting a plan or budget causes lawyers to consider the flow of work, the possible scenarios, the resources required, and the likely time frames. The plan also serves as a valuable communications tool between the firm and law department. Spreadsheets are an easy-to-use tool for this. I have to do a budget for my boss, I want you to do one for me.
- What's your approach to managing discovery? I don't an army of associates or contract attorneys manually reviewing gigabytes of documents? Make sure your firm uses the appropriate approach to search and identify relevant documents. Increasingly, this means concept searching or other sophisticated software that reduces the number of documents lawyers must review.
- Transactions are expensive - how do you keep costs down? I'm coming to you for high stakes deals. I expect you to have the routine aspects of my transaction down pat. Do you have document assembly, master forms, checklists, interactive tools, or other systems that make you efficient for for the routine elements of my deal?
- Do you regularly perform early case assessments? Before diving into a new matter, it makes business sense to assess the stakes, the public relations value, the potential to settle, and the possibility of ADR...
Read the article
Legal Extranet Blog
January 2, 2007
By Kenneth Jones
From Legal Extranet Blog
What is the best way to be sure all local counsel to a litigation are sharing the same documents, exhibits, information and following the same case strategy.
One excellent way is to post sets of documents and instructions on a secure website. These litigation support sites are commonly known as legal extranets or law firm client workspaces. With this technology, multiple law firms can review common document sets so that everyone is 100% certain they are working with and reading the most up-to-date version of documents related to a client litigation.
Attorneys can also manage case calendars, task lists, trial calendars and other date based data using this same technology...
Read the article
End-of-Year Benchmark
December 29, 2006
By Michael Trittipo
From Technically Legal
Someone whom Santa hadn't brought a new PC asked me about deals on computers for the New Year. But she was a little tapped out after her own gift-giving. So I looked at used PCs.
In the Twin Cities, one can buy a used "Vista-capable" PC for about $140-160. That's for a P4 or similar processor, 1.5 GHz or faster, with 512 MB or more of RAM and a 40+ GB drive. And the price includes a legitimate Windows 2000 Pro or XP Pro, so one could buy the upgrade version of Vista and save $100 off its full price.
With prices so low, it's hard to get worked up over the hardware requirements for Vista approaching its January launch. It's true that Vista wouldn't install on the lowest-end machine I tried to put it on, one bought in 1999. The 784 MB of RAM was fine, but Vista saw that the speed was only 667 MHz, and declined to install. It's hard to see that as a big problem, though, when the street value of such a PC is only about $50-60 at best -- with an upgradeable Windows OS to boot (pun not intended)...
Read the article
Management Views of Knowledge Management
December 18, 2006
By Ron Friedmann
From Prism Legal Consulting
At the Ark KM Conference in October, I moderated the session "Management Views of KM." So what do "customers" think of KM?
I suggested and moderated this panel (moderator questions here) because full-time, practicing lawyers rarely attend KM gatherings. All three panelists (participant info here) are practice group leaders and a couple are on the firm's management committee; their firms range in size from 100 to 400 lawyers. Their views on KM were similar, all supporting it and saying it is important. The panelists cited many KM drivers; three stood out for me:
- Informal dollar caps on matters. Clients may not ask for budgets but for some matters, lawyers know that if they go over a certain amount, it's asking for trouble. So they want tools for efficiency.
- The need for speed. Clients often face deadlines they can't control. If outside counsel can deliver work product and advice quickly, it helps make the client look good.
- RFPs, which frequently ask about the firm's KM capabilities.
The panel agreed in concept about the value of KM but acknowledged that getting lawyers to change how they work is hard...
Read the article
Corporations and their readiness for the new Federal Rules of Civil Procedure
December 15, 2006
By Kenneth Jones
From Legal Extranet Blog
Recently, their have been many articles and discussions about the readiness of the corporate world to comply with the new rules as of 12/1/06.
There seem to be corporate attorneys who are commenting that they are not entirely sure that their company's document retention program is up to the task or if their company even has a policy.
As the rules evolve and as companies become aware of the many tools and technologies which are available to help companies assess their environments and implement programs to comply with the new rules, this should provide many opportunities for portal technologies to assist companies in this area.
Read the article
Monetizing Law Firm Insight
December 13, 2006
By Ron Friedmann
From Prism Legal Consulting
Investors today need more than information; they need insight. Can BigLaw monetize insight beyond dispensing advice?
Information drives winning investment strategies but traditional Wall Street information advantages are evaporating. The Internet has diminished the impact of huge budgets to buy information. Reg FD provides equal access to corporate insiders, eliminating the old inside edge. And wide-spread algorithmic trading and hedge fund growth makes it much harder to develop winning proprietary trading strategies. So the Street needs new approaches.
The premium now is on unique information and using the right information at just the right time. Let's call it the transition from information to insight and action. Two recent articles illustrate this...
Read the article
The Dynamics of Billing, Profits and Compensation
December 11, 2006
By Edward Poll
From Law Practice Today
There is a presumed law firm interrelationship between billings (for the purpose of this discussion, billings is intended to mean collections), profits and compensation ...that each measure moves up in tandem with the other two. But is this really the standard model? Should it be? I learned of a firm in which one of the highest paid partners did very little billing. As an office managing partner, she was compensated on the basis of the office's overall performance that reflected the fact that she leveraged associates to do more billing on higher value work. Everyone in the office and the firm benefited. This is just one anecdote that raises questions on the conventional wisdom about law firm profitability and compensation.
Compensation Models
Typically there are considered to be two general compensation models: lockstep, in which the firm's overall success each year is averaged out to determine a standard rate of compensation increase for most lawyers (or compensation is the same for each "class" of lawyer in the firm), and "eat what you kill," in which all attorneys are rewarded on how much business they personally bring in...
Read the article
Justice for All (Even the Small); Judge Nose
December 7, 2006
By Neil Squillante
From The TechnoLawyer Community
The Georgia Civil Justice Foundation has produced a slick Web site designed to inform the general public about the legal system and help those who wish to represent themselves in small cases that may not interest a law firm. The site features clever animated shorts starring the founding fathers that explain the American legal system, and a series of videos about a mock small claims court case to discuss the various components of litigation. Nicely done! Take a look...
Read the article
Do Lawyers Collaborate as Much as Others?
December 4, 2006
By Ron Friedmann
From Prism Legal Consulting
Do lawyers collaborate the same way and as much as other professionals?
In thinking about this question, first consider 3 recent articles
- Smashing The Clock, the Business Week Dec 11th cover story, explains how Best Buy is moving away from a culture of office "face time" to work anywhere, anytime, as long as the job gets done.
- Designed For Success in the same BW issue presents awards to several buildings for design excellence; many awards cite new design elements that foster collaboration.
- Wikis Are Alive and Kicking in the Enterprise in eWeek (11/20/06) reports on the increasing traction of wikis in corporate America, especially at Motorola.
Now consider my January 2003 article, The Future Law Office: Going Virtual (Law Practice Management) which argued that firms should support lawyers working outside traditional downtown offices. Anecdotally, it seems...
Read the article
Serious and Fun Productivity Tools
November 28, 2006
By Dennis Kennedy
From DennisKennedy.com
It's the season for cool gift lists. I especially like David Seah's list for the productivity-obsessed, Gifts for Hardcore Productivity Nuts: Magnatag Visible Systems. Thanks to 43 Folders for the link.
Lots of great ideas and references to great non-high-tech productivity tools like the Moleskine notebooks that became really popular with bloggers a while back (I still use mine and have jokingly referred to them as the blogger PDAs). Hey, this blog is not always about high tech.
The stars of Seah's post are...
Read the article
More or Fewer
November 27, 2006
By Michael Trittipo
From Technically Legal
No computer technology choice is right for everyone. All depends on the problem to be solved. Take the question of whether to have more monitors or fewer.
Some people feel their monitors give them too little screen area. They may move to to double monitors, as I use at work. That allows having, say, the text of a court decision in a research window, and the text of a brief in another, or the text of a model contract or your notes in one and a contract being drafted in another. So you can see both just by shifting your gaze, rather than shift from one pane to another. (Larger and widescreen monitors are another option. But two 4:3 LCD monitors will cost less than a single 16:9 monitor with screen area equal to the two 4:3 monitors' summed areas.) People who work with a lot of text in multiple documents, like lawyers, often find it useful to have two or more monitors on a single PC...
Read the article
How In-House Counsel Evaluate Law Firm Web Sites
November 25th, 2006
By Rosemary Frenza
From The Law Marketing Portal
Clients are using law firm Web sites to select and hire attorneys with ever-increasing frequency, according to two prominent general counsel. To attract new business, law firms must make their Web site a more valuable marketing tool, especially because research shows that Web sites bring in new clients.
With that in mind, Larry Bodine, a marketing consultant and founder of www.LawMarketing.com, hosted an Internet seminar titled "How In-House Counsel Evaluate Law Firm Web sites" specifically to help law firms of all sizes maximize the effectiveness and usability of their Web sites...
Read the article
Expert Witness Tracking
November 14, 2006
By Kenneth Jones
From Legal Extranet Blog
We recently completed an interesting project to facilitate the tracking of expert witnesses. This tracking capability allows law firms and clients to understand the prior work product of expert witnesses as well as to be sure that prior work product is properly used and understood to ensure consistency and to reduce the likelihood of incurring redundant costs for securing the same opinion or same type of opinion multiple times.
The system which we implemented allowed us to track the basics of an expert witness (name, title, address, phone, email, etc.). We also developed functionality to post their resume. Additionally, we developed a method of posting up work product from the experts and associating each file to the case(s) and expert(s) who developed it. And, finally, we also built a method of tracking which experts worked on which case for our clients.
Read the article
ABA Techshow 2007 - Save Money and Great Tips
November 7, 2006
By Sarah Palmer
From American Bar Association
The ABA Techshow will be taking place March 22, 2007 - March 24, 2007 in Chicago. Register now and take advantage of the early bird savings. In advance of the show check out the Techshow Blog which includes technology tips, product reviews and Techshow information.
The popular 60 Sites in 60 minutes is a hit every year and the suggestions from 2006 are listed on the site. Techshow is geared to all levels of technology expertise and includes a tradeshow where users can talk directly to vendors about their products. First time at Techshow? Then be sure and read First Time Attending guide which will help create an action plan for this informative event.
Read the article
Your Firm's True Colors; Unhappy Lawyer Test; Amicus Attorney 7 Review; Understand Your Software or Else; PodFreq Review
October 29, 2006
By Sara Skiff
From The TechnoLawyer Community
In this issue of Fat Friday, John Starkweather explains how he has embraced branding and technology at his small firm, James Zuffoletto discusses the "unhappy lawyer" phenomenon, Thomas Manion reviews his recent upgrade to Amicus Attorney 7, Diane Hopkins shares a real-life client story involving Tabs3 that teaches an important technology lesson, and Arshia Javaherian reviews Sonnet's PodFreq FM Transmitter for the iPod.
Read the article
New York Times Reports on Law Firm Outsourcing
October 27, 2006
By Ron Friedmann
From Prism Legal Consulting
Law Firms Are Starting to Adopt Outsourcing (10/27/06) reports on large law firms that have outsourced functions. I've already blogged on the examples cited in detail (Clifford Chance and Baker McKenzie), so what is interesting to me is that the NY Times considers the trend newsworthy. The article also has some additional details about CC and BM (e.g., Clifford Chance is working with Integreon). The money quote:
"Despite the attractive economics, a mere trickle of law firms have [sic] actually moved operations out of their headquarters or to overseas locations. Yet some are betting that law will be the next industry to shift parts of its operations to lower-cost regions of the world."
Coincidentally, earlier this week Joy London and I updated our list of legal offshoring and outsourcing. Joy and I have written an article analyzing what we see as the trend; it is slated to appear in LLRX.com in November...
Read the article
This Week in Law - launched
October 24, 2006
By Kevin Heller
From Tech Law Advisor
Denise Howell's much anticipated This Week in Law podcast series is off and running according to Ernie the Attorney.
Read the article
Using collaboration technology to manage case related documents
October 19, 2006
By Kenneth Jones
From Legal Extranet Blog
We recently deployed for a client a new service allowing them to attach, to specific plaintiff litigation case management records, documents pertaining to the case. This includes documents (scanned PDF's) such as the complaint, medical records, releases, and dismissals.
This linkage of the actual case documentation to the case record, made in a manner where both the client and the national counsel for the litigation can review and view the material in a collaborative manner, helps the client justify for auditing and Sarbanes-Oxley purposes, the rationale behind the decision and determination to open and close plaintiff complaints, claims and litigations.
Read the article
EDD-ucating Yourself About Electronic Discovery
October 10, 2006
By Dennis Kennedy
From DennisKennedy.com
The newest issue of the ABA's Law Practice Today webzine is where you'll find an article Tom Mighell and I wrote called "EDD-ucating Yourself About Electronic Discovery." (A minor problem with the byline might be fixed by the time you read this.)
In the article, Tom and I give you a long list, organized by categories, of the best Internet resources we have found on electronic discovery. It should be a handy one-stop reference that will be a great starting place for finding information about electronic discovery, including the new amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Tom and I assembled this list in connection with the recent presentation we gave on electronic discovery.
There's a lot happening in the world of electronic discovery and it is vital to keep up-to-date...
Read the article
The Ethics of Offshoring Legal Work
October 4, 2006
By Ron Friedmann
From Prism Legal Consulting
Legal trade press articles have quoted BigLaw partners about the parade of ethical horrors of offshoring. They should read The Association of the Bar of the City of New York Committee on Professional and Judicial Ethics, Formal Opinion 2006-3, which finds that it is ethically permissible to use offshore resources, including lawyers in other jurisdicitions.
The opinion concludes that a "lawyer may ethically outsource legal support services overseas to a non-lawyer if the lawyer" supervises the work, preserves confidencs, avoids conflicts, bills appropriately, and (in some circumstances) obtains advance client consent. Please do not rely on this summary for legal guidance; read the opinion. In my view, this is good news for firms that want to send work offshore, including document review.
Hinshaw & Culbertson's opinion summary states it does "not cover administrative legal support services." I'm not a practicing lawyer, but my read is that the opinion does cover any work that a lawyer sends offshore, from clerical to substantive...
Read the article
Top 10 Hidden Features of PowerPoint for Litigators
October 3, 2006
By Sara Skiff & Timothy Piganelli
From The TechnoLawyer Community
You may claim to be a PowerPoint know-it-all. Perhaps you know how to create a slide. But do you know how to insert a video file into a slide or instantly blank the screen during a presentation? In this article, veteran trial presentation consultant Timothy Piganelli shares his top ten favorite little-known features of PowerPoint. Do you need specialized software for your next trial presentation? - read on to find out why Tim doesn't think so...
Read the article
Meme to Watch: Identity and VRM
October 2, 2006
By Dennis Kennedy
From DennisKennedy.com
Lots of interesting posts coalescing around a theme or meme for me today.
I was listening to a fascinating podcast of a discussion between Jon Udell and Phil Windley about identity issues in our Internet and post-9/11 world. Highly recommended. Interesting stat from the podcast - 20% of identity documents get lost (do you know where your original Social Security card is? Birth certificate?).
They also mentioned P3P, a concept whose name I was trying to remember during a conversation last week, wondering what had happened to the idea.
All of which connected to the VRM - Vendor Relationship Management - an idea that Denise Howell brought to my attention here (part 3 of the podcast Denise mentions is especially recommended). My initial reactions are here. Start with this article by Doc Searls to learn more about the idea of VRM.
This evening, I caught up with this recent post on VRM from Dave Winer. Dave also pointed to this post from Kim Cameron on the topic...
Read the article
Clients of Duane Morris Update their own Contact Records
September 30, 2006
By Rosemary Frenza
From The Law Marketing Portal
If you've ever done business with Duane Morris, LLP, one of the 100 largest law firms in the United States, you may recently have received an email like this one:
"Dear [Insert Your Name Here],
On behalf of everyone at Duane Morris, LLP, we are contacting you to ensure that we have your accurate contact information.
Please review the information on the right for accuracy and completeness. If accurate and complete, please click on 'Confirm.' Otherwise, please update by clicking 'Edit.'
We appreciate your assistance and look forward to a strong and lasting relationship."
Thanks to this clever automated contact management tool, which Duane Morris began using in August, the firm has significantly increased its number of up-to-date client contact files - so far achieving a 30% and rising response rate - while saving both money and employee time and reaching a widening audience with its weekly email alerts...
Read the article
E-Discovery Uses For Legal Extranets
September 26, 2006
By Kenneth Jones
From Legal Extranet Blog
We are seeing many ideas and implementations from clients who want to load information related to discovery in legal extranets for processing by remote coding teams. Sometimes actual documents or images are loaded, other times information about the relative documents are stored in a legal extranet system to create an index of all relevant material. The nicest aspect of loading the artifacts into a legal extranet is that the data is widely available to various stakeholders on a case and the coding team need not be physically located in one geographical location.
Read the article
Adobe Acrobat 8: Does it Address the Needs of Lawyers?
September 25, 2006
By Neil Squillante
From The TechnoLawyer Community
Last week Adobe announced Acrobat 8. The long-running debate over Standard versus Professional may become moot with this new version as Adobe has placed most of the legal-specific features in the Professional version. A TechnoRelease coming to your inbox this Friday will provide some details on the legal-specific features. In the meantime, we've pulled together some information from around the Web: ...
Read the article
Cyberweek Next Week
September 19, 2006
By Catherine Sanders Reach
From ABA Legal Technology Resource Center
Cyberweek is being organized this year by the University of Massachusetts Center for Information Technology and Dispute Resolution (CITDR) and InternetBar.org. Cyberweek consists of many different kinds of activities and opportunities, from Skypecasts to meetings in virtual worlds to Podcasts to discussion forums and more, all related to the topic of Online Dispute Resolution (ODR). Cyberweek is a free all-online conference and they will have both asynchronous and real-time events. Last year, they had several hundred participants from over forty countries and are working to have a most ambitious program this year.
Read the article
Practice Management and Technology Lessons from 9-11
September 11, 2006
By Neil Squillante
From TechnoLawyer Blog
Today, most Americans will think for at least a moment
about 9-11. Those of us who work in New York's financial
district think about it more often thanks to constant
reminders - most notably Ground Zero and the security
checkpoints. Rather than wait for the official memorial
in 2012, I encourage those of you who visit New York
to take a look at Ground Zero as well as the temporary
memorial in Battery Park.
This being TechnoLawyer, did 9-11 teach us any managerial
or technology lessons? Yes. These five in particular...
Read the article
More Turning to Web for Legal Info
September 7, 2006
By Laura Ikens
From ABA Legal Technology Resource Center
According to a new Harris Interactive survey (via Lexis
Nexis), over one fourth (27%) of Americans turn to the
Internet to get information about legal matters, the
third most popular resource after friends and family
(31%) and consulting with an attorney. If your firm
does not have a website, are you missing out? The 2006
ABA Legal Technology Survey indicates that 73% of respondents'
firms have websites; however the results are sharply
divided along firm sizes: Only 40% of solo practitioners
have websites, while 65% of small firms (2-9 attorneys),
92% of firms with 10-49 attorneys and nearly all firms
with 50 or more attorneys have websites. If you need
guidance on how to set up a website for your firm, consult
the ABA Legal Technology Resource Center's FYIs on E-Mail
Accounts and Website Hosting and Finding a Domain Name
and Web Host. Make sure your firm has a presence on
the Internet as more and more people go online for legal
information.
Read the article
In-House E-Discovery Attorneys
September 5, 2006
By Ron Friedmann
From Prism Legal Consulting
In June I wrote about the emerging position of EED
attorneys in law firms. Corporations are also creating
such positions.
Discovery Trailblazers in InsideCounsel (Aug 2006)
reports that many large companies are looking for someone
to manage e-discovery. One motivation is cost control:
"An e-discovery manager works directly with vendors,
ensuring that the company gets the best possible rates."
Though vendor pricing is important, I suspect that even
bigger savings lie in actively managing how outside
counsel conducts the entire discovery process. After
all, large law firms are not reknown for their project
management skills.
"It's also important to have someone bridge the communication
barriers between legal and IT. Without a translator
in place, e-discovery can go painfully wrong." Clearly
something went wrong for Morgan Stanley in the Coleman
case (the $1.4b judgment is on appeal); having someone
inhouse to shepard document collection and establish
a records management policy is a good idea...
Read the article
Benesch Reaches Clients and Recruits with Podcasts
August 28th, 2006
By Julie Gurney
From The Law Marketing Portal
To entice the iPod generation, Benesch, Friedlander,
Coplan & Aronoff LLP in Cleveland and Columbus is making
a novel use of a podcast for marketing. The 120-lawyer
firm is one of the first law firms in the country to
use "out of the box" methods like podcasts to communicate
with recruits and clients.
Through a joint effort between its marketing and IT
departments, the firm launched a podcast series, "The
Benesch Beat" in the beginning of 2006. These informative
podcasts include brief overviews of timely legal topics
presented in an entertaining and exciting manner with
musical accompaniment.
The podcasts can be listened to online, through iTunes
or downloaded to an iPod or to other MP3 devices. Subscriptions
through RSS services allow new podcasts to be automatically
placed in the recipient's iTunes or RSS feed. The topics
covered in the series have ranged from "Doing Business
in China" to "The Race to Be Ohio's Next Governor: Introduction
to the 2006 Primary Election."...
Read the article
Web 2.0 and the Web Office
August 28, 2006
By Dennis Kennedy
From DennisKennedy.com
Lots of discussion today on announcements from Google
and web-based alternatives to Microsoft Office, all
of which bring us into the zone of Web 2.0.
I've written quite a bit about Web 2.0, but it remains
a difficult concept to explain.
Two excellent blog posts I read today will help you
develop a core understanding. Well, they certainly reflect
my point of view and I found them especially insightful.
The first is from a blog I've spent a lot of time on
in the last few days...
Read the article
Innovation Case Studies
August 28, 2006
By Ron Friedmann
From Prism Legal Consulting
I recently recommended the College of Law Practice
Management's InnovAction publication (PDF). In addition
to several feature articles about innovation, there
are several informative short case studies.
I contributed case studies of innovation at Bryan Cave
and Morrison Foerster. John Alber of Bryan Cave provided
the information for that firm's innovative use of business
intelligence software. Oz Benamram of MoFo co-authored
the case study on his firm's creation of the AnswerBase
knowledge management system. These two are available
at prismlegal.com...
Read the article
Legal Extranet Blog
August 18, 2006
By Kenneth Jones
From Legal Extranet Blog
We recently have come across some interesting requirements
and needs in terms of tracking legal case management
information and data for clients. Among some of the
new requirements have been the association of Bates
Numbers with documents, the tracking and allocation
of invoice costs associated with litigation matters,
the tracking of litigation tasks by priority and completion
status and the tracking of not only the opposition counsel
but also the specific individuals at the law firm who
are associated with a case and their role within the
case.
The key lesson to be learned here with respect to legal
extranets is that it is vitally important that the legal
extranet system one chooses to build or deploy must
be flexible enough to adapt to the various needs of
different litigations, clients and attorneys.
Read the article
Who's Failing - Clients or Law Firms?
August 7, 2006
By Ron Friedmann
From Prism Legal Consulting
Surveys and articles suggest that many general counsels
are unhappy with outside counsel. Perhaps GCs need to
hold up the mirror to find the answer to the problem.
In my recent post Looking for Law Firm Innovation,
I reported on Eric Mankin's research documenting the
lack of legal market innovation. Today, Eric has another
of his insightful updates (Prospects for Legal Innovations)
that examines why there is so little innovation in the
legal market. The bottom line: innovation is rare because
clients don't demand it.
In previous blog posts ("Procuring" Outside Counsel
and Technology, Glass Half Full or Half Empty?, Call
to Arms for GC: Force Your Outside Lawyers to Avoid
the Mistake Doctors Make) I suggested that if GCs don't
create pressure for better service delivery, then perhaps
CEOs, CFOs, or procurement officers will. I'm still
waiting.
For BigLaw CIOs, it's important to understand the overall
business environment and potential constraints on innovative
ideas they have. If you've ever felt like you are pushing
on strings, this helps explains why.
Read the article
The Business of Legal Services
August 2006
By M. Thomas (Tom) Collins
From Law Practice Today
The General Motors legal executive who negotiates the
deals with outside counsel said, "It is a business,
folks. You are the vendor and I am the customer." Except
for the small category of bet-the-company cases, GM
is going to do business with the most efficient law
firm offering the most value for the dollar.
When you talk to general counsels (GC), they make it
clear that law firms have to begin to operate like a
business. Those that become more efficient are going
to get business and those that continue to operate "their
way," the old way, are going to be on the losing end
of the economy. They know which law firms "get it,"
and which do not. The GM executive explained, "We know
far more about a law firm's performance and inefficiency
than the law firm knows-and that is sad." GM knows the
ratio of partner-to-associate use. They know when partners
are doing work that an associate should be doing. They
know when the firm doubles up on work that should be
done by a single fee earner. When the customer knows
more about the vendor's product and cost structure than
the vendor, that vendor is at a material disadvantage...
Read the article
"Looking for Law Firm Innovation"
July 31, 2006
By Ron Friedmann
From Prism Legal Consulting
CIOs often champion law firm innovation but frequently
face a tough battle. Why?
I've advocated innovation as a large law firm manager,
legal technology consultant, and software marketer.
Getting buy-in is a challenge. Eric Mankin, an expert
in business innovation and an old friend whom I've cited
previously, offers a great analysis of legal market
innovation in his weekly e-mail update.
Eric notes that the business of law is bound by the
ideas of legal precedent and the billable hour. What
passes for innovation in the legal market is old hat
in most industries. He notes that the average of income
of lawyers (not just BigLaw partners) is high and therefore
the incentive to change low. Law firms are late adopters:
innovation is a cost of business, not an opportunity.
I certainly can't cite a single instance of the market
punishing a BigLaw firm for being a late adopter.
His entire "Looking for Law Firm Innovation" analysis
is here, with permission and is worth reading. And I
personally look forward to hearing more about the fruits
of Eric's research, which he will present at the annual
meeting of the College of Law Practice Management (PDF
link).
Read the article
The Growing Role for Legal Administrators in Legal
Technology - A Report from LegalTech New York
2006
July 11, 2006
By Dennis Kennedy
From DennisKennedy.com
The annual LegalTech New York conference has
been unveiling new products, services and trends
in legal technology for the last twenty-five years.
The 2006 event was a well-attended, even crowded,
gathering of more than three hundred exhibitors
and thousands of attendees.
There are many lessons that legal administrators
can draw from this event. The biggest one may
be that IT decisions in law firms will have an
increasing impact on legal administrators. This
article will give you some of the highlights and
stress some of the trends and developments you
need to know to help you do your job better...
Read
the article
TechnoFeature - Talk Is Cheap: What You Need to
Know about VoIP
July 2006
by Adriana Linares and Ernest Svenson
From Law Practice Today
Introduction
In 1995, MIT professor Nicholoas Negroponte pointed
out that televisions and telephones were switching
places. Phones were becoming mobile and televisions
were being tethered to fixed cable sources. Today,
a lot of people still have landline phones, but
many people use cell phones exclusively. Add to
this a new Internet-based choice. If you've seen
TV ads by a company called Vonage, offering unlimited
nationwide calling for about $20 per month, then
you are somewhat familiar with VoIP. You need
a high-speed Internet connection to take advantage
of VoIP, which most people reading this article
probably have. So do any of the advantages of
VoIP make sense for you? Maybe...
Read
the article
Bridging the Widening Communications Gap Between
Lawyers and IT Departments - Article
June 28, 2006
By Dennis Kennedy
From DennisKennedy.com
Over past couple of years, I've found that the
parts of my presentations that get the most response
and generate the most questions are the parts
where I talk about ways that lawyers and IT staff
can better talk with each other. I've gotten the
clear impression that there is a lot of pain and
misunderstanding out there. The following article
addresses the IT/lawyer communication divide from
the point of view of the legal administrator and
focuses on the role legal administrators might
play in improving this dynamic. The article originally
appeared in the March/April 2006 issue of the
ALA's Legal Management magazine.
Bridging the Widening Communications Gap Between
Lawyers and IT Departments: Some Simple Starting
Strategies
We are finding that moving technology projects
forward in law firms is not as much about hardware
and software as it is about trying to get lawyers
and IT departments to communicate in ways they
can each understand.
Lawyers and IT people will universally agree
that there is a wide communication gap between
them. As firms try to bridge that gap, they may
well find that the key to getting lawyers and
IT departments together in the role legal administrators
can play in the process because they have learned,
sometimes painfully, to communicate with both
groups...
Read
the article
