3 Geeks and a Law Blog

The Law Firm Library & CIO Relationship

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Lambert) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 10:30:00 +0000

Image [cc] USDAgov

Later this month, I will presenting with Scott Preston (lovingly referred to around here as “Geek #4”) at the ARK Group Conference focusing on law firm libraries and information services. Initially we were going to discuss the CIO/Library relations, but after discussing it for a while, we decided to go a bit broader and bring it back to an IT/Library relations. The change, however, left me with some of my preparatory notes on the initial topic, and not wanting anything to go to waste, I decided to use these as a basis for a blog post. After going to the CIO Forum at LegalTech a few days ago, it was clear to me that most of the CIOs there are focused on the issues of:

Security/Privacy
Mobile Technology
Legal Project Management
Keeping e-mail and the network up
Industry Trends (mainly Cloud Storage)
Consumerization of Technology
Training Users on New Technology
Dealing with Legacy Data Systems
Technology that can be Outsourced

On the surface, you would think that the CIO is just too overwhelmed to think about the library, but you’d be wrong. CIO's do think about the library… and many think that the library needs to be refocused. The anecdotal stories I hear from CIO's when they talk about the library tend to run in these categories:

The Library is a space (that can be better allocated)
The Library is about books
I rarely talk to the librarians
When I do talk to the librarians, all I hear is "blah, blah, blah, library catalog, blah, blah, blah."

It isn’t that CIOs are purposely antagonistic toward the library, it’s more that the library just isn’t on their radar. On the rare occasion the library does surface to them, it is usually with a problem the library has that the technology team needs to fix. It would seem that the CIO's approach to dealing with others on the Administrative side of the house falls into that theme of "Lead, Follow or Get the Hell Out of the Way." This isn’t just the approach CIOs take with the library, it is the approach they take with all law firm administrative departments. Of course, I'm sure many of you reading this will counter that you have a great relationship with your CIO, and maybe you do… if so, congratulations, and thank you for making the library profession look good… but there are many firms out there, big and mid-sized, where the library leadership simply doesn't have a good relationship with their CIO… some of which don't realize how bad their relationships are because the CIO has dismissed them and they haven't realized it yet. This type of relationship makes the library profession look bad. For those that have this type of relationship between CIO and Library Services, how do you fix the relationship? I would think that one way to approach situations like this is to: Engage the CIO and educate him or her on the high levels of work performed by the library in a way that explains both the talent level needed to perform these jobs, and in a way that plays off of the pain-points that the CIO addresses (managing risk for the firm, managing projects, dealing with the consumerization of information, training, etc.) In many ways, the pain-points of running a library and all of its subsidiary divisions (records, conflicts, CI, BD, etc.) parallels the pain-points of a CIO. The library is more than just a place. There is value in the services provided, but that value has to be displayed in a way that others understand it. Once a CIO understands that value, and can relate to it based on their own experiences, then the relationship can grow. It is up to the leadership within the Library to educate the CIO of that value, because a CIO that thinks your department has limited value is very dangerous thing to your career as a leader of a law firm library.

Bloomberg Law Snags DLA Piper's US Business

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Lambert) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 20:30:00 +0000

I just received an announcement from Bloomberg Law that they have just inked a deal with the 25 US offices of DLA Piper to bring Bloomberg Law to the desktop all of the 1,400 attorneys in those offices. This is by far the biggest coup that Bloomberg has had to date within the Big US Law Firms. It is actually exciting news to hear, and should cause a few wrinkles in the business of legal publishing.

Right off the top of my head I have a few questions that pop out on this deal.

Who lost DLA Piper's US business?? (I'd find it very hard to believe that a firm, even of DLA Piper's size, would want to carry Westlaw, Lexis AND Bloomberg on their annual budgets.)
If DLA Piper did dump one of the other vendors, what resources does DLA Piper lose in the change? Does making a deal like this for the US office affect future deals with legal vendors outside the US?
Did the deal with BNA come into play on the negotiations of a US office-wide agreement?
How are attorneys going to adjust to the new platform? I know DLA Piper has had Bloomberg in a more limited access role for a while now (in fact they were one of the first, if not the first firms to jump on the Bloomberg trial when it rolled out.)

This announcement will make a number of firms stand up and take note. There is a lot of talk about BigLaw firms going with a single-vendor, or at least a primary vendor with another smaller deal with the other. It's apparent that the folks at Thomson Reuters and LexisNexis are taking notes as well, and attempting to set up barriers to going down this route (such as no longer offering pay-go or credit card access for one-off research requests.) With a legitimate third party in play, it may shake up the game a bit and make for some interesting times ahead for both the law firms and the legal publishers.

I'm hoping to learn the answers to the questions above. As I do, I'll do some follow-up posts with what I learn. I applaud DLA Piper for testing the waters on this idea, and look forward to seeing if other firms follow suit. Things just got interesting!

Here's the press release I received:

BLOOMBERG LAW ANNOUNCES AGREEMENT WITH DLA PIPER FOR LEGAL RESEARCH

Bloomberg Law to Provide DLA Piper’s US Lawyers with Legal Research and Business Information Platform

New York - Bloomberg Law, the legal research system from the world leader in data and information services, today announced an agreement with DLA Piper, the world’s largest global business law firm, to provide high quality, cost-effective legal research for all its lawyers throughout the United States. Bloomberg Law's integration of legal research with the Bloomberg industry and financial information relied upon by corporations and investment institutions throughout the world, provides lawyers with a competitive edge in understanding their clients' businesses.

With DLA Piper's enterprise-wide adoption of Bloomberg Law, the firm's 1,400 US lawyers practicing in 25 cities will have unlimited access to Bloomberg Law from their desktops. Bloomberg Law’s legal research system integrates comprehensive legal content, company and financial information, and news all in one place, including Bloomberg's world-class proprietary news, company and market information. Bloomberg Law's all-inclusive, transparent and predictable pricing means that every user has the same unrestricted access to the content in the Bloomberg Law databases.

"We are deeply gratified that a firm of DLA Piper's caliber has chosen Bloomberg Law for its lawyers throughout the United States," said Bloomberg Law Chairman Lou Andreozzi. "We look forward to working closely with DLA Piper as we continue to develop the resources to help law firms better manage their research and costs so they can concentrate on adding value to their clients."

Don Jaycox, DLA Piper’s Chief Information Officer, said, "Law firms need to cost effectively deliver great client service in a highly competitive environment. In addition to being experts in law, our clients have made it clear that they also want us to understand the business challenges they face on a daily basis. Bloomberg Law's unique combination of legal research, company information, and news helps our lawyers stay abreast of a wide array of information affecting our clients. Plus, Bloomberg’s inclusive pricing model helps us manage costs in a predictable way."

About Bloomberg Law

Bloomberg Law is the real-time legal research system that integrates innovative search technology, comprehensive legal content, company and client information, and proprietary news all in one place. This collaborative workspace also includes a suite of new tools for more effective legal analysis and more productive client development. For more information, visit BloombergLaw.com.

About Bloomberg

Bloomberg, the global business and financial information and news leader, gives influential decision makers a critical edge by connecting them to a dynamic network of information, people and ideas. The company’s strength – delivering data, news and analytics through innovative technology, quickly and accurately - is at the core of the Bloomberg Professional service, which provides real time financial information to more than 310,000 subscribers globally. Bloomberg’s enterprise solutions build on the company’s core strength, leveraging technology to allow customers to access, integrate, distribute and manage data and information across organizations more efficiently and effectively. Through Bloomberg Law, Bloomberg Government, Bloomberg New Energy Finance and Bloomberg BNA, the company provides data, news and analytics to decision makers in industries beyond finance. And Bloomberg News, delivered through the Bloomberg Professional service, television, radio, mobile, the Internet and two magazines, Bloomberg Businessweek and Bloomberg Markets, covers the world with more than 2,300 news and multimedia professionals at 146 bureaus in 72 countries. Headquartered in New York, Bloomberg employs more than 15,000 people in 192 locations around the world.

CONTACT

Jill Goodkind

+1 212-617-3669

jgoodkind@bloomberg.net

A New LPM / AFA Tool on the Market

noreply@blogger.com (Toby Brown) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:56:00 +0000

As much is Greg is hungry for free stuff, I am hungry for new technologies that will help ease my pain relative to alternative fee arrangements (AFAs) and related, emerging legal project management (LPM) challenges. So I am pleased to announce a new option on the market that may ease that pain.

Back in the Fall, I had spoken with the ERM Legal Solutions Team and gave them some input on direction their product might take. They listened.

ERM announced their updated offering heading into LegalTech. As I was otherwise committed, I did not attend LegalTech this year, so I requested a web demo after the show. What I saw gave me hope.

One of the challenges of bringing project management (PM) concepts to lawyers is carefully and diplomatically inserting these ideas in to the ways lawyers already practice. I have previously noted that imposing PM at full-force on to a practice would likely end in failure. To that end, ERM’s product is both flexible and highly integrated with other firm systems. You can build highly detailed, hour-by-hour plans, or you can easily go with a fixed fee price, decide what leverage you will use, drop in some time keepers and have a plan in place. The system also connects with your DMS, time and billing, CRM and other applications. This integration is reflective of the thinking that went in to this application. The ERM system is not another silo of knowledge.

On the AFA side, the system can be a quick, easy way to develop a budget. And it can give you a high-level profitability analysis. It also has a template feature, which I typically view as a mixed blessing. Templates are great tools – it’s just that no one ever wants to be the one who builds and maintains them. However, over time, I would at a minimum expect templates to emerge from various budget building efforts.

Admittedly I only saw a brief demo of the ERM system. However, its direction is promising. I plan to keep an eye on this offering and hope to take a more in-depth look at it in the near future.

Note: Ron Friedmann also posted a review on ERM here.

In Praise of Failure

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan McClead) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 18:00:00 +0000

It’s axiomatic that one learns more from failure than from success. After all, success doesn't immediately demand reflective analysis. If you are successful, it's clearly because you were brilliant and made all the right decisions (just ask any bailed-out investment banker). If, however, you fail, you are likely to go through a review of your own limitations and weaknesses and be all the better for it the next time. Failure and perseverance is a recurring pattern in many, if not all, “successful” peoples' lives.

What is true of successful people, is also true of successful companies, departments, committees, research groups, and teams. No group of people gets it right the first time, every time. They fail. A lot. Successful groups learn from their mistakes and try again, or they realize the folly of their endeavor and move on to something more productive, where they will probably fail yet again.

My goal is not to sing the praises of perseverance in the face of ineptitude, but to strongly advocate for embracing your inner loser. Accept the fact that you stink, that most of your ideas are drivel, and that you are going to be a failure most of the time. It's not Sisyphean perseverance that sets the wildly successful apart from the rest of us poor shlubs -- we all know people who are persistently bad at what they do, and have no hope of ever being successful – no!, what sets the successful apart is the remarkable speed at which they fail. You see, the problem, my friends, is not failure itself, but Epic Failure.

The relevant definition of epic being “of unusually great size or extent”, however, in this particular case, I’m going to add “duration” to the definition. Epic Failures are failures that take too long to happen. Quick failures, on the other hand, are merely steps on the way to success.

Take for example, the IT project. A typical IT project begins with a dozen or more people in a room to discuss “the problem”. Everyone in the room, entered the room, with a good idea of what “the problem” was already, but the first meeting is a lengthy discussion of the intricacies and various facets of “the problem”. Invariably, the project team leaves that first meeting with a larger problem than they had when they entered and the long slough to finding “the solution” begins.

As an alternative, imagine a Skunkworks team – a small group of no more than four, technically capable, energetic, and empowered individuals, who are handed problems and asked to find solutions. The primary goal of this group would be to fail quickly. Find a solution, test the solution, present the solution to those who will ultimately use it, discover why their solution is inadequate, and then start again with knowledge gained from their failure.

In a month, the Typical Team will have determined in excruciating detail, exactly what they think they need to look for in a solution, while the Skunkworks team will have understood through a series of quick failures that they actually need something else entirely. The Typical Team may come to the same conclusion in about six months if they hurry.

There may be projects that require large groups of people performing in depth analysis of the problem and every possible solution, but let’s be honest, this approach has less to do with finding solutions, than it does with avoiding the appearance of failure for as long as possible.

Recipe for success: 1) Fail small. 2) Fail quickly. 3) Fail often.

Staying Relevant - Part 8: How Can We Change This?

noreply@blogger.com (Toby Brown) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 11:37:00 +0000

image [cc] Mike Licht

In Part 7 of the series we noted the backward looking nature of the legal profession and how that handicaps lawyers needing to embrace change. In this final segment of the series, a bit of hope is brought to the table in the form of bars.

The Bar's Role

Saving the best for last - bar associations are in the best position to drive change in the legal profession. Via their CLE groups, publications departments and member services options, bar associations are in a position to upend the Paradigm of Precedence. First and foremost, bars can lead by example.

Some specific examples of what a bar might do:

Actively adopt new technologies. Turn websites in to e-commerce, interactive destinations. Utilize cloud-based technologies in business operations. Enable mobile access to all services. Embrace social media platforms.

Partner with vendors who can bring technology and business knowledge to members in affordable ways. Be the one who stays on top of change on members’ behalf. Take some chances and invest money in technology relationships.

Include forward-thinking components in CLE programs and publications. Many topics can benefit by including forward looking technologies and business ideas. Ask speakers and authors to include those in their topics. Maybe require them as appropriate (e.g. Annual Conventions).

Provide CLE directly on adapting to change. With the right topics and speakers, CLE programs directed at meeting these challenges will have a strong appeal for members.

Provide practice management services to give members more direct advice and services.

Push to revamp the Bar rules. Too many rules are built on the billable hour model with a guild mind-set. Think about the innovators among the membership and make sure bar rules are not overly inhibiting them. As an example, check out the Legal Services Act in the UK. It goes so far as to allow non-lawyer equity participation in firms.

In Closing

Every facet of the legal industry is under intense pressure to change: every institution and every participant. No one is protected from the compelling market and technological forces. Surviving in this industry, let alone prospering, means shedding old ways and actively embracing new thinking.

I coined a second phrase in my 1999 presentation by applying precedence thinking to operating a ski boat. The phrase: We’re driving the boat by watching the wake. Our perfect storm presents an opportunity for the profession to turn around, look out over the bow, and face the future head-on.

So I’ll add yet another phrase to my holster: Precedence is a legal philosophy, not a business model.

My final suggestion: Become a voice for the Paradigm of Change.

Thank you all for following this series. It was fun and interesting to write. It made me think a lot about how all of the forces are coming together in a new picture. Although I can't predict the future, this exercise gave me a less-fuzzy view of what's in store for the legal profession.

Survey: Got Embedded Librarian??

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Lambert) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 11:00:00 +0000

Image [cc] Andrew Feinberg

In preparation for the ARK Group Conference on Best Practices & Management Strategies for Law Firm Library, Research & Information Services, we are conducting a survey on the topic of embedded librarians. This short survey simply asks the size of your firm and if you have embedded librarians, or if you do or do not plan on using embedded librarians.

Marlene Gebauer will use the survey for her presentation on February 23rd, and we will post the results here on the blog a couple days later.

If you're a law firm librarian, please take a minute to fill out this survey.

Staying Relevant - Part 7: Looking Backwards

noreply@blogger.com (Toby Brown) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 11:34:00 +0000

image [cc] Flicker Clicker

Part 6 of this series demonstrated how the pressures for change are being felt by all corners of the legal market.

The Paradigm of Precedence

The name of this series is taken from a presentation I gave back in 1999 to a group of bar leaders. At that time I coined the phrase, The Paradigm of Precedence. To illustrate this concept, I suggested lawyers are driving the boat by watching the wake. Lawyers are deeply trained in looking at the past to determine the present. The future only becomes interesting once they know today’s precedence. A running joke in the industry is that whenever an innovative concept is proposed, the first question asked is: Are other firms doing this? This paradigm, this way of seeing the world in the rear-view mirror, has become a significant handicap for the profession.

Prediction

Lawyers left to their own devices will hold to the Paradigm of Precedence. They prefer to wait and see what precedents develop in the market and then attempt to copy them. The big problem with this tendency is that new breeds of competitors will take the opposite approach, preferring to innovate ahead of the market, actually setting the new precedents. And once these providers are established in the market, it will be very difficult for lawyers to displace them. Lawyers in this scenario will be forever playing catch-up in a market that is gaining speed ahead of them.

Attempts to fight this tide with lawsuits over UPL will have little impact. Fighting in court will further expose how lawyers are not actively working to lower costs and improve their services. The public (including legislatures) will see a guild fighting to retain its monopoly when other providers have come in and met the public's needs at lower costs. For instance in the LegalZoom example, this company is getting legal help to thousands of people who were not getting it before. Lawyers will rightly argue some people will be harmed in this environment. These lawyers will essentially be arguing that it is better to not have this access to justice than to allow any potential for harm from non-lawyers. I think the recent success of LegalZoom demonstrate the likely outcome of such fights.

A Bit of Hope

As with any community, there will be some participants who shed the Paradigm of Precedence. After one or two times of being beaten in the market, these lawyers will embrace new thinking, employing new business structures and innovative technologies. Our best hope will be encouraging and enabling these agents of change.

Although my prediction is admittedly a bit of doom-and-gloom, I hope to be proven wrong. Lawyers are the best people to provide legal services. They have a noble obligation to protect the rule of law. If the provision of legal services primarily falls to those without this duty – the rule of law will suffer.

Part 8 - the final in the series - provides some hope and ideas for how the profession can embrace change, focusing on the role of bar associations as logical and likely agents of change.

Tumblr Goes Head to Head with Facebook, Selling Highlighted Posts for $1

noreply@blogger.com (Lihsa) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 18:01:00 +0000

Just minutes ago, Tumblr announced its answer to Facebook's featured stories: "Highlighted Posts", but with one major difference.

You gotta pay for that post: one whole dollar.

Well. As of January 2012, Tumblr has 39.5 million blogs--and that's just blogs; not posts--that's a lot of mullah.

And, for those who are on the crafty side, you get to make a fun little customizable sticker, to boot.

Watch out, Facebook. Your big old bad IPO self is getting called out by the new kid on the block!

Staying Relevant - Part 6: It’s Not Just Lawyers

noreply@blogger.com (Toby Brown) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 11:29:00 +0000

image [cc] WilWheaton

In Part 5 of this series we talked about next-generation technologies that have the potential for real change, but mean computers will replace lawyers.

Beyond Private Practice – Some Examples

Law Schools

“What They Don’t Teach Law Students: Lawyering,” A title from a November 19, 2011 article in the New York Times. Deeper in the article, “The fundamental issue is that law schools are producing people who are not capable of being counselors,” says Jeffrey W. Carr, the General Counsel of FMC Technologies.”

Law Schools are under heavy attack to change as well. With student loan debt now surpassing credit card debt and with law graduates unable to actually practice law, many even within the legal industry are turning on the law schools. This debate has reached a fever-pitch. Law students are now suing their schools for not preparing them for the realities of the legal market. And law schools are suing the ABA over accrediting standards.

Law Librarians

Long held as a sacred space within a law firm, now law libraries are convenient cost cutting opportunities. Librarians are forced to defend their value and try to maintain staffing levels in order to effectively respond to lawyer research requests. Even clients have joined in this attack, specifying which time keepers are allowed on their bills, many times excluding valuable librarians.

Legal IT

Those in the legal technology space are now under an all-sides attack. Clients want to know specifically which tools a firm is using to be efficient. Firm leadership expects IT to bring every innovation to them, but then declines to fund much beyond basic upgrades. Partners want to cut what they perceive as less-utilized systems (a.k.a. the ones other partners use). Administrative leadership expects that no system will ever go down. Individual lawyers want to switch to iPhones. And IT gets to support all of this. Meanwhile, they are competing against the entire market to retain top technical talent.

Judges

While fighting with every other government agency for funding, they must stay on top of all the new technology, as every day some case is filed over its use or abuse. Meanwhile, they haven’t seen a decent raise in years.

You get the picture …

Part 7 reveals the biggest challenge facing the legal profession - its deep, traditional emphasis on precedence.

CIO's Mission: Keeping the Lawyers Engaged

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Lambert) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:46:00 +0000

Image [cc] lemurdillo

I had the privilege of being on a panel with three amazing people at LegalTech's CIO Forum this week to discuss how consumerization of technology is affecting the law firm technology strategy. Phillip Hoare from Wilson Sonsini really made me think differently about the topic because he came at the scenario about 180 degrees from where I assumed most CIO's would be. His approach was to focus on the positive and downplay the negative. Although I don't have a direct quote, his motto for dealing with the different ways in which a lawyer wants to use technology, or the different types of technology was basically this:

My job as CIO is to make sure that the attorneys are engaged in the practice of law, and we will support whatever platform or device they wish to use in order to keep them engaged in their practice.

I have to say that I was surprised to hear this type of approach because most of the time at these types of conferences the focus is on what goes wrong, rather on what goes right. In fact, I made a few comments to others that the theme that ran through most of the conference was the biggest problem with law firm technology was that lawyers didn't stay in the "box" that the CIO or CTO designed for the firm. Issues of potential security risks, or the possibility of commingling of person and firm data, or the duplication of data into cloud servers or personal devices required shutting down the ideas of bringing in foreign technology that hadn't been fully vetted by the firm's IT department.

Now, I'm not living in a bubble when it comes to how technology, law firm IT Departments and law firm Partners interact. There is a delicate balance of doing what is right, what is ethical, and what is feasible… and that these three prongs are typically being challenged as new technologies are introduced. I just wanted to say that it was refreshing to hear someone look at the challenges in a way that stresses the need to just make it work in a way that is beneficial to the attorney's ability to work in a way that he or she finds most effective, and less about drawing battle lines of what will and will not be supported by IT. I'm sure there are many challenges that face IT Departments that take on the "keep the attorney engaged" approach. However, I think that it is the better approach for IT to be flexible in supporting the way the attorney wishes to work, rather than attempting to make the attorneys work the way IT wants. As I mentioned during the panel, if IT starts throwing up roadblocks to the way attorneys want to work… you may find the attorneys have great skills in working around those roadblocks.

How Would You Transform the Legal Industry?

noreply@blogger.com (Ayelette Robinson) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 08:09:00 +0000

What resource (technological or not) would you invent to transform the legal industry?

This question isn't about what you think will transform the industry, but rather what you would, if you were all-powerful, create to do so.

Share your thoughts. And don't just step outside the box, get so far away from it that you can barely see it with a telescope.

Staying Relevant - Part 5: The Real Scary Technology

noreply@blogger.com (Toby Brown) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 11:24:00 +0000

image [cc] tsukubajin

In Part 4 of this series we discussed why firms avoid next generation technology and why that needs to change.

Replacing Humans

To look deeper in to what the future might hold, we will now explore two next-generation knowledge management (KM) technologies. I refer to these as analysis KM tools, as they extend beyond technology that organizes things, and become technology that performs true analysis functions.

LexisNexis has developed an analysis KM product that analyzes knowledge from multiple systems and makes decisions about the content. The Matter Experiences Module of the Lexis Search Advantage product can analyze time entries, documents and other records to determine 1) what type of work a matter is, and 2) what type of tasks a time entry includes. In our profit margin world where we need to understand the costs of providing various services, such a technology will have tremendous value.

Although it sounds straight-forward, most lawyers do not know what type of work a random matter includes. The reason is they never cared about that data point. Instead of labeling a new matter as Patent Litigation, it was called “Company XYZ vs. ABC Corp.” So firms are unable to search and retrieve by matter type. If you don’t know what a service is, you will not know where to begin to understand its cost.

But even when you know the type of matter, you will only be able to see the overall fee. This knowledge has some value. But being able to break the work down into relevant phases and tasks, lawyers will understand their costs at a much more actionable level. Firms can now know how much time is spent on a given task-type for a specified type of work. An additional benefit of having technology perform this coding work is that the results will be consistent and therefore of higher quality and value.

Another, perhaps more interesting and immediately useful analysis KM technology comes in the form of document analysis. KIIAC (pronounced kayak) has a system that analyzes volumes of documents. To illustrate its ability, here is a step-by-step description of it in action:

A user submits 300 different examples of an Agreement into the system. KIIAC analyzes and then returns its best guess at the structure of an Agreement based on the content of the 300 examples. This structure includes a listing of all clauses and their relationships.
Then a lawyer reviews the suggested clause structure and makes adjustments to it.
A second analysis is performed using the finalized document structure. KIIAC then returns an analysis of how variable the language of the 300 examples is. This includes an identification of the most standard language for each clause.
KIIAC can then generate a new document draft using the most standard, non-negotiated language.

The result is actually an identification of the standard way Agreements are written. This is a task humans could not perform.

But wait … there’s more:

5. KIIAC can then compare yet another Agreement against the identified standard, see where the new document is different and if it includes all the relevant clauses.

KIIAC is displacing humans in this process. In traditional practice, lawyers pull a few recent examples of a document type, review them all in an attempt to cull out deal-specific language and then produce a ‘clean’ draft to start the next deal. KIIAC is able to perform the same tasks, but do it using hundreds or thousands of examples. And it does it in a matter of seconds instead of hours. I might add KIIAC does a better job. If the recent examples chosen by the lawyer do not include a specific clause, it may well not end up in the clean draft. KIIAC, in its more comprehensive approach, is far less likely to miss anything. And unlike a lawyer, it can analyze a new draft, say from the opposing party, and in seconds know if it anything is missing from it.

I refer to these new technologies as analysis tools primarily because they perform the tasks of humans. This is a qualitative leap in the type of technology used by lawyers. More importantly, it is technology with a direct impact on profitability. In comparison, an upgraded version of Word has very little, if any impact on the bottom line.

Lawyers need to seek out these types of next generation technologies and find ways to implement them profitably within their practices.

Part 6 in the series looks at segments of the legal market beyond private practice and the forces of change acting on them.

Velocity: A Lawyer's App that's Faster than a Speeding Bullet?

noreply@blogger.com (Lihsa) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 18:30:00 +0000

Velocity App by ContentPilot LLC

As a lawyer, have you ever been at dinner with a client who asked you, "look, we've been having a real problem with a certain part of our business. Now I know this isn't your bailiwick, but do you know if someone at your firm does this kind of work?"

Rather than looking like a deer caught in the headlights and watching a potential deal go down the drain, now you can whip out your handy new iPad app, Velocity.

Released in the third quarter of 2011, ContentPilot LLC bills Velocity as the first mobile app to drive sales for lawyers and professional services firms.

Sitting atop ContentPilot's Cases & Deals product--aka, the firm's experience database--a lawyer has instant access to his firm's experience database from his smart device.

And with a squeaky-clean layout, the navigation is über-user-friendly. With a touch of a finger-tip, you can navigate to your firm's practice lists, teams and phone-friendly descriptions of salient matters. It also show-cases the your own clients and practices, as well as keeping up with your client's lastest news.

Right now, the news is just pulling from the client's company web site. ContentPilot is hoping to partner with Manzama, a social media news aggregator, to develop a more robust news layout.

ContentPilot's Velocity app is the answer to the cross-selling dilemma that every lawyer in a large law firm faces: who does what in my firm?

Now, instead of having to try to remember the client's question, go back to the office, remember to find the right guy, then trying to reconnect with your client, maybe even after he's already found someone else, you can get it all done right there on the spot.

God, I love technology.

Wikileaks: A Study on Whistleblowing and the Media

noreply@blogger.com (Lihsa) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 03:31:00 +0000

Don DeGabrielle, Lucy Dalglish, David Adler, Tom Forestier

Well, I don't know about you, but I had a GREAT week-end. Aside for a fun-filled movie marathon (Red Tails, The Artist and Hugo), I had the privilege of attending the 26th Law & the Media Program Examines WikiLeaks.

The first event of the year, the session featured Julian Assange's lawyer, Geoffrey Robertson and New York Times Pulitzer-prize winning reporter Eric Schmitt.

Julian Assange's English lawyer Geoffrey Robertson, kicked off the session via Skype.

For those of you who are unaware, he is one of the top legal minds of our time--it was a privilege to hear him speak. Australian born, he holds dual citizenship in Australia and England. He is a barrister and a Queen's Counsel who has handled libel, human rights and media matters involving well-known publications, artists and writers, including Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses.

Robertson's position on Wikileaks was that the public has a right to know and that Assange was only acting as a reporter in conveying unsolicited, unclassified documents. He proposed that governments need to create policy to ensure that documents are properly classified and then classify them.

Next up was Schmitt, who talked about meeting with and interviewing Assange when the first trove of diplomatic cables were leaked by WikiLeaks. Schmitt was on the journalistic team of four international newspapers that were given the documents for review.

A panel then discussed the issues surrounding whistleblowers, sources and reporters. The panel included Lucy Dalglish, the Executive Director of the Reporters Committee on Freedom; Don DeGabrielle, a Fulbright attorney and former U.S. Attorney; and David Adler, a federal criminal defense attorney and former CIA agent. Winstead's managing shareholder and media attorney Tom Forestier moderated.

The session was targeted towards reporters and raised issues about the reliability of sources, maintaining a source's confidentiality and what constitutes the status of a reporter. It was a fascinating discussion, particularly at the end. These folks who had been in the trenches, discussed how leaks, in this day of instant technology, are so much more likely to occur. Interestingly, all three panelists hearkened back to the days of Watergate when the reporters' idea of protecting sources were parking lots meetings and notes in flower pots.

The event was held at the South Texas College of Law Saturday morning and co-sponsored by the Houston Bar Association, the Society of Professional Journalists and The Press Club of Houston.

Staying Relevant - Part 4: Technology and the Bottom-line

noreply@blogger.com (Toby Brown) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 11:15:00 +0000

Image [cc] Truthout.org

In Part 3 of this series we talked about new competitors to law firms and some basic economics of law firms to get deeper in to the intense pressures on firms. Here we peeled back the layers of change driven from new technologies.

The Technology Challenge

Ray Kurzweil predicts that given the current exponential rate of technology growth, by 2048 a single computer will have the computing power of all human brains. Kurzweil’s calculations are based on a thorough analysis of numerous technology trends. But even if you discount his ultimate prediction, you really can’t escape the powerful influence rapid technological innovations are having. Compare that level of change to the technology innovations currently prioritized by lawyers and firms. These can be summed up with one word: Upgrades. With some minor exceptions, most firms and lawyers are investing their technology dollars in projects like newer word processing, document management and email management systems. So while the world is automating forms and legal processes on the Web, lawyers are getting better at paragraph numbering and organizing documents.

Why?

Cost-plus thinking. In a cost-plus world, firms react by draining the company of capital every December 31st. This mind-set does not view technology as an investment, but instead as a necessary expense. Worse yet, technology negatively impacts the number of hours and respective revenue generated by them. So why would a firm invest in it?

This model has driven most legal technology vendors to focus on delivering incremental technological innovations to existing applications. So even when a firm actually wants to innovate, they do not have a lot of options.

Running against this grain is the emergence of Legal Project Management (LPM). This concept focuses on applying project management principles to legal matter management. Clients have been driving much of this dialog in their zeal to get efficiencies from their outside firms. Efficiency meaning - do the same work in fewer hours. Firms who have truly embraced this idea (i.e. Seyfarth Shaw) have seen very positive responses from clients. LPM has a ways to go to be fully embedded in the industry. But in the meantime it is driving new technology options.

There are other technology choices that highlight the possibilities and give direction to firms looking to embrace the future. First off, firms should look at the new breed of competitors to see what they are using. LPOs are investing in process automation tools to create standard methods for how tasks are done. This standardization ensures quality and efficiency. It bakes in best-practices for every piece of work. Technology for this is becoming available for lawyers, evidenced by Onit which provides a hosted (SaaS or cloud-based) process automation application for legal departments and law firms.

Vendors like LegalZoom demonstrate the value of providing smart content, online directly to clients. Some large firms have actually deployed similar technology. For example Orrick provides a Start-up Toolkit where clients can generate quality first drafts of the documents needed to form a new company. Both of these examples (process and document automation) are good examples for lawyers and firms to consider.

Part 5 will bring technology further in to focus, highlighting new technologies that perform human functions.

Staying Relevant - Part 3: Competition Takes Many Forms

noreply@blogger.com (Toby Brown) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 11:09:00 +0000

Image [cc] marcokalmann

In Part 2 of this series we covered the beginnings of major change in the legal market along with the initial responses from firms and lawyers.

Non-Traditional Competitors

An emerging and compelling reason for lawyers to make different business decisions is coming from new breeds of competitors. One example is the Legal Process Outsourcer (LPO) market. These companies started as off-shore (typically India) based providers for first document review in litigation. They hire English speaking, American law trained candidates in other, lower wage countries. These much lower-costing, well-enough trained lawyers were appropriately suited for this level of work. So well-matched to the tasks, that in very short order, these document reviewers became viable competitors. Most lawyers glossed over this market encroachment, seeing it as commodity level work no longer worthy of their skills. In reality, this meant millions in fees were no longer going to US lawyers.

The LPOs originally targeted law firms as their customers. But law firms were slow to respond to these offerings, in part due to the ethical constraints of profiting from third-party services. But firms were also concerned about diluting the law firm brand with low-level services. The result was that LPOs shifted their sales and marketing efforts directly to clients. With the acquisition of the Pangea3 LPO by Thomson Reuters, the market saw strong validation of this model. LPOs are now offering a broader range of services including: Contract Drafting, Contract Review, Patent Application Drafting, IP and M&A Due Diligence and other services.

It should be noted that these legal-type services are being provided by non-law firms directly to clients. To date, it appears that no regulatory authorities are investigating these practices leaving these new competitors ample opportunity to go after the legal market, which they appear to be doing. As law firm revenues have gone stagnant or declined over the past few years, LPOs have been experiencing 50% growth per year.

In the solo / small firm segment of the market, other competitors are appearing. For example, LegalZoom is a provider of online legal forms which also provides customer service to assist clients in completing the forms. Some states have taken issue with LegalZoom for, what they believe to be, engaging in the Unauthorized Practice of Law (UPL). These states’ efforts do not seem to be having much impact on LegalZoom’s growth. The company reports raising $100 million in funding to-date and $100 million in revenue for 2011. This market for online legal content was further validated via Google’s $18.5m investment in Rocket Lawyer in mid-2011. These providers are taking full advantage of 1) the ability to raise capital, and 2) next generation technology. Lawyers are barred from the first activity and generally unwilling to engage in the second one.

Profit vs. Revenue

Lawyers and firms have been living in a cost-plus business model world for the past 50 years. ‘Cost-plus’ is having the cost of a service plus a profit built into the pricing. Hourly billing rates are a manifestation of this model. As long as there were enough billable hours to go around, profits were virtually guaranteed. This model created a mind-set bent on billable hours and revenue, for which the industry is well-known. The challenge for firms now is that these rules no longer hold true. The shift that began in 2006, accelerated by the recession in 2008, changed that dynamic.

AFAs presented a viable alternative to work through the shift. Instead of looking at just hours and rates, fees and cost of delivery became part of the equation. Now firms began looking at matter financials in a profit margin way.

Most businesses operate on the margin model. Although not a complicated formula (price minus cost equals profit), it is still an elusive one for lawyers. I contend that by the end of 2009, firms were unknowingly operating in a margin world. Unknowingly since their compensation models are founded on a cost-plus model that rewards revenue versus profitability. Therefore firms have a structural blind-eye to the profit squeeze problem. They are unable to even expose the problem, when they really should be focused on resolving it.

A Suggestion

At one point in 2010, a law firm partner asked me if I could do one thing to restructure a firm for the future, what would it be? I gave a simple answer: Change the financial conversation from revenue to profit. Most of the challenges facing firms would come in to focus and receive the attention they need and deserve if that one criterion were in place. Every effort in a firm would shift from supporting a cost-plus model to the margin one that actually exists.

Part 4 provides a forecast on the technology aspect of the perfect storm. This rapidly advancing force brings serious challenges, and hopefully some opportunities to lawyers.

Google Author Tags: Google's All Up in My Business

noreply@blogger.com (Lihsa) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 23:34:00 +0000

Today, I spent a lot of time messing around with Blogger, Feedburner and Google+.

There is a lot of change afoot with the upgrades in Google+.

Integration for the most part has been pretty smooth--I like that if you have a Google+ account and a Blogger account, it is fairly simple to integrate and feed your new blog posts to your Google+.

But what isn't so easy is integrating co-authored blogs into Google+.

Thanks to a tip from HubSpot, I found a bit of a work-around by setting up a Google+ author tag. But I'm not completely confident it will work. Plus, I had to do something that I was completely loathe to do--submit my Gmail account to the public domain. Ugh.

Why does Google insist upon getting all up into my business?

Skip the Library; Increase Your Risk

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Lambert) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:54:00 +0000

Image [cc] Slippery Tiger

I have found that librarians at law firms walk a tightrope strung over the thorny issues of cost, risk and user demands. We have a reputation of being "gatekeepers" or impeding advances in legal research by holding on to old media at the expense of new media. Although it may be true that there are a few Luddites clinging to the idea of a traditional brick & mortar library, those Luddites are few and far between. Most librarians are actually ready and willing to adopt new ideas, media, technology, user experiences, and procedures, but they are also responsible for advising the risk involved in the adoption to the overall firm in which they work. There are times in which the risk outweighs the cool factor in moving forward.

One of the common themes I'm hearing from vendors these days is that "we need to get our products in front of the attorneys because the librarians are too challenging to work with." It is a logical thought on their end because librarians are challenging. We look past the "whiz-bang" interface and start asking the questions of "how much does it cost?" or "who can access it?" or "does it work with our current infrastructure?" or "what happens if someone gets into something we didn't put in our contract?" or "if we bill clients for the use of this product, can you work with us to make sure we follow ABA guidelines?" In other words, we ask challenging questions and won't move forward until those questions are answered.

There is a reason that law firms hire librarians to manage their external legal research content. We mitigate risk – both ethical and fiscal for the firm. We report up to the powers-that-be in a firm and present the pros and cons of new products, give our recommendations, then implement the decisions that are made. Sometimes the potential rewards are worth the risk, sometimes they are not. Like it or not, librarians do not make the final decision, however we do relay that decision to the vendors (so to them, it seems that we are the problem.) There are librarians out there that never want to bring in new products or technology, but they are rare – and getting rarer.

When vendors successfully do an end-run around the library and get a Partner to sign off on a contract for their product, the librarian spends the next year attempting to undo the damage. Pull any law librarian to the side in at a conference and have them tell you the horror stories of what happened when a Practice Group bought a product (usually somewhere in the vicinity of $25K) only to find out that the firm already had a similar product (sometimes the same exact product), or that the product actually didn't solve that problem the Practice Group thought it would. The story usually ends with how much time the librarian spent on getting the contract reworked into an existing deal (reducing the overall cost, but retaining the product) or finding some way to get out of the contract after tracking down the contract signed by the group.

Many librarians would love to adopt the newest version of a legal research product and be on the bleeding edge of technology. However, our biggest duty to the firm is to make sure that we first look at the risks associated with taking on the latest and greatest products. Skipping the library (either by a vendor, or someone on the inside of the firm) may get a product into the firm, however, it rarely comes without introducing some unforeseen risk to the firm. The librarian is then asked to fix the problem, and usually a note goes out reminding members of the firm that all contracts have to be negotiated through the proper channels, and that "X" vendor must from this point go through the proper channels. For the vendor, the short-term victory turns into a long-term damage to their reputation within the firm. Even worse, now they have to go, hat in hand, to the very librarian they excluded, and work to make amends.

Staying Relevant - Part 2: The Initial Pain and Response

noreply@blogger.com (Toby Brown) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 11:02:00 +0000

Image [cc] edkohler

Part 1 of this series set the stage for the perfect economic storm, covering the forces pushing change in the legal market. Part 2 covers the first pain felt in the legal market and how firms have reacted.

Along Comes 2008

Even before the Lehman collapse, clients had already started sending signals to law firms about rate concerns. But after the collapse those signals became directives. Some clients went as far as sending letters dictating rates for 2009. A good friend summed the scenario up well when he noted, “The Guild was broken in the General Counsel’s (GCs) office.” What he meant by this statement was that legal departments and legal budgets were no longer getting a pass when it came to cost reductions. The CEO had come to the GC for his annual “you need to cut costs” visit, but this time wouldn’t take “I can’t” for an answer. In some situations, the CEO brought in Procurement and instructed the GC to use this group as a resource to get control over legal costs. Prior to this, GCs were cautious about pressuring outside firms on rates, fearing they might not represent them in the next large case if they were offended by discount requests. The CEO gave them something bigger to fear.

Alternative Fee Arrangements (AFAs) began to rise in popularity at this time. At least they were in conversations. But many times the GC would ask for AFAs, not really knowing what they wanted out of them. The fallback was another 5% discount off of rates; which the clients pretty much got whenever they asked for it.

Firms Respond

As their clients were attempting to do, law firms gave major focus to their own cost cutting in 2009 and in to 2010. One report documented more than 12,000 lay-offs from large firms in 2009 alone. Law firms sought and found many ways to cut costs. It was an exercise not conducted in quite some time, so cost reductions were easy to identify. Of course these cost reductions had an impact on the legal market vendors, further extending the financial pain into the market.

One cost factor left relatively untouched in these efforts was partner headcount. Partners, as owners, are not as easy to terminate. As well, there is a loyalty to partners, making this type of cut a last-ditch approach. And in the short-run, it was easy to avoid. The cost savings turned out to be more than enough. Many firms posted record profits (on lower revenues) in 2009 and 2010.

But these cost cutting measures can only go so far. Firms faced continuing challenges in 2011 with: 1) no more easy cost cuts available, 2) clients continuing to push on rates and prices driving down realization, and 3) less-than ideal leverage (a.k.a. too many partners). Simple economics indicates that under this scenario, firms began facing a real squeeze on the bottom line. Additionally, the market for legal services is not growing. There are some practices showing modest growth (e.g. Patent Litigation), however the overall size of the legal market is not changing and firms wanting to grow their revenue to sustain profits must do so at the expense of other firms.

You may have noticed I did not refer to the economic shift as going to a buyers’ market. My sense is that the legal market is now in a traditional, competitive market; one where firms have to employ a broad range of business strategies and tactics. In the old sellers’ market, the only differentiator was that of perceived legal skill. Lawyers only needed to market their skills, resulting in clients sending them work. In a competitive market lawyers need to show clients an arsenal of differentiators. I shy away from labeling this all as a buyers’ market, since I feel that label obscures the need to utilize all types of tools. Until very recently, there were many lawyers who held to a belief they could just wait this whole storm out and once it passed, bask in the warm glow of another sellers’ market. Given the deeper shift in market economics, this belief is unwarranted. Approaching the market as being competitive in a new and enduring way will lead to better decisions.

Part 3 brings new players in to the equation and offers a suggestion for how lawyers might refocus to meet this challenge.

BigLaw Partner Richard C. Hsu's - The One Page Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Lambert) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 10:00:00 +0000

… and I thought I was alone… unique… special in some way. I thought I was the only blogger at my firm, but it turns out I was not alone. Yesterday, I found another person at my firm that was blogging. Not just any person either, but ("gasp") a Partner!! Luckily, it turned out that he didn't know about my blog either. We found out about each other, not through an internal communication, but through a Tweet that was sent out that I happened to see in my Tweetdeck Search column. When I reached out and talked about our shared blogging interest, we both had the same reaction… "Cool!" I know I was a little embarrassed that I hadn't known about another blogger in the firm, but now that I know, I'm letting everyone else know about it too!!

Richard C. Hsu is a Partner in the King & Spalding Silicon Valley office and came over with a group of IP lawyers from what was then Townsend, Townsend & Crew (now known as Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton.) But, enough about his day job… more importantly, he's a blogger at The One Page Blog. Hsu's blog (at the cleverly named hsutube.com … go ahead, say it out loud) focuses in on IP issues, as you might expect of an IP Lawyer, but the interesting angle of this blog is that it presents the information in a visual way using video and other images rather than just text.

Richard discusses his thoughts behind why he is blogging in the section of his blog titled "Lawyer's Confessions" where he admits that, although he is a super techie (CalTech grad and experienced programmer), he has found himself somehow "out of touch" with the new generation's mode of communications. He reminds us that, despite our experiences, there seems to always come a day when someone younger comes in and makes us understand that in order to "get with it" we'll need to climb outside our own comfort zones. For Hsu, that meant playing to the strengths that comes with age/experience, and that is understanding strategy. He says it best in his explanation of technology and technology strategy:

On the other hand, technology strategy is not technology. It is strategy. And strategy’s half-life is more like plutonium: what worked a thousand years ago works today, and will work in a thousand years.... Invest in understanding strategy now, and you will understand it just as well — probably even better [in the future.]

It is great having someone on the inside that is testing the waters of blogging. I'm sure that we'll be bouncing ideas off of one another from time to time. Hopefully we'll inspire others to pick up the urge to blog about what inspires them.

I know that Richard has inspired me to try to get my daughters to contribute their skills to help me blog, as he has done with his daughter Maya:

Now that's cool! Go check out (and subscribe to) The One Page Blog.

Staying Relevant - Part 1: The Perfect Storm of Change

noreply@blogger.com (Toby Brown) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 10:59:00 +0000

Image [cc] RobertFrancis

Like the series on Marketing 2.0, this series on Staying Relevant is taken from an article written for an upcoming presentation. In 1999 I gave another presentation called Staying Relevant which covered a range of technologies coming online which would significantly impact the legal profession. I suggested lawyers should embrace change if they wanted to stay relevant. Some of my predictions came true immediately (e-filing), others came to be after some years (alternative fees) and others are still waiting in the wings (trusted digital signatures). In this series I review various changes impacting the legal market well beyond technology and again suggest lawyers will benefit from embracing change. This series also highlights the impact of some of my prior predictions, further making the case to embrace.

Part 1 takes a broad look at what has lead to the current climate of change.

“Change before you have to.”

Jack Welch

The Perfect Storm

The legal industry is sailing in a perfect storm of threats to its future. The first storm factor is the economic shift from a sellers’ market to a competitive one. This shift started ahead of the Great Recession. A second factor is the actual Great Recession. With the underlying forces of the market already in flux, this recession greatly accelerated the economic shift. Finally, amongst this economic chaos the pace of technology change continues to accelerate, adding more energy to a raging storm.

The impact of this perfect storm is hitting all corners of the market. It first appeared in the larger firm market, and it has quickly spread. It now includes everything from law schools to the courts, all of which are struggling to deal with vast changes.

To better understand the potential impacts of this storm, let us explore the various aspects of what is happening in different segments of the industry and the forces driving change. As a consequence of this exploration, some predictions will be given, along with some suggestions. However, these comments and various others coming from the market should be weighed against our ability to know the unknown. We have reached a point in human history where predicting the future beyond a few years is quite a challenge. A perfect example is that of Facebook, which grew from zero to 100 million users in less than two years. What things will look like in five to ten years is anyone’s guess. So the best we can do now is keep a vigilant eye on the storm and stay prepared to constantly alter course.

Economic Forces

Up through the mid-2000’s, lawyers across the market were raising rates on a consistent year-to-year basis. This action reflected the relative strength in the market they experienced as sellers. A relatively limited supply of lawyers, along with a growing demand for services, produced consistent growth in revenues. But then things began to shift, slowly at first, but truly at a foundational level.

The changes materialized with clients asking for discounts on rates. Discounts had been given by firms before, but now they became broadly requested and expected by clients. Meanwhile, larger firms continued to push up starting salaries for associates and kept them on lock-step compensation plans, driving up firms’ costs of operation. This economic conflict was hardly noticeable at first, since rate increases and a consistent volume of legal work were still coming in.

To better appreciate the nature of this conflict, we need an understanding of the basic economics of law firms, which are driven primarily by leverage and realization. Leverage is the number of non-partner hours to partner hours. Non-partner hours are those that produce the profits which go to pay partners. Realization is the percentage of dollars realized against standard rates. Realization plays a role since each point below 100%, equates to about a three point reduction in profits. This formula and the profit-squeeze conflict noted above will play a central role in the financial health of law firms going forward. It is therefore essential to our discussions and exploration of the forces at play.

In Part 2 of this series we will walk through the first waves of the storm and how the market has been adapting.

Good News From Texas - Onit Gets Funding

noreply@blogger.com (Toby Brown) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 15:17:00 +0000

Balancing out my post this week on some less-than favorable news from Texas, I wanted to share some very good news from the Lone Star State.

Onit, a Houston-based legal technology company, obtained a healthy injection of capital this week. Eric Elfman, a founder and the CEO of the company, has been working tirelessly for months to secure this funding. I know this because he has cancelled lunch with me numerous times.

Onit is doing some very interesting things with technology. Their original focus on legal project management has evolved a bit to focus more on process automation. Process is something every legal department and law firm has, but are just coming to recognize. So an application that automates process is going to have significant value. If you look at the process mapping Seyfarth, Reed Smith and other firms are pursuing and the impact this is having, you will start to fully appreciate the value of such a tool.

The other unique aspect of Onit is its SaaS model. Process automation can be very painful due to the time and investment required in enterprise infrastructure. Onit removes that pain.

I’m guessing the $4.1m in funding from Austin Ventures is going to vault Onit deep into the market. Watch for great things coming from Eric and the team over the coming year.

Congratulations Onit!

TR Legal to End Pay-As-You-Go

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Gediman) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 19:33:00 +0000

A trustworthy source has informed me that TR Legal is no longer offering pay-as-you-go plans to mid-and large-sized firms. My guess is they are trying to motivate firms to subscribe to their service by contract, thereby guaranteeing a revenue stream for a fixed period of time. However, this is an extremely short-sighted move. As more firms move to a single provider model, it seems to me that the company on the losing end of that process would want to use any means at their disposal to keep a toe-hold in the firm. Remaining competitive requires that you expose as many people as possible to your product. Taking that option away effectively removes your company from competing on a go-forward basis. Those firms that chose other providers will lose any knowledge they have of your product over the length of the contract. In fact, it will result in a segment within the firm that has no history with your product. The end will result will be that contracts lost will not be likely to change providers at the end of the contract.

So what does this all mean? It means that either the market will be divided into those TR Legal and everyone else, with very little opportunity for TR to grow its market share in this space. I guess the folks in Dayton and Manhattan are thanking TR for doing them a favor. But it also means something else that disturbs me even more: TR Legal is blowing a huge raspberry to customers everywhere by showing how little they value their desire to provide TR Legal's resources in a manner of their choosing.

What Are They Thinking?

noreply@blogger.com (Toby Brown) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:56:00 +0000

Image [cc] Woody H1

Up-Front Disclosures: I volunteer for the Texas Access to Justice Commission (TAJC). Formerly, I worked with the Utah Access to Justice Planning Council and served as President of the Board of the Legal Aid Society of Salt Lake.

Crazy Times in Texas

The TAJC, in an obvious power grab, is driving an effort to offer forms to pro se litigants. In conjunction with the Uniform Forms Task Force, they want to make divorce filing documents readily available to those who cannot afford them. This is obviously an evil plan to take over the world.

In the other corner is the Family Law Section of the State Bar of Texas, “which oppose the forms and claim their use: could hurt the interest of people who use them; will not be limited to low-income Texans; could harm the livelihoods of … lawyers; and may expand to other practice areas besides family law.”

At least they were honest enough to add in the part about harming lawyers’ income. Where do I begin on the insanity of this …?

The basic argument of the Section is that it is better for people to have no access to justice, than allow for the potential of possible risk to them. Yeah - I get that they are representing the financial interests of their section membership here, but this doesn’t pass the ole smell test. Claiming to protect someone’s interest by leaving them out in the cold is just plain bad.

And why can I say this so directly? Ten years ago in Utah, a combined effort of the Court, the Bar, the legal services community AND the Family Law Section provided the exact same resource. It is an online, sophisticated document generation system available to anyone who wants to use it (including non-low income citizens). Did this result in drops in income for family lawyers? No, it did not.

At the time a good friend called me to say the Bar should sue the Court for the unauthorized practice of law. I suggested that would not happen and had a lively discussion with this older, self-proclaimed “bottom feeding” family law practitioner. I understood where he was coming from, since the system could impact his business. We had the same discussion about access to justice noted above. And what happened to him?

He started sending his clients to the forms system first, before he would meet with them. He basically out-sourced document drafting to the courts. Instead of spending his time drafting pleadings, he spent it counseling clients. His clients have very limited resources, so this new approach meant they were spending them on the highest value this lawyer had to offer. His business did not drop. He was happier and his clients were getting better value and service.

The crux of this issue actually hits the entire legal market. Lawyers will do much better to embrace change than fight it in the courts. The market will continue to progress either way. If the TAJC and Court do not meet this need, LegalZoom or someone else will. I recommend the Family Law Section reevaluate their approach to this effort and join with the TAJC. Here’s a novel idea along that line of thinking: Use the same forms as member benefit for your section. Add some additional tools and content on top of the forms and they become a high-value member benefit instead of a vague threat.

I’ll step down from my soap-box now. Having lived and breathed on the access to justice side of the profession, along with being involved in new technologies and change in general, made this a hot-button issue for me. I believe the profession is better than this and should work together to benefit clients and lawyers. This sort of public in-fighting benefits no one.

Do You Know What SOPA Means For You?

noreply@blogger.com (Toby Brown) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 12:43:00 +0000

(You might want to find out.)