DennisKennedy.blog

OK, What Technology Will We Hear is Dead Today?

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 20:43:32 -0600

Tom Mighell and I have recorded another episode of The Kennedy-Mighell Report podcast and it's now available on the Legal Talk Network and on iTunes. The episode is called "What Technology is Dead Today?" and here's the description:

Twitter, Facebook, blogging? Hardly a day goes by without someone proclaiming that a technology is “dead.” On this edition of the Kennedy-Mighell Report, co-hosts, Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell talk about what technologies to stick with, what to abandon and how you can determine which are best for your law firm. In the Q & A segment, Dennis and Tom will answer audience questions and wrap up with Parting Shots, leaving you with lasting tips and observations.

I had noticed last week that I was seeing a large number of references to technologies being "dead," most commonly Twitter. I was talking to Tom about building a podcast episode on the topic and did a quick search in my Google Reader, finding seventeen technologies that someone had declared "dead" recently. I didn't check on ones that had been called "dying."

In the episode, Tom and I talk about this phenomenon and both what it might mean and what people might mean when they say it. We also talk about how such a declaration might change your approach to technology (or not), how to evaluate such declarations, and a bit about our approach to deciding whether to stay with or abandon a given technology. These are important, but rarely discussed, areas of legal technology.

We also take on a couple of questions that I was asked last week by law students in a class on law practice management at St. Louis University Law School, including what are the "hot" technologies law student might want to focus on. I hope to write a blog post about my experience speaking with that class later this week.

In my "parting shot," I discuss my rededication to David Allen's Getting Things Done">Getting Things Done (GTD) approach to organization and how much I liked Allen's new book, Making It All Work.

We also extend congratulations to our friend Adriana Linares who has springboarded from her well-received appearances as a guest co-host on our podcast to her own Legal Talk Network podcast with Debbie Foster called Legal Three Point Oh!.. Check it out, along with the other great podcasts on the Legal Talk Network.

Give our new episode a listen and let me know what you think.

And try some of the back episodes as well.

A reminder that we have a regular segment in which we answer questions from our audience. Send me your questions about legal technology and we'll work them into upcoming episodes.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Follow my microblog on Twitter - @dkennedyblog. Follow me - @denniskennedy

Now Available! The Lawyer's Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies: Smart Ways to Work Together, by Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell. Visit the companion website for the book at LawyersGuidetoCollaboration.com. Twitter: @collabtools

Technorati tags: legal technology podcast iphone blackberry collaboration

Recent Microblog Posts - July 1, 2009

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 21:45:54 -0600

DennisKennedy.Microblog is a supplement to this blog that can be found on Twitter at @dkennedyblog. I invite you to become a follower. An explanation of the microblog can be found here.

Here are recent posts from the microblog. As an aside, it's intriguing to me that any one or all of these would have turned into a blog post with some discussion of the topic several years ago.

Martha Sperry on Friendfeed for Lawyers - http://bit.ly/dNdqg - still more reasons for having Friendfeed on my to-learn list
Steve Rubel: Blogs are Out of Beta, But Bloggers Should Always Be in Beta" - http://bit.ly/WztTW

Meryl Evans on 8 ways to extend your presentations - http://bit.ly/bl0xN

Tim O'Reilly and John Battelle on "Web Squared" - http://bit.ly/vIzrS - the Web on its collision course with the physical world

The Economist on social networking on Internet vs. traditional business networking - http://bit.ly/lfk8t

For fans of Babylon 5, JMS interview on Babylon Podcast - http://bit.ly/g6FGk 'Nuff said. Even better, there's a second part coming.

My new blog post - "A Blogging Guide for St. Louis (and Other) Lawyers (and Others)" - http://bit.ly/ZHrMm

John Heckman on Richard Susskind - Commoditization - Part 1 http://bit.ly/WyX15

RT @GreatDismal: Twitter: Return of "telegraphese". The headline writer's art. The core art of semantic compression. Lose the trim.

Steve Rubel's "Posterous is Changing How I Think About Blogging" is changing how I think about blogging - http://bit.ly/d9nTT

Is iPhone really a threat to domination of BlackBerry in legal profession? The new Kennedy-Mighell Report podcast - http://bit.ly/45TLG

RT @GreatDismal: RT @DougCoupland - a strange measure of technology's acceleration - no cell-phone images of 9-11 attacks.

RT @collabtools: Dion Hinchcliffe on Twitter on your intranet: 17 microblogging tools for business - http://bit.ly/dL2Er

We're looking for audience questions for tomorrow's recording of The Kennedy-Mighell Report podcast - why not yours? [Note: Email me with questions for our podcast Q & A segment any time]

Kevin Kelly on the increasing ubiquity of technology - http://bit.ly/dqW3G - esp. pace of change and impact of a billion of any technology

Peter Bregman: Two Lists You Should Look at Every Morning - http://bit.ly/XKdGY - your focus list & your ignore list - don't ignore the 2nd

Wish I'd seen Bernard Hibbitts (of Jurist fame) present on "The Technology of Law" - great summary by Library Boy - http://bit.ly/U0TJC

The new episode of The Kennedy-Mighell Report podcast is out; it's about ways lawyers can learn new technology - http://bit.ly/160RKh

Liked AppScout's "TuneUp Cleans your Music Collection" - http://bit.ly/fgV3r

Note to estate planning lawyers: is Suze Orman on your list of competitors? http://bit.ly/15dNE8 - what can you learn from this?

Check out the new The Kennedy-Mighell Report Podcast on the Legal Talk Network.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Follow my microblog on Twitter - @dkennedyblog; Follow me - @denniskennedy

Technorati tags: legal technology microblog Law2.0 collaboration

A Blogging Guide for St. Louis (and Other) Lawyers (and Others)

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 21:43:23 -0600

With the help of my St. Louis blogging pals, Matt Homann, George Lenard and Evan Schaeffer, I recently put together a roundtable article on "blogging for lawyers" for the St. Louis Lawyer magazine. The article is now out in print, but I believe it's only available in print to members of the Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis in its final form. I liked the way the article turned out so much, and the information in it is so good, that I couldn't stand the idea that the article wasn't widely available. So, I dug up our unedited draft of the article and post it below. As longtime law-related bloggers know, St. Louis has long been referred to as "Blawg City USA," and this is the first time Matt, George, Evan and I have shared in one place our recollections, observations and practical pointers about blogging. Hope you enjoy reading the article as much as we enjoyed writing it. Let us know what you think about the article.

A Blogging Guide for St. Louis Lawyers

Having a website has been a requirement for lawyers and law firms for many years. As people continue to migrate to the Internet as the place to find information, the return on investment from advertising in traditional print outlets for legal marketing, especially in the yellow pages, has been called into question. There's probably not a lawyer reading this article who hasn't been told recently that he or she should have a blog. Does a blog really make sense for you or your firm?

St. Louis is the home of four of the earliest and best-known lawyer bloggers. We brought them together to get their insights and reflections on blogging for lawyers in 2009.

In this article, you'll hear about blogging from Matt Homann (The NonBillable Hour), Dennis Kennedy (DennisKennedy.Blog), George Lenard (George's Employment Blawg), and Evan Schaeffer (Trial Practice Tips and The Legal Underground), who have combined for more than 20 years of blogging experience.

1. When and why did you start blogging?

Dennis Kennedy (DK): I started my blog as a birthday present to myself in February 2003. My friend Jerry Lawson likes to point out that I wrote an article in 2001 where I recommended that lawyers consider blogging and then didn't start my own blog for almost another two years. The funny thing was that at the time I started the blog I really felt like the whole blogging thing had already passed me by. My idea was that my blog would create a new audience for my writing and give me more visibility while I experimented with a new Internet technology.

Evan Schaeffer (ES): I started my blogs in January, 2004, after having tried and failed in 2001. My failed blogs were updates on class-action news for the lawyers I worked with at the time. The blog concept was new then, and the technological aspect was more difficult. I also had trouble getting my legal colleagues to remember to read. When I started again in 2004, I tried to reach for a broader audience outside my own circle of co-workers. I also lightened up my tone. By that time, blogging platforms were much more reliable and I found it easier to make my blogs look just right. I had two other reasons for trying again. One, I liked the idea that I could instantly publish my writings to a wide audience of readers. Two, I was hoping that if I was engaging enough, it might bring some new attention to my law firm. This is in fact what happened.

George Lenard (GL): I read about some of the early blogging lawyers in an article in the ABA Journal and began blogging a few months later, in May 2003. My original purpose was knowledge management. As I put it in my first post: "Most days I read recent cases and materials on labor and employment law. But too often, by the time I need to cite a case or whatever, I’ve forgotten what I read and can’t find it. So one purpose of this is to have my own personal archive. While I’m at it, why not share it with the world?" (OK, to be honest, I was not unaware of the possible marketing benefit -- but I was skeptical enough about that to not make it a primary objective or expectation.)

Matt Homann (MH): Like Evan, I began my blog in January of 2004. For me, it was place to collect and share the things I found interesting with the handful of other lawyers who felt the same way I did about hourly billing, client service and law practice innovation. It also gained me entry into the then-small community of legal bloggers -- many of whom I knew and admired.

2. What is a blog?

MH: It's funny, but this is a question you don't hear much any more now that blogs have gone mainstream in our profession and others. When all of us first began blogging, it was a far different story. People thought blogs were diaries then, and had a hard time understanding the value they could add to a professional's practice. I used to tell people that my blog was simply a place online where I put things that people who thought like I did would find interesting or valuable, with the newest "stuff" featured on the top of the page.

ES: I began blogging when most people didn't understand the word "blog," so I often just described my weblog as a "website." That's a concept that everybody could understand, and it still works--a weblog is nothing more than website that is updated weekly, daily, sometimes even hourly. I still call my blog a "website."

DK: I like to describe a blog as an online newspaper or magazine column without the newspaper or magazine. There are a lot of ways to define blogs. In general, I'd call a blog a form of website where content is delivered in the form of individual "posts" in reverse chronological order. You also use a blogging software tool that makes it easy to write for your blog without the need to know any HTML or other coding that you must know when updating a traditional web page.

GL: Dennis certainly has the conventional definition down. I would add that with current blogging software it is possible -- and not too difficult -- to create an entire, very attractive website, with the blog page as one component. One could call the blog page something else, such as "news briefs," with the blog software making it much easier to ensure freshness of the "news." On the other hand, with blogs all the rage now, it might be better to label it "blog." So the blog home page, with the reverse chronological entries, can now be viewed as simply part of a website. Another equally valid vision of the blog is as a series of individual web pages that are likely to be quite attractive to search engines. That is because in addition to maintaining the blog entries in conventional journal style, the software creates a unique "permalink" web address for each "post," and if done correctly, search engines will "crawl" and index each page as a separate item to match up with searches. Although I do have a decent audience of somewhat regular readers, the fact is that nearly 90% of my traffic is one-time visitors from search engines (mainly Google) who land not on the home page, but on a particular permalink page that correlates with their search.

3. Why should a lawyer have a blog today?

DK: I'm going to be a bit of a contrarian here. I don't think that every lawyer should have a blog. In fact, for many lawyers, having a blog will be a bad idea. Blogging works best for lawyers who can write regularly for a general audience. However, if a blog is right for you, it gives you an easy way to update your web presence with regular new content, attract a returning audience, and improve your search engine rankings.

GL: I agree with Dennis that it's not for everyone. In my experience, blogging tends to become compulsive, if not addictive, with a desire to update regularly and corresponding guilt at failure to do so, which could make it a big distraction and source of additional stress for many lawyers. I would add that a lawyer should have a blog only if they feel they will have something relatively unique to say. The flood of online content has become a tsunami. If you're just going to contribute to the world's information overload by rehashing news stories or what other bloggers say -- please don't.

ES: Probably everyone on this panel agrees with Dennis. Many lawyers shouldn't have a weblog at all. You have to be committed to putting up new content, which takes some time week after week. You also have to be willing to share your knowledge and insights, which some lawyers prefer to keep to themselves, thinking that otherwise, their competitors might get a leg up on them. Neither of these points are problems for me. I've always had a writing habit. I also don't have any illusions that I'm giving away legal knowledge so valuable that some opposing counsel will be able to use it against me. When I was a young lawyer working at a large defense firm, there were always a few friendly lawyers that I could go to for tips and advice. With my weblogs, I try to emulate that attitude and in this way, give back something to the legal profession.

4. What do you write and how do you decide what to write about?

GL: My writing has meandered quite far from the original employment law focus, though I still return to it regularly. Several years ago, I began monitoring my traffic (great tools are available to learn many details about one's traffic). I learned from such monitoring that regardless of who I wanted my audience to be (employers and their lawyers), I had little control over that. Google was sending me an awful lot of people who -- judging from what posts they found and what key words they searched -- were employees, especially job seekers. Particularly given the current economy, I added a significant dimension of jobseeking advice, catering more to the growing audience I realized I had. As to my source of topics, this varies a good deal. I try to emphasize originality and quality over quantity and frequency. I should add that I could now write very many blog posts without any effort at thinking of topics, because I get one or more PR or press release emails daily suggesting topics, books to review, etc. (way more than I can handle).

MH: I focus on innovative, creative or just crazy ways lawyers can become better at what they do. Whether it's an innovative billing model, unique marketing idea or an off-the-wall client service tip, I've always tried to share ideas from other businesses or industries that lawyers can adopt for their own practices. Recently, I've begun writing a series of "10 Rules of ..." posts that have become quite popular.

ES: My blog Trial Practice Tips is self-explanatory. My other blog, The Legal Underground, has over the years been a repository for my more whimsical writings, such as "The Trial Lawyer's Prayer" or "An Introduction to Lawyers for Those Who Have Not Yet Have the Pleasure of Being Introduced." On Legal Underground, I don't hesitate to write about anything at all: in addition to humor, there's serious critiques of class-action or mass-tort law, travel writings from Prague, Mexico, and Argentina, round-ups of law-student weblogs, and more. I've designed The Legal Underground to be a vessel into which I can pour just about anything.

DK: I was writing regular columns and articles about legal technology long before I started my blog. In many ways, my blog is another outlet for writing on those topics. I look for topics to write about that interest me and that I think will interest my audience. In general, I try to stay "on topic," but I'm probably known among lawyer bloggers as one who is willing to write about almost anything. That said, most bloggers get the ideas for their posts from news stories, other blog posts and current developments in their subject area. I always recommend that someone starting a new blog sketch out a plan for the first 20 - 30 posts for their blog.

5. Is it still a good time to start a blog?

MH: Absolutely.

ES: Some might think that the legal world is already too crowded with lawyers who have blogs--that it will be impossible to be heard over the din. But that's not true, since you can easily insure that other bloggers notice you by commenting directly on what they are saying and providing a link back to their blogs. They may in turn link back to you, bringing you more readers. In addition, since the search engines pick up blogs so efficiently, you will also get readers by writing about a niche that you know well, then waiting for others to search for information on that topic. It will definitely happen, sooner than you'd think.

DK: There's still plenty of space for new blogs and new lawyer blogs coming online everyday. The blogging tools are better than ever. There are still very few St. Louis legal blogs. It's a great time to start a legal blog with a local focus.

GL: It is still a good time to start a blog. I think for most lawyers the best approach would be to target a very specific niche, in terms of locale and/or legal sub-specialty. I think "Missouri DUI Defense Blog" is still open, for example, and would probably allow an attorney to get on Google page one for "Missouri DUI Defense" with relatively little difficulty.

6. How would someone get started in blogging?

DK: First and foremost, take some time and read a lot of blogs, both law-related blogs and other blogs on other topics that interest you. You want to get a good sense of what's out there and what you like and don't like before you jump in. Most people today use a hosted blogging service that allows you to have your own domain name. TypePad (www.typepad.com) and WordPress.com (www.wordpress.com) are common choices. Kevin O'Keefe at LexBlog has created a business around developing and hosting blogs for lawyers and law firms. You definitely need to look into what he's doing. My latest blog (www.lawyersguidetocollaboration.com) is a LexBlog blog. Some law firms will host their own blogs.

MH: I concur. Learning how to blog is less important than understanding why to blog -- and the best way to get the "why" is to read lots of other blogs. The legal blogging community is still a very congenial one, so reach out to others blogging in your area of interest and ask them why they blog. You'll not only get valuable advice, but you may find yourself a blogging mentor.

ES: A working knowledge of other law-related weblogs is very helpful in getting started yourself. If you don't have any RSS reader like Google Reader already, set one up (it's free), and populate it with feeds from law-related blogs. This is the easiest way to stay abreast of a large number of blogs in the least amount of time. Next, find a hosting service like Typepad or Squarespace and just dive in. The technological aspect is now very simple. Once you familiarize yourself with the blogging software, posting to a blog is no more difficult than sending an email.

GL: I highly recommend WordPress, as it is open source software for which a huge community of users are constantly writing cool tools ("plugins") and templates ("themes"). It is highly advisable to buy your own domain name and use an independent hosting company, rather than Blogspot.com or Wordpress.com. This is a bit more costly, but allows easier portability and a more professional-sounding domain name. Despite the relative ease of use compared to creating a website from scratch, some geekiness or a geeky friend or consultant is still advisable. Therefore the LexBlog option (or a competitor) for a premier service with all technical details professionally handled is definitely worth considering.

7. What are the best benefits of blogging?

ES: When I started my blogs in 2004, I hoped it would bring a little boost to my business, but that's not the sole reason I blogged. I would have done it in either case. As it turned out, my blogs have led directly to business opportunities, justifying the time and expense I put into them. But this benefit is certainly not a guarantee. Even absent a direct business benefit, however, a well-written weblog will raise your profile as a lawyer. In the years before blogging, I used to write Op-Eds, and published quite a few in some big-name newspapers. These would seem to disappear without a trace. With blogs, my writing has a much longer--indeed, an indefinite--shelf life, and readers are continually drawn back to it by the magic of search engines. I have had press coverage of my legal views, for example, from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the New York Times, and the Economist, among many other publications. My trial-practice blog also led directly to book deal with James Publishing--now I'm the author of a book about depositions.

DK: You'll hear a lot of talk about ROI (return on investment), search engine optimization, attracting new clients and the like. A good blog is likely to produce those things, and requests to be quoted in articles as an expert in your field. In fact, Matt often talks about the "instant expertise" a blog can give you. However, I'm going to say that the best benefit of blog is gaining access to the community of bloggers and the blogging audience. It's definitely the friendships and relationships, especially with other bloggers, that's been the highlight for me. If not for blogging, I'd guess that the four of us would not even have met, let alone become good friends.

MH: The thing about blogging that's most fascinating to me is that your readers won't judge you based upon your years in practice, the schools you attended, or the firms on your resume. Instead, your measured by the quality of your writing and the value of your information to your audience. This is the "instant expertise" that Dennis mentions and doesn't take years to earn. I also feel that, for me, blogging has given me the confidence to leave law practice and make legal innovation my business.

GL: I agree with Dennis and Matt. I have certainly experienced the phenomenon of instant expertise -- leading to speaking opportunities, interviews with journalists, and even an opportunity to co-author a book. Directly obtaining legal business is certainly a possibility, but in my view it depends very much on the focus of your practice and your blog. Newer bloggers that begin with the benefit of years of accumulated search engine optimization and Internet marketing advice and carefully tailor their blogs as marketing tools will perhaps have more success generating legal business than the earlier bloggers like us who wrote in considerable part out of enjoyment of the freedom and opportunity to write whatever we pleased and have it magically appear on the Internet with a single mouse click. The community and connections aspect has definitely been great. When blogging is coupled with social networks, one has the opportunity to build a very valuable network and actively use it through a network such as LinkedIn. Most of my LinkedIn connections came about in some way as a result of my blog.

8. How do the ethical rules affect blogging?

ES: I'm no expert in this area, but I've always behaved as if everything I already knew about being an ethical lawyer applied to blogs. Be truthful, don't reveal client confidences, etc.
GL: I think it will depend a lot on the nature of the blog's content and the extent to which the content and overall impression created by the blog causes it to appear to be more like "advertising" or "legal advice" than like the educational information we might present in a public seminar or webinar.

MH: Evan's right on here -- and remember that what you say and do on your blog will live online forever.

DK: I've been quoted before saying the ethical rules on Internet marketing are "impossibly confusing." One of the reasons I stopped writing about legal topics or my law practice on my blog several years ago was that I couldn't get comfortable with the changes in Missouri's advertising rules a few years ago. I've studied the ethical rules on lawyers using the Internet for many years. In general, I think that because blogs are simply a form of website, the same principles should apply, and probably do. However, when you try to apply the literal meaning of the rules to blogs, it becomes difficult to be certain that you in compliance with the rules. It helps a lot that the tradition of lawyer blogging since the beginning has been to focus on education and explaining legal concepts and developments. If you like clear, precise, black-and-white answers, you won't find them in the rules on using the Internet for marketing.

9. Are there "best ethical practices" for lawyers who blog?

GL: Write a good disclaimer. Use cautious qualifying words like "generally," "may," "likely," etc. to avoid appearing to make hard-and-fast statements when what you are really presenting is simplified statements for general public education concerning complex legal issues. Avoid excessive self-promotion. Let the blog content and a standard "About" page speak for themselves regarding your qualifications and abilities.

MH: Since my blog is about the business of law practice, I've never written anything that could remotely qualify as legal advice. That said, know that even if your clients don't hire you because of your blog, many of them will ultimately find and read it.

DK: Use good judgment. Some bloggers have said that the best advice is "don't be stupid." I always recommend that lawyers have a good sense of the lines between education, advertising and solicitation, especially the last two. Although I'm not convinced that lawyers blogs are necessarily "advertising," I do think it's best to treat your blog as if it is and use all of the required disclaimers. You definitely want to make it clear who the author of your blog is and where you are licensed to practice. Take special care if you get near the line between advertising and solicitation. In Missouri, you definitely want to use the great resource of Sara Rittman, our Ethics Counsel, who will answer questions on an informal basis.

ES: Again, I think the "best ethical practices" are those that apply to lawyers generally. The others on this panel also make some extremely good points.

10. What is the future of blogging?

MH: I think we'll see the continued adoption of blogs by legal professionals as much by choice as necessity. The next generation of law firm clients have lived their entire lives online, interact with Twitter and Facebook constantly, and read blogs everyday. They may have never used the Yellow Pages, and instead look to the web before making any major purchasing decision. They'll expect a robust online presence from the professionals they hire, and a blog is one of the easiest and most effective ways to build that presence.

GL: Integration with the surviving remnants of mainstream media into enriched, customized streams of information in manageable chunks for busy readers, plus continuing contributions to the wealth of information available to web users through ever-more-sophisticated search technologies. I was recently told by a web-content distribution company that my posts now have the potential of appearing in a news stream on the Wall Street Journal's law pages amidst conventional sources such as the ABA Journal, if they match the WSJ search criteria, with no distinction in appearance that would suggest that my content is in any way inferior or less professional than that written by professional journalists.

ES: I don't have any predictions about the future of blogging. If you think of blogging as merely a means of publishing one's writing, which it is, you don't have to be too worried about the future. Get into the habit of writing, and if you like it, you can always migrate to the next technological platform, if and when there is one.

DK: Among bloggers, Twitter and microblogging is all the rage. That will continue to affect blogging, but blogging still has great potential, especially to cover niche topics. I remain bullish on blogging. As for predicting the future, I still like what Ernest "Ernie the Attorney" Svenson said in an article on the future of blogging from four years ago in Law Practice Magazine (http://www.abanet.org/lpm/magazine/articles/v31is5an4.html): "Perhaps the biggest question that remains is: How quickly will law firms move to develop blogs? It depends on a lot of internal and external factors. But the clock is certainly ticking. For some firms that sound is just loud and annoying, while for others it is stirring and prompting them to act. So when will your firm create a blog? Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick . . . ."

Our Panel:
Dennis Kennedy is an inhouse counsel for MasterCard Worldwide in O'Fallon, Missouri, the author of the technology column for the ABA Journal, a co-host of The Kennedy-Mighell Report podcast on the Legal Talk Network (www.legaltalknetwork.com), and the co-author, with Tom Mighell, of the book "The Lawyer's Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies: Smart Ways to Work Together." His blog, DennisKennedy.Blog, is found at http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/.

George Lenard is managing partner of Harris Dowell Fisher & Harris, L.C., a management employment law firm in Chesterfield, Missouri. His legal interests include sexual harassment, employment of the disabled, the recruiting and staffing industries, noncompetition agreements, use of Internet information in employment decisions, and employment consequences of new technologies, including blogging and social networks. His blog, George's Employment Blawg, is at www.employmentblawg.com, and is always seeking guest posts on a wide variety of employment and career topics from aspiring or established bloggers, subject-matter experts, business leaders, and others.

Evan Schaeffer is a class action and mass torts lawyer based in the St. Louis metropolitan area. His firm is Schaeffer & Lamere, P.C. Schaeffer's weblogs are Trial Practice Tips at http://www.trialpracticetips.comabout and The Legal Underground at http://www.legalunderground.com. Schaeffer is the author of Deposition Checklists and Strategies (James Publishing).

Matthew Homann is the founder of LexThink LLC, a legal innovation consultancy (www.LexThink.com). He's also the author of the [non]billable hour blog (www.nonbillablehour.comtheir ), where he shares innovative billing strategies, creative marketing techniques, proven customer-service principles, and cutting-edge ideas from other industries and professions with lawyers to help them tap into their own creative reserves and make dramatic improvements in their businesses and their lives. He lives in St. Louis with his daughter Grace.

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[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Follow my microblog on Twitter - @dkennedyblog. Follow me - @denniskennedy

Technorati tags: legal technology blogging iphone st. louis primer
blawg

New Question for Lawyers: BlackBerry or iPhone?

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 21:19:21 -0600

Trying to get back into the swing of blogging (and Twittering, for that matter) after our family vacation (for the curious, it was Maui and it was awesome) and some time off the grid.

Tom Mighell and I have recorded another episode of The Kennedy-Mighell Report podcast and it's now available on the Legal Talk Network and on iTunes. The episode is called "Lawyers and Smartphones" and here's the description:

Do the iPhone 3GS and Palm Pre have what it takes to topple BlackBerry as a lawyer’s smartphone? On this edition of the Kennedy-Mighell Report, co-hosts, Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell take a look at all three devices - hardware, software, functionalities and services - to compare. In the Q & A segment, Dennis and Tom will answer a few audience questions and wrap up with Parting Shots, leaving you with lasting tips and observations.

The new show notes wiki for the podcast is also now live at TKMReport.com. Great work by Tom getting the wiki up and going. (I notice that I need to get back from vacation on updating the wiki too.)

The recent iPhone release and response (apparently more than one million sold last weekend) got us thinking about whether the iPhone actually poses a threat to the domination of the BlackBerry in the legal profession. Our answer might surprise you . . . or perhaps it won't. It was a great conversation and I suspect all readers of this blog will enjoy this episode. I also was able to convince Tom to let me talk about one of my pet legal technology theories - the "four generations of legal technology" and how they iPhone fits into that framework. We have a couple of especially good Parting Shots this episode, too.

While I was enjoying Maui, the Legal Talk Network also released another podcast episode that focused on the new Wolfram Alpha search tool and other Google alternatives for lawyers. The episode is called "The Future of Search" and I recommend that you add it to your podcast listening list.

Give the new episode a listen and let me know what you think.

A reminder that we have a regular segment in which we answer questions from our audience. Send me your questions and we'll work them into upcoming episodes.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Follow my microblog on Twitter - @dkennedyblog. Follow me - @denniskennedy

Technorati tags: legal technology podcast iphone blackberry collaboration

New Episode of The Kennedy-Mighell Report Podcast is Now Available

Tue, 26 May 2009 21:11:17 -0600

The newest episode of The Kennedy-Mighell Report podcast is up and available on the Legal Talk Network and on iTunes. The episode is called "Learn to use NEW Technology: 101" and here's the description:

How do people learn to use new technology — and is it different for lawyers & legal technology? On this edition of the Kennedy-Mighell Report, legal bloggers, Dennis Kennedy, Tom Mighell and Adriana Linares, discuss how to break it down so it isn’t overwhelming. Learn where the best resources about technology are and how e-Discovery comes into play for your law practice. Dennis, Tom and Adriana also take audience questions from the mailbag and wrap up with Parting Shots, leaving you with lasting tips and observations. After you listen, be sure to check out Tom & Dennis’ blog and book by the same name, The Lawyers Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies.

The new show notes wiki for the podcast is also now live at TKMReport.com. Great work by Tom getting the wiki up and going.

We're planning to record another episode later this week, with the lead topic going to be Wolfram Alpha. We also will be looking for audience questions to answer on the podcast. Ask a question by leaving a comment to this post or emailing me at denniskennedyblog @ gmail.com.

Give the new episode a listen and let me know what you think.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

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Recent Microblog Posts - May 25, 2009

Mon, 25 May 2009 19:19:20 -0600

DennisKennedy.Microblog is a supplement to this blog that can be found on Twitter at @dkennedyblog. I invite you to become a follower. An explanation of the microblog can be found here.

Here are posts from the microblog for the last week or so:

Jack Vinson on "Information Overload 201" - http://bit.ly/316Yc Great questions
Ship your hard drive to Amazon for offsite backup - http://bit.ly/12HKf - interesting solution to a practical problem

Patrick Lamb on "The Process Era--A Follow Up On Jeff Carr's 4 Buckets" - http://bit.ly/48HpC

Looking for audience questions to answer in the next The Kennedy-Mighell Report podcast - http://bit.ly/BuECn - how about yours?

Law Practice Today (great issue!) has published 9 Legal Technology Trends for 2009 article by @denniskennedy - http://bit.ly/Ss4wo

Here's a piece of computing history - Dan Bricklin's 1978 business school paper on the VisiCalc spreadsheet program - http://bit.ly/Bx3Jd

"Being able to publish your thoughts this quickly is a miracle." - Mitch Joel http://bit.ly/1mt79x

Olivia Mitchell on how to ditch the (PowerPoint) bullets - http://bit.ly/dvFwj - note our podcast on PowerPoint at http://bit.ly/VTiCE

A new EDD blog to watch from Fios - Discerning e-Discovery - http://bit.ly/slHXf - a blast from the past on the site - http://bit.ly/HZz4p

New episode of The Kennedy-Mighell Report podcast, "Kindle Me This," is up at Legal Talk Network and on iTunes: http://bit.ly/xnA5s

Andrew Dlugan's Best Public Speaking Tips and Techniques: Weekly Review - http://bit.ly/wInrn - great collection of links

Nora Dunn on How to Recycle your Clothes, Shoes, Electronics, and More - http://bit.ly/76bpG

RT @eschaeff: At my trial practice website: "Keeping Up with Tech for Lawyers: Some Resources." http://bit.ly/fK5fE

Sarah Perez on CloneCloud: The Power of Cloud Computing Comes to Mobile Phones - http://bit.ly/5gRht - something that makes you go hmmm

Check out the new The Kennedy-Mighell Report Podcast on the Legal Talk Network.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Follow my microblog on Twitter - @dkennedyblog; Follow me - @denniskennedy

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2009 Legal Technology Trends Article in Law Practice Today Webzine

Tue, 19 May 2009 21:04:11 -0600

Let me recommend the new issue of the ABA's Law Practice Today webzine. Wendy Werner has put together another great issue and I'm sure you'll find several articles that will make your visit to the webzine worth your while.

This issue also contains my article, "Legal Technology Trends for 2009: The Year of Hunkering Down.

Readers of this blog will know that the legal tech trends article is annual tradition of mine. I also like to do what I did this year and post the first draft of the article on my blog before the article gets published elsewhere. If you are interested in my writing process, you can see how the article evolved a bit before it was published in Law Practice Today.

The article has nine sections:

1. Technology Budgets Get Decimated.
2. Making Do with What You Have or Doing More with Less.
3. The Mobile Phone as Platform.
4. Looking to the Cloud.
5. Using Tech to Get the Word Out and the Money In.
6. Focus on Client-focused Technology.
7. E-Discovery in Still Waters.
8. The Perfect Storm for Collaboration Tools.
9. A Potpourri of Predictions .

I'd enjoy hearing your reactions to the article. Also, we're collecting questions for the audience Q&A segment of the upcoming episode of The Kennedy-Mighell Report podcast. If you have a question about one of the legal tech trends in the article or any other legal tech question you'd like us to try to answer on the podcast, let me know.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Follow my microblog on Twitter - @dkennedyblog; Follow me - @denniskennedy

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Kindle Me This - New Episode of The Kennedy-Mighell Report Podcast

Wed, 13 May 2009 21:43:10 -0600

The newest episode of The Kennedy-Mighell Report podcast is now available for download on the Legal Talk Network. You can also subscribe to podcast on iTunes. Our friends at Rocket Matter sponsor this episode.

This episode is called "Kindle Me This." The recent announcement of the larger Kindle DX and the seemingly annual summer rumors of an Apple ebook reader often referred to as an iPad got us thinking about the usefulness of the new Kindle and other ebook readers for lawyers. We talk about the Kindle generally and speculate on whether these devices are leading us to the replacement of the legal pad or a kind of legal pad 2.0. Give a listen to our thoughts on the subject.

Adriana Linares joins us again as guest co-host for this episode. We also answer some audience questions and give some helpful tech tips. My tip is about the new Google Profiles. We welcome your feedback on the episode and your questions for us to answer in future episodes.

As usual, we had the great team at the Legal Talk Network producing the episode. Follow the LTN Twitter feed (@legaltalk) for info on sending us questions for the podcast, details on a live feed during the podcast recording and info on the other great LTN podcasts.

Speaking of Google Profiles, Google recently made an offer of 25 free business cards for people who set up thier Google Profiles (or at least the first 10,000 who apply). Check it out:

Give the new episode a listen and let me know what you think.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Follow my microblog on Twitter - @dkennedyblog; Follow me - @denniskennedy

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Have a Question for Us to Answer of the Next Episode of The Kennedy-Mighell Report Podcast?

Thu, 07 May 2009 16:25:01 -0600

We'll be recording the next episode of The Kennedy-Mighell Report podcast on Friday, May 8.

Our new format has a segment where we answer a few questions from our audience. Of course, that means we need to have some questions to answer.

The working title of our next episode is The Kindle DX, the iPad, and Legal Pad 2.0. With the announcement of the new Kindle DX and another round of rumors about an Apple ebook reader, we take a look at the possible impact of these devices on the lega profession. Will ebook readers and other devices be game-changers for law school and the practice of law?

We'd welcome audience questions on (1) something to do with main topic or (2) a legal tech issue in general.

You can email me your questions at denniskennedyblog @ gmail.com or leave a comment on this post send a Twitter message to @denniskennedy, @tommighell or @legaltalk. You can also get information on listening to a live stream of the recording at LegalTalkNetwork.com..

Give the podcast a listen and let me know what you think.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Follow my microblog on Twitter - @dkennedyblog; Follow me - @denniskennedy

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Recent Microblog Posts - May 5, 2009

Tue, 05 May 2009 22:30:10 -0600

DennisKennedy.Microblog is a supplement to this blog that can be found on Twitter at @dkennedyblog. I invite you to become a follower. An explanation of the microblog can be found here.

Here are posts from the microblog for the last week or so:

Ed Poll: Lawyers will still be needed in the "new economy" - http://www.lawbizblog.com/2009/05/articles/management/lawyers-will-still-be-needed-in-the-new-economy/ - why I say Susskind's new book will start conversations
Scott Ginsberg: 14 Obligations of All Creative Professionals - http://hellomynameisscott.blogspot.com/2009/05/14-obligations-of-all-creative.html

Adam Singer on the latent cultural function of technology - http://thefuturebuzz.com/2009/05/05/latent-cultural-function-of-technologies/ - we understand function of tech after no longer necessary

100 Tweets: Thinking About Law Practice in 140 Characters or Less - @matthomann's ebook on lawyers, Twitter and more http://thenonbillablehour.typepad.com/nonbillable_hour/2009/05/100-tweets-thinking-about-law-practice-in-140-characters-or-less.html

Allison Shields on BlackBerry Behavior: Is it hurting your reputation? http://legalease.blogs.com/legal_ease_blog/2009/05/dos-and-donts-of-blackberry-use.html

Steve Rubel on the end of the "Destination Web Era" - http://www.micropersuasion.com/2009/05/the-end-of-the-destination-web-era.html - Stats are compelling

Three screens and a cloud - Ray Ozzie on Microsoft's web strategy - http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-microsofts-chief-software-architect/ - online version of Office, netbooks, and more

New blog post - Nine Legal Technology Trends for 2009: The Year of Hunkering Down - http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/2009/04/nine_legal_technology_trends_for_2009_the_yea.html - welcome your feedback

From Knowledge@wharton: "Legal Strategy 101: It's Time for Law Firms to Re-think Their Business Model" - http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2231

Steve Barth lists 14 koans of knowledge management - http://reflexions.typepad.com/reflexions/2009/04/14-koans-of-km.html

Had enough of Web 2.0 already? Is it time to move on to Web 3.0? http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/web_30_conference_real-world_value_from_semantics_analytics.php

New episode of The Kennedy-Mighell Report podcast is out - "Has PowerPoint Killed the Presentation?" - http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/2009/04/has_powerpoint_killed_the_presentation_new_ep.html

Sarah Perez sums up LexisNexis survey suggesting "really wide" tech generation gap in legal profession - http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the_technology_generation_gap_at_work_is_oh_so_wide.php #techshow

Great story about Ron Staudt, legal tech pioneer and one of my legal tech heroes, and using tech for access to justice - http://www.chicagolawyermagazine.com/2009/04/01/technology-evangelist-keeps-faith-in-legal-aid/

Check out the new The Kennedy-Mighell Report Podcast on the Legal Talk Network.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Follow my microblog on Twitter - @dkennedyblog; Follow me - @denniskennedy

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Nine Legal Technology Trends for 2009 - The Year of Hunkering Down

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 22:24:27 -0600

[In addition to my annual tradition of publishing an article on legal technology trends for the year, I've also experimented with posting drafts of the article on my blog before I've completely finished it and it's actually published as an article. This year's edition is running a little late and it feels done enough tonight to go ahead and post it as a first draft and get some reactions and comments (and some editing suggestions - there's no doubt there are still typos and other problems in this draft). Let me know what you think.]

Nine Legal Technology Trends for 2009: The Year of Hunkering Down

It’s my annual tradition to take a look at trends in legal technology for the coming year and make some predictions about where we are headed. I’m running late this year because the current economic turmoil has made it difficult to assess what is likely to happen.

I decided to observe what transpired in the first few months of the year, gather some information at ABA TECHSHOW 2009 and then see if my crystal ball became a little clearer. I also felt that simply to say that the 2009 trends would be the same as my 2008 trends, but even more so, would be emotionally unsatisfying, even if it seemed accurate.

Unfortunately, it really hasn’t, but it is April already and I thought I’d jump into this year’s article with the idea that it will be a conversation-starter more so than a roadmap.

I’m actually quite pessimistic about what we’ll see in legal technology, but I’ve taken a more positive outlook on these trends. Keep in mind that the economy could dramatically and negatively affect these trends. Let’s face it, when firms are laying off lawyers and staff and fighting to keep the doors open, technology is going to be less of a priority that it might be in a normal year.

There’s no doubt that there are pockets of enormous opportunity using technology in 2009 (think collaboration tools and client-focused technology), but it will be the rare firms or organizations that will be able to decide to make those investments. As a result, it’s what happens OUTSIDE the legal profession with technology that will ultimately be the most important trends inside the legal profession over the long haul. With that in mind, the best legal technology investment to make this year is to buy (and read) - Richard Susskind’s book - The End of Lawyers? - which is a great all-in-one resource on the big trends changing the profession and the outside pressures that will change the way lawyers practice.

With that said, I now launch into my 2009 trends.

1. Technology Budgets Get Decimated. At many firms, technology spending has crept up to be a substantial line-item on the firm’s budget. If it comes to cutting the tech budget or laying off people, most of us would like to be at a place that puts people first.

I originally was going say that technology budgets stay flat, but I’ve changed my mind. And I use the word “decimate” deliberately. The word originally meant the killing of one of ten soldiers. It later had the sense of drastic losses. In many firms, a large portion of the tech budget is set in stone and can’t realistically be cut during the year. That’s why my initial thought was that we’d see freezes rather than cuts. Now I believe that we’ll see cost—cutting as the year progresses. For the average lawyer, don’t expect to see a new laptop this year. In fact, don’t expect to see much of anything new this year.

What to do: Technology audits to determine what you are doing and where you can make cuts. Reduce duplication and increase standardization. Look for volume discounts, renegotiate large contracts, and consider outsourcing as an option in many more instances. Require IT department to explain and justify budgets.

2. Making Do with What You Have or Doing More with Less. Sensing a theme here yet? We’ll be hunkering down as a profession in 2009. That new Mac laptop you wanted will become a netbook. I wouldn’t be surprised to see law firms go to low-priced netbooks rather than laptops for the average lawyer. Cost is an issue. Moving to a new software version? Not likely. You better learn how to do more with the features in the version you already have. Perhaps most interesting, we could see the majority of the legal profession essentially miss a whole generation of Microsoft software (Windows Vista and Office 2007).

I’m not completely negative on this point. Constraints often help lawyers be creative. I expect to see more use of Web 2.0 tools and Open Source software and making better use of what they already own. Remember those WestKM licenses you already own but haven’t used – maybe it’s time to take a closer look.

What to Do: Learn more about what you have. Talk to vendors about features you don’t use and training opportunities. Look for better pricing and Internet deals when you do buy something.

3. The Mobile Phone as Platform. This trend actually relates to the previous one. The love affair between lawyers and the BlackBerry is well-known. Lawyers are also using the iPhone and other smartphones. If you aren’t likely to get a new laptop and your smartphone can do more and more, what is likely to happen? Yes, the phone is likely to become a mobile working platform that gives you access to data, documents, people and other things you need when you need them. The Apple Apps store for the iPhone and iPod Touch is looking to be a game-changer, and Blackberry and others are opening similar stores. These applications make smartphones even more useful than they already are. Don’t overlook the growing role that texting and instant messaging will play for lawyers, which work very well on a mobile phone..

What to Do: Umm, haven’t I just given you the business reason you were looking for to justify getting an iPhone? Look for ways other than email to use your phone to access your office and data. Experiment with applications for your phone. Drop your request for that new laptop and ask for an upgraded phone instead. For firms, consider ways to enable access through phones as a way to delay or avoid hardware purchases.

4. Get Your head into the Cloud. You will hear even more talk about “cloud computing” and “software as a service” (SaaS) in 2009. In simplest terms, I’m referring to ways both programs and data can be hosted and managed on the Internet through a third-party provider. Google Apps and other online SaaS options have gotten a lot of attention in the past year or so. SaaS options for existing legal software and new legal-specific SaaS services have become increasingly available to lawyers.

The benefits: manageable monthly costs, lack of need for infrastructure and personnel investments, access from anywhere, provider handles patches, upgrades, security and the like. The concerns: data hosted elsewhere, business prospects of providers, unique legal concerns like ethics and confidentiality.

Law firms, especially start-up firms, have been testing this water. Budget constraints will also make this a more compelling option in many cases. There will definitely be more attention to this area, and probably increased usage.

What to Do: Please, please, please do your homework and due diligence on this option, especially in this economic. Take a hard-headed realistic approach and make sure you compare SaaS options with what you are currently doing now rather than against some ideal of perfection that you aren’t close to achieving. Pick some areas to experiment with this approach rather than jumping all the way into the water at once.

5. Using Tech to Get the Word Out and the Money In. My approach to technology planning is really quite simple: does it save money or does it make money? I’m shocked when firms launch new tech initiatives without having a clear, quantifiable answer to this question.

In 2009, firms will be focused on bringing in new work, retaining existing clients and getting paid for the work they do. If your technology initiatives don’t directly address these concerns, you are missing the boat. It’s definitely not the most exciting area of legal tech, but investment in back office technology to get better bills out faster, improve collections and evaluate the profitability of clients and projects would be something I’d recommend for every lawyer and every practice. Boring is good in 2009.

On the exciting end of this trend is using technology to get the word out to market yourself, your practice and your firm. There is so much happening in this area that it is difficult to keep up with it all. The one thing I can guarantee is that by the end of 2009 lawyers will be using an Internet marketing vehicle that no one expected today (actually, my guess would be something in the SMS/instant messaging family).

Had you even heard of Twitter a year ago? Now you can’t turn around without seeing something about using Twitter, Facebook and social media tools for marketing. You can put video up on YouTube, publish PowerPoint slides on Slideshare, create your profile and groups on LinkedIn, have a blog, create a podcast and do many, many more things to get your message out and create a brand. The financial cost of most of these tools is next to nothing. Think about how your clients (and potential clients) get their information today. Create a channel to reach them that way.

What to Do: Look at the ways to use back office tools to streamline and standardize billings, improve collections and truly analyze the financial aspects of your business. Take better advantage of reporting functionality to give you reports that help you cut costs and improve profits. Evaluate your current Internet presence (hint: Google your name). Pick one or two of the Internet and social media channels to try. Don’t be over-influenced by what “everybody else” is doing – one or more of these approaches will suit you best – go with that one.

6. Focus on Client-focused Technology. OK. I pick this every year, but it’s a trend that’s clearly happening and it’s one that Susskind’s book also highlights. If you are looking for a simple approach to technology, this is what I recommend. Are your technology plans driven by what your clients want or by their needs?

Technology in this category includes simple extranets, collaboration tools, 24x7 access to documents, providing documents in preferred formats, and electronic billing. I’ve written extensively on this topic and posted some slides on SlideShare. so I won’t add a lot here, other than to say that this economy dictates that you find better ways to work with your best clients. The best way to start: just ask them.

What to Do: Simple client technology surveys. Identify pain points clients have with your technology, such as document compatibility or preferred formats. Focus on simple, practical extranet functionality (e.g., access to copies of documents) rather than gold-plated, all-inclusive extranet platforms. In general, keep it simple. And find ways to make it easy for clients to stay with you.

7. E-Discovery in Still Waters. No area of legal technology receives more attention than e-discovery, and deservedly so. 2009 will be a deceptive year in e-discovery. At the surface, it will appear that not much is happening. Some contradictory decisions, some industry consolidation, some talk of reform and a concern about costs. There will definitely be discussion of cooperation and collaboration. But you won’t see game-changing new technologies, magic bullets or tectonic movements.

As I’ve said before, lawyers have won the first round of EDD battles and successfully resisted wide-scale changes to business as usual litigation.

But that’s just the surface view. Still waters run deep and, like the Internet, we overestimate the impact of EDD in the short term and we underestimate the impact of EDD over the long term. Under the surface, the changes are huge and will transform the practice of law. Those involved in this area need to keep their eyes and ears open and monitor developments.

There are a few trends I’ll highlight. First, the growing emphasis on cooperation and collaboration, just one aspect of the growing role judges have been forced to play because of slow-moving lawyers. Second, technologies and techniques to produce usable and workable datasets out of enormous amounts of data. Third, an increasing amount of focus on high costs of EDD, with the parallel trend of treating some EDD procedures as commodities, with commodity types of pricing.

The main trend you will want to take notice of is one that started a few years ago and has continued to grow. It’s the movement of the lawyers who know the most and who are the best at EDD out of law firms and into the employ of EDD service providers. This really is a tectonic shift with the probable long-term result of EDD service providers largely taking this work away from law firms and EDD, perhaps, no longer even considered part of the ordinary practice of law, leaving litigation lawyers to redefine what they actually do as clients route around them to the EDD service providers who have all of the talent. I invite you to give that some serious thought.

What to Do: Watch the developments. Keep up with industry developments by reading some of the excellent EDD blogs. Watch the flow of talent out of law firms. There are still plenty of opportunities for lawyers in EDD, but I suggest looking for niche areas of EDD that you can do well or new roles, like project management. If I were a litigator involved in EDD, I’d look for one EDD niche to become very good at in 2009.

8. The Perfect Storm for Collaboration Tools. Tom Mighell and I recently released a 2009 CD update of our book, The Lawyer’s Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies: Smart Ways to Work Together. One of the features on the CD is our take on top trends in collaboration tools. Among the trends we note include cultural issues caused by mergers, layoffs and other economic turmoil, reduced travel budgets driving adoption of conferencing tools, the ability to find their own collaboration tools when you don’t provide them, the growth of instant messaging and Web 2.0 tools, and the growing role service level agreements play in collaboration tools.

If you go back and look at articles making predictions about legal technology at the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009, you’ll notice that most, if not all, of them made one or more references to collaboration technologies. Since the beginning of 2009, the changes brought about by our economic situation have accelerated the move to collaboration technologies. The most obvious example at most organizations is the reduction in travel budgets and how that has renewed interest in all forms of conferencing. As I write this, we wonder about swine flu and pandemics. There is no question that this, too, will place more emphasis on online collaboration. New features added to programs almost invariably involve collaboration and interest in Microsoft SharePoint among both large and small firms continues to be high. Perhaps most important, however, is the growing sense that email may be broken as a tool or platform to use when working together.

What to Do: I always recommend starting with a simple “audit” of how you are collaborating now and determine how you might better collaborate with others by using collaboration features of programs you already have or free collaboration tools. Look at alternatives to email, especially for simple tasks like sending large files. Experiment with some of the web 2.0 tools – Google Apps is an easy place to start. And, of course, ask your clients how you can make it easier for them to work together with you.

9. A Potpourri of Predictions. In “down” technology years, I have always argued that innovative lawyers and firms can greatly widen the gap between themselves and those who stand still. Similarly, firms feeling that they have fallen behind can catch up to or even leapfrog today’s leaders by making a concerted effort in down years. In 2009, the retrenchment will be so great that I don’t expect to see a lot of innovation or investment. But the opportunity is there.

Here are a few predictions/trends that don’t really fall into specific categories, but I didn’t want to leave out of this article.

I’m intrigued by interaction of encryption and confidentiality, the way encryption might offer a technological solution to confidentiality obligations.

I’m quite concerned that a lack of understanding of, or an unwillingness to understand, how technology works by ethics regulators, especially in the area of web 2.0, social media, Twitter, cloud computing and metadata could result in rulings and regulation that negatively affects legal innovation at exactly the time innovation should be encouraged. I expect to see several important examples of that by year-end.

For innovation, I’m looking to the newest generation of lawyers and, equally important, those involved in provided services to lawyers. You’ll find them out there in blogs, on Twitter and Facebook, and other places on the Internet. I’m impressed by their energy and creativity. I learn a lot about new uses of technology from them and, as a profession, we’ll find them a source of innovation.

At ABA TECHSHOW 2009, I had a great conversation with Marc Lauritsen, Jordan Furlong and Ariel Jatib about where the next game-changing development in legal technology would appear. It arose out of a discussion about Twitter, which, interestingly, we all seemed to think was a bridge technology that was taking us to something else.

My contention was that audio and video was the easiest and most obvious answer. I had also just listened to a fascinating podcast of a presentation by Rajesh Jain in which he discussed innovative uses of SMS (simply put, instant messaging) in India. This also relates to the idea of mobile phones as a platform. We actually spent quite a bit of time on this possibility, which I believe holds a lot of promise. Finally, we talked about one of Marc’s favorite ideas of combining artificial intelligence concepts, decision trees and related technologies into tools that assist lawyers or take the place of routine aspects of the practice. The conversation we had around that topic and related topics like crowd-sourcing and recommendation engines was quite energizing and, as Jordan noted later, what makes a visit to a conference like TECHSHOW so worth the trip. My conclusion: while others hunker down, this is the year to take some time and think some bigger thoughts.

Concluding Thoughts. My best recommendation for 2009 is to read Richard Susskind’s new book “The End of Lawyers?” and familiarize yourself with the two biggest influences on the legal profession he mentions – commoditisation and information technology – and the way they will disrupt and change the profession, probably faster than we expect. Then engage in the conversation about where technology is taking us. It might not seem like much will be happening in 2009, but big changes will be taking place under the surface. Hunker down, but keep your eyes and ears, and your mind, open.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

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Has PowerPoint Killed the Presentation? New Episode of The Kennedy-Mighell Report Podcast

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 21:22:46 -0600

Got the word today that the newest episode of The Kennedy-Mighell Report podcast is now available for download. You can also subscribe to podcast on iTunes.

This episode has been given the intriguing title of "Has PowerPoint Killed the Presentation?" There's no doubt that PowerPoint can be deadly in the hands of lawyers. We take a fresh look at PowerPoint in the light of some of our recent presentations, and give some of of favorite tips for improving your slides and presentations.

It's just Tom and me in the studio for this episode, as we go without a co-host and experiment with a new format. We really like the new format - a main topic, answers to audience questions (thanks for the great questions) and our parting shots of a favorite tip you can use. We welcome your feedback on the episode and the new format. I expect that we'll keep the new format and see the return of a co-host for the next episode.

We also welcomed our friends at RocketMatter as a sponsor of the podcast. As usual, we had the great production team at the Legal Talk Network. Follow the LTN Twitter feed (@legaltalk) for info on sending us questions for the podcast, details on a live feed during the podcast recording and info on the other great LTN podcasts.

If you'd like some helpful tips on improving your use of PowerPoint, the tips in one of my most popular articles ever will give you a good starting point, even ten years after I wrote them. My parting shot was about how helpful screen capture tools can be in a variety of settings. I referred to this Lifehacker post about the five best screen capture tools.

Give the new episode a listen and let me know what you think.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

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Seeking Audience Questions for Next Kennedy-Mighell Report Podcast

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 21:37:44 -0600

We'll be recording the next episode of The Kennedy-Mighell Report podcast on Friday. In the last episode, we had a segment in which we answered an question sent to us in advance.

We enjoyed it so much that we're thinking of making it a regular segment in the show.

Of course, that means we need to have some questions to answer.

For the upcoming episode, we're planning talk about whether lawyers have turned PowerPoint into a presentation-killer, with ways we think PowerPoint slides and presentations can be improved. As an aside, the tips in one of my most popular articles ever give you a good starting point, even ten years after I wrote them.

We'd welcome audience questions on (1) something to do with PowerPoint or the usage of slides in general or (2) legal tech issues in general.

You can email me your questions at denniskennedyblog @ gmail.com or leave a comment on this post.

Give the podcast a listen and let me know what you think.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Follow my microblog on Twitter - @dkennedyblog; Follow me - @denniskennedy

Technorati tags: legal technology podcast powerpoint collaboration

Recent Microblog Posts - April 21, 2009

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 22:29:55 -0600

DennisKennedy.Microblog is a supplement to this blog that can be found on Twitter at @dkennedyblog. I invite you to become a follower. An explanation of the microblog can be found here.

Here are posts from the microblog for the last week or so:

Very wise words from Penelope Trunk: "Reality check: You're not going to make money from your blog" - http://bit.ly/2Mteq - a must-read
2009 update CD for The Lawyer's Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies available for pre-order at http://bit.ly/RcspY

Audio of Richard Susskind's #techshow keynote available for download at http://www.techshow.com - see my live notes at http://bit.ly/jd6wN

Patrick Lamb reports on Futurefirm 1.0 and the future of law - http://bit.ly/qgfm8; another report by Aric Press at http://bit.ly/yZSrQ

Dave Snowden - "Think anew, Act anew: Scenario Planning" - http://bit.ly/Wb3H4 - from planning for scenarios to true scenario planning.

Benjamin Sutherland notes another step in continuing evolution of iPod Touch as a computing platform - http://bit.ly/j9D7Z

Lifehacker covers five best screen capture tools - http://bit.ly/SftLU - very useful tools for presenters

Gary Marshall asks what if our tech is "good enough"? http://bit.ly/2S6wuh - "Now, though, the weakest link isn't your PC: it's you."

Carolyn Elefant shows us another good way for lawyers to experiment with Wordle - http://bit.ly/YqiEX

Matthew Apsokardu on what PowerPoint teaches about martial arts and vice versa - http://bit.ly/DXI9G

A new blog post: Looking Back at (and Looking Forward from) ABA TECHSHOW 2009 - http://bit.ly/3gAzGm #techshow

Trent Hamm reviews Bert Decker's You've Got to Be Believed to Be Heard - http://bit.ly/RddGv - Want to be a better presenter? Read this book

Check out the new The Kennedy-Mighell Report Podcast on the Legal Talk Network.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Follow my microblog on Twitter - @dkennedyblog; Follow me - @denniskennedy

Technorati tags: legal technology microblog Law2.0 collaboration

Looking Back at (and Looking Forward from) ABA TECHSHOW 2009

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 22:08:15 -0600

Episode 2 of The Kennedy-Mighell Report Podcast is now available at its new home on the Legal Talk Network. In this episode, Tom and I talk with our guest co-host, Adrian Linares, about our take-aways from the recent ABA TECHSHOW 2009.

As I mention in the podcast, TECHSHOW reminded me of one of the recurring themes in my work – that legal technology (and information technology in general) is always more about people than it is about the technology. I recommend that you give the podcast a listen to hear our reactions to TECHSHOW and about some of the social aspects of legal technology today. Note also that we are looking for audience questions to answer in future podcasts.

I’ve been meaning to write a wrap-up post on my TECHSHOW experience, and this seems like a good place to do that.

As I first made my way to the TECHSHOW floor, I immediately saw Tom Mighell and Adriana Linares at the Conference Concierge booth and I felt like everything was in the right place in the legal tech world. From there, it was on the Twitter session and the three-day whirlwind that my TECHSHOW visits have become. I think that I did a good job of trying to visit with everyone I could, but if I missed you, it wasn’t for lack of trying, just a shortage of time.

My one disappointment at TECHSHOW was not getting much time on the exhibit floor to visit with vendors. I had a great conversation with Rick Borstein of Adobe about some ways to use Acrobat 9 (think portfolios and RSS feeds) and have some great suggestions to try. Otherwise, I got the chance to visit with my RocketMatter pals, Larry and Ariel, JD Supra, TotalAttorneys, Clio and Thompson West. I learned some interesting things, some potentially practice-changing, but didn’t get a strong sense of where the vendors are at today. As others have mentioned, electronic discovery is definitely a big item these days on the vendor floor.

As I was lamenting the lack of exhibit hall time I had on Friday afternoon (as the exhibit hall neared closing time), I ran into my friend, Andrew Sandler, at LegalQB, who was busy at work shooting videos of vendors and creating a virtual exhibit hall. You could go to the LegalQB site and mouse over vendors on the floor map and get info and see videos of vendor reps answering basic questions about products and services. The idea is that, at your own pace and without being bothered by sales pitches, you can learn about a vendor and come to the booths that interest you armed with basic knowledge and knowing what questions you have. Cool idea. Even cooler, LegalQB plans to make that info always available outside the conference setting. Andrew shot some video of Tom and me talking about our book and podcast that will be up on the LegalQB site. Give LegalQB a look.

I really enjoyed the three presentations I gave, two with Tom Mighell on topics related to our book, The Lawyer’s Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies, and one with Joel Alleyne, who was excellent to work with as a co-presenter, on a “client-focused” approach to collaboration. I’ve put up stripped-down black-and-white versions of slides from two of the presentations on SlideShare (here and here) as an example of how you can use this online tool to share presentation slides. There was a fair amount of twittering during the sessions and legal blogger extraordinaire Allison Shields has a nice summary of one of the sessions.

Tom and I did a roundtable session on collaboration tools, where we experimented with some “unconference” techniques. After introductions, we found that two of the attendees were actually on opposite sides of some matters. We took the opportunity to break into groups and discussed what, to me, is the hardest, but very common, collaboration situation – collaborating with people on opposite sides. While I’d characterize the success of the experiment as mixed, the planned 5 to minute discussion went much longer and people had some good ideas. I learned a lot. Then we discussed some questions about confidentiality and encryption, Google Docs, SharePoint and some other specific tools.

As a presenter, doing three presentations in a row reminded on the need to hydrate, hydrate, hydrate, and to protect your voice, especially on the night before. I was a little lacking in both departments, but left with my voice pretty much intact.

We gave away copies of our book – meaning the book and the new 2009 update on CD – at each of my sessions. After very limited success with the “trivia question” approach last year, Tom and I have done the book giveaways by finding the person in the audience who is newest to the legal business. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how well this approach works (it always narrows down to one; trivia questions often draw many simultaneous hand-raisers). The rest of the audience stays interested and there is a good feeling in the room for the winner. Several people came up to me after sessions to say how much they liked this approach.

We heard from several sources that collaboration was a hot topic and that our book sold well. That’s always good to hear. As I mentioned, there’s a new CD update for 2009, with a new chapter of tips, new developments, forms, audio and more. We also took advantage of the opportunity to lobby our ABA publishers to release the book as a Kindle experiment. I’m not sure that we made much progress, but let Tom or me know if you would be interested in a Kindle version of the book and we’ll keep pushing our publisher.

The Sessions. For many years, my friends have discouraged me from attending their sessions, saying “you already know this.” That’s not really true, but I know what they mean. I’ve noticed that I attend fewer sessions at conferences, in part because the best learning really does happen in the hallways and lobbies outside the sessions. I also have a unique position where I can talk to many of the speakers outside the sessions, especially at TECHSHOW where many of the speakers are friends, but for any attendee, access to speakers at TECHSHOW is second to none and one of the big plusses of the show.

There were two sessions I attended that I wanted to note. The first was the Twitter session at the start of the conference. While, admittedly, sitting by Jordan Furlong was guaranteed to result in Twitter shenanigans, and it did, it was fascinating to observe the twittering during the session and how the #techshow hashtag moved up to the #3 trending search term on all of Search.twitter.com during the session. While I liked the session, my sense by the end of it was that I’d probably focus more on the whys, hows and so whats of Twitter if I ever presented on the topic.

The other session, which I think was the centerpiece of the conference, was Richard Susskind’s keynote speech. I posted my notes from the session here, so I won’t go into any detail here. A few conclusions – buy the book (The End of Lawyers?), read the book and discuss the book with others. I enjoyed getting a couple of chances to chat briefly with Richard. I compare the book favorably to Tom Friedmann’s “The Earth is Flat” in that pulls together and synthesizes a lot of important ideas that people have been tossing around, systematizes those ideas in highly understandable ways, and provides a single point of entry for those new to the discussion. The presentation was excellent on so many levels and gave me many touchpoints to tie into my presentations the following day.

Probably my favorite part of the move of TECHSHOW to the Chicago Hilton has been the willingness of the TECHSHOW chairs and ABA Law Practice Management Section to open up a suite to attendees to hang out in the evenings. As I mentioned before, the access to speakers is a huge selling point of TECHSHOW.

Anyway, I spent more than a few hours at the suite on the evenings I was there and appreciated the chance to talk to others about technology and other topics. On the first evening, I found myself in a great conversation with Marc Lauritsen, Jordan Furlong and Ariel Jatib in which we were trying to predict what the next wave of lawyers’ use of the Internet would be. If websites were generation one, and blogs were generation two, was Twitter the start of generation three? Maybe. We went well beyond that and the conversation was worth the trip for me. The Twitter length summary of what’s next from our conversation – audio/video (the easy answer), SMS as a platform, and automated decision-making / legal risk management.

Thanks to Adriana Linares, Kevin O’Keefe, Ed Adams (my “boss” for my ABA Journal tech column) and others who organized events like Beer and Blawgers, the great dinner events, and other activities. One of my favorite TECHSHOW moments was at the Beer and Blawger event, where bloggers/twitterers who knew each other by reputation got to meet in person for the first time. It was funny and cool at the same time to hear people shouting, “Oh my God, you’re @legaltypist!” or @econwriter5 or other Twitter handles. It was also fascinating to see the difference in approach of people who brand their names on Twitter (e.g., @denniskennedy, @tommighell, @jimcalloway) as compared to those who use handles.

Tom and I hosted a very nice dinner at Catch 35, a very good seafood restaurant with a very memorable bread pudding dessert, where we talked about Kindles and a bunch of other topics. Thanks to all who signed up for our dinner.

The last day of sessions ended with the speaker luncheon and the passing of the torch from the current board chair, Laura Calloway (fabulous job, Laura!), to the next board chair, Debbie Foster, and the first meeting of the new board. As a former board member, I always enjoy that tradition.

On Saturday afternoon, I had the rare chance to sit down and talk for a couple of hours with my friend and honorary cousin, Dan Pinnington, something we haven’t had the chance to do for a few years. Dan, along with Reid Trautz, has co-written a new book , The Busy Lawyer's Guide to Success, which is chockful of law practice management tips (more than 700) and is a must-read. Lots of great info in it and they have a website for it at http://lawyersuccesstips.com.

I made the comment in my presentations that, especially because of the economy, TECHSHOW was a gathering of the right people at the right place at the right time on legal technology. I suspect that the ideas, relationships and energy generated by TECHSHOW 2009 will one day be seen to have played an important role in the evolution of the practice of law toward the ideas some of us loosely call Law 2.0.

Toward that end, I end by pointing to the continuing Twitter conversation that began at TECHSHOW and has keep going at a great pace ever since. It can be found by searching for "#techshow" (or just "techshow") at Search.twitter.com. You can even join in this conversation by adding the hashtag #techshow to your related tweets. It's definitely a space to watch.

A big thank you to everyone for making this one of my best TECHSHOWs of the ten or so I’ve attended. As I said, legal technology ultimately is more about people than technology.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Check out the new The Kennedy-Mighell Report Podcast on the Legal Talk Network.

Follow my microblog on Twitter - @dkennedyblog; Follow me - @denniskennedy

Technorati tags: legal technology microblog Law2.0 collaboration