3 Geeks and a Law Blog

THE Knowledge System

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan McClead) — Tue, 21 May 2013 14:12:00 +0000

By Jon Pallbo (Jon.Pallbo@gmail.com)
(Own work) [Public domain],
via Wikimedia Commons

I recently watched a TED talk by Michael Idinopulos, called Mr. Manager, tear down these (digital) walls! It's a great talk and is well worth your while to view the entire 17 minute presentation. The story he tells beginning at the 2 minute mark has been haunting me since I first watched it.

He tells of visiting his grandfather's stock brokerage firm when he was a child and seeing all of the desks lined up in the open office space. Then he tells of returning when he was in high school and seeing his grandfather's brand new big private office. He assumed his grandfather would be happier with the office, but the grandfather longed for the old office layout. The grandfather tells of how new information traveled in the old space.

"You could almost watch... that information as it traveled from one end of that floor to another. One broker would tell another broker, it was overheard by a third broker, and within 2 minutes flat that information could go from the first broker to the last and we all knew what was going on as soon as any of us knew anything. Now, we sit in our private offices. We call our clients on the phone, but really, we have no idea what's going on."

Idinopulos uses this story as a launching point to tout the benefits of a social workplace and while I wholehearted agree with his point of view (go watch the video), I'm going to use his story to make a slightly different point. Given the right conditions human beings are pretty good at instinctively managing knowledge within an organization.

Unfortunately, our modern firms do not conform to those conditions. To compensate we have created large KM infrastructures and systems designed to deliver institutional knowledge to employees across the world at the flip of a switch or the push of a button. We imagine these tools to be delivery mechanisms akin to plumbing or electrical wiring, but knowledge is not a utility like water or electricity. It can not be generated at a single spot, or efficiently gathered into a reservoir before being pumped down system. Sadly, there is no fount of ultimate wisdom from which we can siphon gallons of knowledge to be distributed to the great masses of thirsty thinkers. Instead we ask people to help us capture knowledge "for everyone's benefit". Like asking each person to carry one bucket of water up to the rooftop tower so that we can all benefit from running water for the day. And we wonder why it doesn't always function as we would like it to.

The ultimate key to designing systems that can facilitate knowledge transfer and flow across a global enterprise is not to better incorporate our utility-like systems into existing workflows, or to make them easier to use, or to improve the quality of knowledge they capture (all perfectly fine goals), but to change the metaphors around which we design them. KM is not a utility, it's a big open room. We need to focus on building systems that replicate the open office layout of Michael's grandfather's brokerage on a global scale. We need geographical representations of who is working with whom on what, updated in near real time with a point-to-click and pinch-to-zoom interface that an infant could use. And that should be our intranet home page! The user drills down into this slowly spinning globe to get details on individual projects, matters, groups, practice areas, attorneys bios, experience, etc. With a quick tap you can see the public profile and e-social history of each, and then send a message, email, telephone, or instantly collaborate with any individual or group across the world. The presence and availability of all firm employees are readily visible for all to see, and those with appropriate rights can see graphical representations of Toby's profit drivers for each matter. Another simple gesture inverts the globe to show our clients and our contacts in much the same configuration. Drilling down on this map gets you to client history, financials, news, etc. All relationships are graphically represented and previously hidden connections become obvious at a glance.

All of this technology and the data backing it up already exists, but it's in a hundred different unrelated, utility-like systems, each of which requires extensive training and the occasional bucket to be carried to the roof. THE knowledge system, the KM holy grail, is the system that gives Michael's grandpa the feeling he had in the open floor plan while he's sitting at his desk behind his closed door in one regional office of his multinational firm. Just imagine...

"You can almost watch the information as it travels from one continent to another. One lawyer tells another lawyer, it's noticed by a third lawyer, and within 20 minutes flat it goes from the first to the last. We all know exactly what is going on as soon as any of us knows anything."

Social Media & The Strange Combination of Empowerment and Helplessness During a Tragedy

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Lambert) — Tue, 21 May 2013 14:00:00 +0000

As I was riding back from Austin, Texas yesterday afternoon, looking out the windows at the remains of the Bastrop fire from two years ago, I got the first news of the tornado that hit Moore, Oklahoma. It brought back the thoughts of me hunkering down in the basement of the Oklahoma City University School of Law fourteen years ago. My fingers danced across my phone going back and forth between social media sites, CNN, and KFOR television’s web broadcast looking for more information on what was going on. The sickening combination of déjà vu and helplessness started drifting over me in waves.

It is strange how we are so connected these days to others around the world. Almost no place seems to be foreign to us any longer. We could track our friends through their posts on Facebook, and fear for those that hadn’t yet updated their status to let us know they were okay. We could hear from old friends who had long since moved away from Oklahoma, relive those past tornado experiences, and send prayers, best wishes, and contributions to their friends that remained and were currently affected by the latest storms. I reached out to my cousin in Boston to determine if his sister in Moore, Oklahoma had contacted him yet to let him know she was okay. The connections were both comforting, and unsettling. I felt like I could know exactly what was going on at any moment, and frustrated by the reality that I really didn’t have that power.

After 20 minutes, I received a message back from my cousin saying that his sister was fine and that the tornado went south of her existing home, and just north of the home she and her husband were building. They were thankful to have been spared, once again from the third F4 or F5 tornado (May 3, 1999; May 8, 2003, and May 20, 2013) to strike the Oklahoma City suburb in fourteen years.

I turned back to Facebook to track other friends (mostly librarians) in the area.

My good friend, and fellow AALL Board Member, Katie Brown, was having nearly the same experiences I had back in 1999. She posted on Facebook that she was:

In the basement of the law library stay safe people!

She was actually with some of the same people I sat with in that very basement. I could picture sitting along the walls of that lower level looking back and forth between the doors of the bathrooms, the other library staffers and a few law students that were there for their final exams, and the doors that went in both directions toward the serials collection and the National Reporter sets. I’m sure the building has changed with the renovations over the past dozen years, but I still see the old layout as clearly as if it had happened yesterday. In 1999, my pregnant wife and two-year old daughter were on the opposite side of the damage. In 2013, Katie's husband and kids (well, cats) were also on the other side of the destruction. It was bizarre watching the updates and understanding what would happen next as she made her way back across a broken terrain to reunite with her family, just as I had done so many years ago.

As a librarian in Oklahoma, there is kind of a trend of living in Norman, and working in Oklahoma City. The idea is to enjoy the college-type atmosphere and more liberal settings of Norman, and actually make a living in your profession in the more populous OKC region (that is, if you absolutely can’t find a job in Norman that pays a decent wage.) The drive each day takes you up I-35 via Flood Ave or 24th Ave and you pass through Moore each morning and afternoon. I’ve been gone from the area for more than 10 years now, but can still remember taking the 25 minute drive every day from my North Norman residence to the Administrative Office of the Courts building just blocks away from the State Capitol building. Moore wasn’t a place we went to… it was a place we drove through.

As I watched update after update come in from friends, I started remembering how difficult it was to drive back home to Norman that night back in 1999. That 25 minute trip became a five-hour journey. My Oklahoma librarian friends were having to make that same journey last night.

One friend posted:

I am going to take Sara Road down to Highway 9, then back up into Norman. If anyone knows why this won't work, let me know.

Katie posted:

Just got the all clear to leave the basement. But there is a tornado between my work and my house so I am staying in okc for awhile.

Then the wait began to see the next post, knowing it would be hours from now, to confirm that they made it home safely. Four hours later, both had confirmed they made it. My initial reaction was relief… then I had a twinge of jealousy that they beat my travel time by an hour. I chalked that up to having a cell phone, social media and GPS to guide them around the roads they had most likely never traveled before.

Like I said earlier, it is strange at how connected we are these days. You feel empowered, yet helpless at the same time. I'm not sure if it is a good thing or bad thing, it's just a thing we all have to get used to. Now time to go back to Facebook and check in to make sure everyone else is okay.

Bloomberg, Terminals, Reporting, Intelligence, and Ethics

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Lambert) — Tue, 14 May 2013 17:05:00 +0000

One of the very first things you hear when you attend a Competitive Intelligence (CI) seminar is that CI is the ethical gathering of intelligence. The reason that ethics is stressed so highly when discussion CI, is that if your CI team is dabbling in unethical behavior (and that gets exposed), it reflects upon your whole organization and casts a shadow upon everything you do.

It seems that there are some reporters at Bloomberg L.P. may need to sit back in on some of those classes on ethics. The report in the New York Times states that reporters used information found through Bloomberg Terminal usage from banks and traders to break stories on certain people being fired from those companies (based upon users that suddenly "went dark" … i.e., were no longer logging into their Terminals.) That type of information, while effective, falls squarely on the unethical side of the ledger, and as a result gives all of Bloomberg a black eye.

Immediately, we all started wondering what exposure law firms had to this type of research, and if there were additional issues that were at play. According to Jean O'Grady's blog, Dewey B. Strategic, the Bloomberg Law platform was not included in this type of internal research strategy. O'Grady contacted Greg McCaffery, CEO of Bloomberg Law, and got confirmation on that point. However, as Jean also points out, many law firms have the Terminals as well as Bloomberg Law access. It brings up ligitimate questions like the one Ed Walters of Fastcase asked on Twitter yesterday:

Alledgedly, Bloomberg reporters where systematically using this type of research on a regular basis. Hundreds of reporters used the technique according to the NY Times article. It simply makes Bloomberg look bad.

In this age of instant communications, hacking, and whistle-blowers, unethical behavior is very difficult to keep covered up. This should be held up as an example to others in the world of information gathering, that if you are performing unethical practices, you should expect that eventually those practices will be exposed. When they are, you will need to spend years repairing the damage.

This same type of damage can happen with Competitive Intelligence research. Be very careful how you conduct your gathering processes, and ask yourself what would happen if those practices were exposed to the public.

GeoGuessr: Making a Game out of Google Maps

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Lambert) — Mon, 13 May 2013 13:50:00 +0000

I usually put some of the non-legal (but fun) things on Friday posts, but today I am leaning toward more of the "Geeks" side of the blog than the "Law" side. Last week I saw a tweet fly by that mentioned GeoGuessr, so I had a few free moments to go try it out. I've probably spend a good couple of hours playing it over the weekend with the family, and found it to be a really fun (and somewhat educational) game to play.

The concept is pretty simple, yet very challenging at the same time. The game puts you on a Google Street View somewhere in the world. You get to move around on the street view, and attempt to figure out where you are based on the landmarks and other visual clues you see. Once you think you know where you are, you zoom in on the inset map and plunk down a marker. The closer you are, the more points you score. The game lasts five places, and you combine the scores for all five guesses.

I usually have three windows open at the same time to help me along:

GeoGuessr
Google
Google Maps

There are times when it is really easy to figure out your location. Last night, GeoGuessr placed me between a What-A-Burger and the South Padre Island Water Tower. Other times it is very difficult to find out where you are. The Outback in Australia is pretty non-descript, and there aren't a lot of road signs to help you out either!

The game uses a lot of deductive reasoning. For example, are the cars driving on the left or right side of the road? Are the signs in English or Japanese? Is it an arid climate, or are the Royal Palm Trees lining the boulevard? You use anything you can find to help you isolate where you are. For example, there are times when all the signs are in Tamil, but the phone numbers are still Arabic, so I have Googled the prefix to isolate what area code it falls in. I've seen delivery trucks with company logos on them and found where those companies are located in order to narrow down where I am. It is like a mix of being Doctor Who stepping out of the Tardis in the wrong location, and Sherlock Holmes using visual clues to determine where I might actually be.

If you've got a few free minutes, go try out GeoGuessr for yourself. However, remember it is Monday, so you probably need to quit after one game if you plan on getting any work completed.

Even Westlaw Knows It's a Tough Market – Law Graduates Can Keep Access Through November

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Lambert) — Fri, 10 May 2013 13:33:00 +0000

Image [cc] Salem State Library

Maybe I'm reading a bit much into this announcement from the Dorraine Zief Law Library at the University of San Francisco, but, the fact that Westlaw has decided to allow graduating law students access to their law school Westlaw IDs through the end of November seems to be a sign that even the folks up in Eagan, MN know it's a tough market for law grads.

Graduates that go to extend their passwords by May 30th can have access to Westlaw classic and WestlawNext through their student logon. According to the USF post:

Graduates who extend their password will receive access to WestlawNext and Westlaw Classic through November 2013 instead of just through July. The exact number of monthly access hours is not available, but is at least 40 hours per month.

Graduating students who have already extended their access don’t have to do anything further to get the extension through November. There’s a link to the extension site in an e-mail sent to graduating students. Students may also click the “Need Westlaw this Summer?” ad on lawschool.westlaw.com.

I'm glad that Thomson Reuters decided to allow grads to keep access to this very expensive resource to help keep their research skills fresh as they are hunting for work. Of course, I'm wonder who will be the first grad to put on his or her resume that "if you hire me, I'll have 40 hours of free Westlaw searching I can bring with me"?? Please, don't be that person!!

The iPad Law Library?

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Lambert) — Wed, 08 May 2013 09:00:00 +0000

Is it live, or is it ~~Memorex~~ iPad?

As I was walking through one of the libraries at the firm, I started looking around at all of the books that still remain on the shelves. Some are battered, but most are in pristine condition with spines that would make an audible snapping sound if you were to open them for the first time. Some are primary law, while others are secondary resources dedicated to specific practice groups. Most of them we have through our multiple online subscriptions and databases. Some will soon be packaged as eBooks. Nearly all of them are expensive (costing $100+ per volume or more.) Yet, the rate of which these physical books are going away is not nearly as fast as I predicted ten years ago when I wrote a couple of chapters in a book about the Futures of Law Libraries. It seems some of us are going to be stuck with these for many years to come.

Then a thought hit me... a crazy thought, yes, but a thought. For about the cost of three of these books, I could actually buy a lower-end iPad and place on the shelf. Could I replicate a reporter set and make it easy for the researcher to 'flip' through the online version of the material on the iPad? Could it be set up to replicate the 'feel' of a book (which is kind of what the new eBook sales pitch wants us to believe)? What if I told the attorney that, just like with the books, if you use this format, we won't bill the client for any of the usage? Would that do the trick? Could we get attorneys to use some of the online content that they don't even know exists (cough, cough, IntelliConnect, cough, cough.) Could everywhere we had a law review section, place an iPad connected to HeinOnline there instead? Instead of a library copy of all those personal desk copies, could we have a pre-loaded iPad available in the library instead?

Is there a way to ween lawyers away from all these books that fill up shelf after shelf? Is that even something we really want to do? I'd really like to test out the whole 'replace books with library iPads' idea. Just for the simple reason that even if it failed... I'd at least end up with a number of iPads to play with in the end.

Evaluating IT

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan McClead) — Tue, 07 May 2013 17:45:00 +0000

You could be forgiven for believing that I am anti-IT. I have written about the End of IT. I have called IT people names. I have generally been pessimistic about our ability or desire to change. I stand firmly behind all of the things I have written, but I am absolutely not anti-IT. (Some of my best friends are in IT.) I am, however, terribly afraid that IT as it is currently practiced is becoming increasingly irrelevant to the business. Whatever business your company happens to be in.

To that end, I've been working on an IT evaluation exercise. The idea is to evaluate each of the services that an IT department provides and begin to have conversations around the specific value that those services bring to a firm or company. This is built on the premise that IT provides the most value when it is actively supporting the business rather than "keeping the lights on". That is not to say that there is not value in keeping the lights on, just that in many cases there may be other less expensive, more reliable, and more secure ways to do that.

This exercise is intended to give context to the ongoing conversation about what IT should be doing and where IT should be investing its time and money. This is not guaranteed to provide any clear or easy answers to those questions. The example below is focused on Legal IT, but you could replace the word "Legal" with your industry of choice, and "Firm" with your company name and I think it would work for any IT department.

I would like to open-source this concept. By which I mean, I want someone else to try it out and let me know how it goes. Suggestions or recommendations are very much encouraged and welcome.

Ryan

********************************************************************
All IT services fall into one of three categories:

Universal IT: Technology, infrastructure, or functionality that every Information Technology Department in every company in the world provides.
Legal Specific IT: Technology services that are specific to Law Firms.
Firm Specific IT: Technology services that provide a unique value to our firm and our attorneys.

Enter each category as a heading in a table and list each IT service as an entry beneath the appropriate heading (like below).

Universal IT	Legal Specific IT	Firm Specific IT
1. 2. 3.	1. 2. 3.	1. 2. 3.

Evaluate each service and articulate the specific value that the service provides to the firm. If you cannot define the value provided, cross out the service.
You want to try to move as many services as possible to the columns on the right. If you believe you can enhance the service in any way that would provide greater legal or firm specific value, then move it to the appropriate column, make note of the potential value add, and underline the service.
Add any NEW services that would potentially provide legal or firm specific value and place an asterisk on either side.
Circle any services that an outside vendor could potentially provide at an appropriate service level AND the entire Universal IT column.
Draw a box around any service in the Legal Specific or Firm Specific columns that is not crossed out, underlined, asterisked, or circled.

Any services that are:

Crossed-out: Just because IT cannot articulate the value to the firm does not mean the service provides no value. Ask other departments, or attorneys, to articulate a particular service’s value to them. If no clear value can be determined, begin the End of Life process immediately. There should not be many, if any, of these.
Circled: Begin looking for vendors to take these off your hands. A circled service should not be automatically “outsourced”, but it is probably a good candidate for the kind of service that can, and eventually will likely, be outsourced. Yes, I said to circle the entire Universal IT column. Not everything in this column will be a candidate for outsourcing, but if it's in this column, it should be considered.
Underlined or Asterisked: These are opportunities to increase the value that IT provides to the firm. Invest in R&D for these enhanced or additional services.
Boxed: These are the current services which provide the most unique value to the firm. Focus on these and continue to invest resources here.

Repeat this exercise every six months.

What do you mean by Talent?

noreply@blogger.com (Toby Brown) — Fri, 03 May 2013 11:09:00 +0000

Image [cc] CN Impressions

I read a great interview of an EVP from a major financial institution recently. It had two value points for me. The first was the international economic data he explained. He basically said everything is in place for a major expansion, except nobody seems to be paying attention. Whether that bodes well or ill for law firms is yet to be seen.

The second value point was more pressing for law firms. The final interview question was: What keeps you up a night? The EVP had a succinct and focused answer: Talent. He went on to explain that his senior management team needs to be “best in class.” For him this meant a combination of subject matter expertise, willingness to work hard and the ability to bring in business. Or in other words: Get the business and keep the client happy. He knows these goals will drive his business, both in terms of revenue and profitability.

So where are law firms on such a scorecard?

Traditionally law firms viewed talent as purely subject matter experts. Lawyers would gain a seat at a firm based on law school performance and then rise through the ranks to partner based on their lawyering abilities. So being “best in class” meant you were a high-level subject matter expert willing to work hard.

But that is no longer enough. For starters, keeping clients satisfied is only indirectly measured at firms. When a client goes from being a large one, to a less large one, management does take some notice. But even then, reductions in fees can easily be explained by episodic litigation or any number of other factors seemingly out of the partner’s control.

The ability to bring in business has become a more prominent factor for evaluating law firm partners, but this is still in a transition in terms of being a “best in class” measure. For instance, laterals are evaluated on billings, however the profitability of that revenue is not typically measured.

My 2 cents: Today’s Managing Partners should be “kept up at night” on the talent issue as well. But they should revise and expand their definition of talent at the partner level. In order to do this effectively, they will need to start measuring partners with different metrics.

One of the last things the EVP mentioned was that he knew where he had “best in class talent” and where he didn’t. So he spent his energy on making sure the “best” was happy and was pursuing talent to replace those that don't make the grade. Another good lesson for law firms.

From the Heartland to Mount Royal

noreply@blogger.com (Colleen Cable) — Thu, 02 May 2013 14:34:00 +0000

The Canadian Association of Law Libraries is holding their annual National Conference May 5^th to 8^th in beautiful Montreal. The conference theme is: Librarian: a multi-faceted professional, which was inspired not only by the current demands of our profession, but also by the city of Montreal.

I will be attending the Conference as the representative of the Special Libraries Association Legal Division, and I couldn’t be more excited. This is a fabulous opportunity to network with colleagues and friends, learn from all the fabulous educational sessions and explore a beautiful city. I wanted to take a quick moment to highlight a few sessions I’m planning to attend and provide the Twitter information (#callacbd2013) in case you want to follow the discussion and/or comment.

Date & Time (Eastern)	Session Name
Monday May 6, 2013 @ 9:00 a.m.	Plenary Session: Thriving on Chaos (Winds of Change: The Future of Law Librarians)
Tuesday, May 7, 2013 @ 9:00 a.m.	Librarians Under Pressure: Stress Management Secrets Shared
Tuesday, May 7, 2013 @ 3:30 p.m.	Librarians as Innovators
Wednesday, May 8, 2013 @ 9:00 a.m.	Plenary Session: Land of Confusion: EBooks’ License Negotiation Demystified

Colleen Cable is a Library Consultant for Profit Recovery Partners bringing the “consultant angle” to Three Geeks.

The eBook & The Return of the Technical Services Librarian

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Lambert) — Thu, 02 May 2013 09:15:00 +0000

Image [cc] PhOtOnQuAnTiQuE

As I sat through a demonstration of the LexisNexis Digital Library (eBook) platform, there were a few thoughts that crossed my mind:

The eBook platform for law firms is inevitable
How do I keep from suddenly having (paying for) the same "book" in three formats – print, database, and eBook?
Holy crap… I'm going to need a really good Technical Services Librarian to manage this!

Whenever a question came up about actually managing a digital collection, the common response was, "the library can simply go to the [eBook platform/library catalog] and run report X" or "process and distribute eBook Z" or "recall the eBook" or "place the eBook on hold" or "place the link to the eBook in your 852 or 856 fields", and so on. Again, most of the conversation assumed that your Acquisitions librarian, Serials librarian, or Cataloger would simply do their job, but the resulting item was simply an eBook instead of a traditional Monograph, Personal Copy book or a Treatise. In an era of shrinking physical books, the role of the technical services librarian didn't seem to be a vital. However, in the era of managing eBook collections, that role may be rising from the ashes of the collection.

Bess Reynolds' article, The Challenges of E-Books in Law Firm Libraries, hits the issue right on the head when she wrote:

The mechanics of acquiring and distributing books, making sure they are up to date, and retrieving books from departing attorneys are all part of the job of the technical services department. Transferring these tasks to e-books was therefore already within our department's job description.

She goes on to talk about the interaction between the Integrated Library System (ILS) and the eBook distributor and the need to manage the collection for the firm. The key to success is the seamless transition between physical book and electronic book for the actual user (read: attorney.) That seamless transition seems to hing upon the firm's ability to manage, distribute and maintain the collection and the vendors ability to create a method flexible enough to allow the firm to handle the eBooks in the way that works best for that firm. The connecting piece in this puzzle is a good technical services librarian. So, if you don't have one already, you better start looking now.

Fastcase's Bad Law Bot: "Big Data Applications For Legal Research"

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Lambert) — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 00:09:00 +0000

The bad boys of legal research, Ed Walters and Phil Rosenthal of Fastcase, are once again looking at unique ways to look at legal information and create new methods to cull that information. In the latest iteration, they have come up with a way to use an algorithm to identify court cases with negative treatment. They are calling this enhancement, "Bad Law Bot", not to be confused with J.J. Abram's movie production studio called Bad Robot.

The idea of algorithmically setting up a way to identify 'bad law' has been floating around since the idea of placing legal decisions in database began. When I was at the Oklahoma Supreme Court's OSCN.NET, we dreamed of doing exactly this same type of identification of bad law, but simply did not have the technology, expertise, or guts to take on that challenge. Looks like Walters and Rosenthal are stepping up to the plate to take a swing at it.

Ed does list a couple of caveats, that should be expected when you use technology to replace humans on decision making processes like this:

It's an algorithm… thus the "bot" name
If you see that Bad Law Bot has presented negative treatment, then that means there's a good chance the case has probably been overturned, however if Bad Law Bot doesn't show negative treatment, that doesn't necessarily mean the case is 'good' law. You should double-check with Shepards or KeyCite.

Despite these caveats, the fact that Fastcase is willing to go out and present something like this to its users shows that they are ready to test the boundaries of what you can do with legal information, technology, Big Data concepts, and the guts to go out and actually do it.

Bad Law Bot is available starting on April 25th, and the press release from Fastcase is included below. Also, Ed Walter's introduces the product in this two-minute YouTube video.

Fastcase Enhances its Authority Check Citator Service

“Bad Law Bot” Uses Big Data to Identify Negative History for Judicial Opinions

Watch Video at http://youtu.be/ZsKu7FoO2Ns

Washington, DC (April 25, 2013) – Legal publisher Fastcase today released an algorithmic enhancement to identify overturned or reversed cases in its Authority Check system – Bad Law Bot. Bad Law Bot uses algorithms to identify court cases that are cited with negative treatment and to alert researchers of a case’s negative citation history.

The Bluebook manual for legal citation requires that, when courts cite a case that has been overturned or reversed, they say so right in the citation. Judicial opinions, and particularly their citations, are full of this kind of “big data” about which cases are still good law. Bad Law Bot scours all of the citations in judicial opinions. When the opinions cite a case as being overturned, Bad Law Bot flags the case for Fastcase users, identifying negative history as reported by the courts.

“Fastcase’s Authority Check feature is already a very powerful tool for identifying whether your case is still good law,” said Fastcase CEO Ed Walters. “Authority Check includes data visualization tools to see the later history of cases, citation analytics and filterable lists of later-citing cases. The addition of Bad Law Bot, to help identify negative history, is a major step forward. This is the first of many additions to Authority Check that we’ll roll out over the next year.”

The new Bad Law Bot feature helps users identify negative treatment of the cases judicial opinions. However, because it only reports what cases say in citations, researchers should rely on Bad Law Bot as an aid to identifying negative history, not as a comprehensive guide.

Since 1999, Fastcase has been building smarter research tools for understanding the law. In 2012, the company launched eBook Advance Sheets available for the major eReaders (iPad, Kindle, Android, and Nook).

In 2010, Fastcase was the first company to launch an app for legal research, and later, the first company to launch an app for iPad. The American Association of Law Libraries named Fastcase for iPhone the 2010 New Product of the Year. In 2011, Rocket Matter named Fastcase’s apps for iPhone and iPad the Legal Productivity App of the Year and the company furthered its mobile market presence by debuting the Fastcase for Android app in 2012. Lawyers on the go appreciate Fastcase Mobile Sync, which allows full integration of its mobile apps with the desktop version of Fastcase.

Fastcase has gained very strong momentum in the legal research market and continues to challenge the norm in legal publishing and legal technology. Fastcase was voted #1 in Law Technology News’s inaugural Customer Satisfaction Survey, finishing first in 7 out of 10 categories over traditional research providers Westlaw and LexisNexis. Fastcase has introduced new opinion summaries, Fastcase Cloud Printing, and has been named to the prestigious EContent 100 list of leading digital publishing and media companies alongside Google, Amazon, Apple and Facebook for two years in a row.

For more information on the Bad Law Bot feature, visit the Fastcase Legal Research Blog at www.fastcase.com/blog and watch this video: http://youtu.be/ZsKu7FoO2Ns.

About Fastcase

As the smarter alternative for legal research, Fastcase democratizes the law, making it more accessible to more people. Using patented software that combines the best of legal research with the best of Web search, Fastcase helps busy users sift through the clutter, ranking the best cases first and enabling the re-sorting of results to find answers fast. Founded in 1999, Fastcase has more than 500,000 subscribers from around the world. Fastcase is an American company based in Washington, D.C. For more information, follow Fastcase on Twitter at @Fastcase, or visit www.fastcase.com.

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The Legal Duck - A 3 Geeks Interview with Legal Restaurateurs

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan McClead) — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 09:00:00 +0000

The Legal Duck is a brand new, very exclusive, and extremely expensive restaurant owned and operated by Lena Dewey and Daniel Cheatom, two of the most successful attorneys in our fair city. Last week, we sat down with Lena and Dan to discuss their new endeavor…

3 Geeks: So, what inspired you two to try your hand at being restaurateurs?

Lena: Dan and I were partners at DCH for nearly 25 years…

Dan: We both made partner the same year.

L: Back when we were associates, we realized that we were both passionate about good food. We dreamed about one day opening a restaurant together.

D: A couple of years ago, Lena strolled into my office and said, “You know, Dan, I think it’s time. We’ve got the money. We’ve got the knowledge. We’ve still got the passion for good food. Let’s do it.”

L: So we went for it.

3G: And you decided to go with a legal themed restaurant?

L: You know what they say, go with what you know, right?

3G: A number of critics have faulted you for your unusual style. For instance, the average lunchtime meal at The Legal Duck lasts about 4 hours.

L: When we set out on this journey we decided we would take everything we had learned from our combined 70 years the legal business and apply it to running this restaurant.

D: We would provide only the finest foods, prepared by the finest craftsmen in the business. Our Partners and Associates are artists, creating unique and wonderful experiences for our customers.

L: Perfection takes time.

3G: Which brings us to another complaint that I’ve heard about the food not living up to the promise.

L: Really? Where have you heard that?

3G: Michelin gave The Legal Duck their first ever 2 Negative Stars.

D: Well, I don’t think their reviewer really understood the value that we are bringing to our diners. We are exclusively focused on providing the greatest meals to the people with the biggest appetites. We aren’t really interested in creating commodity food.

3G: Which raises an interesting point. Michelin seemed to believe that’s exactly what they were getting.

L: In consultation with our service associate, the Michelin reviewer decided to have a simple sandwich, the “Big Mike”.

3G: Yes, he described it as, “two grass-fed Kobe beef patties, a mild tomato and mayo spread, a sprig of romaine lettuce, gruyere cheese, thinly sliced gherkin pickles, Vidalia onions, all on a sesame encrusted brioche bun.” Doesn’t that remind you of anything?

D: It sounds like an amazing sandwich.

L: Yeah, my mouth is watering.

3G: Changing the subject… You mentioned the initial consultation with your Service Associate. Can you talk a little about the unusual experience of dining at The Legal Duck?

L: Sure! You are greeted at the front door by our lovely receptionist and asked to take a seat in the waiting area.

D: We believe anticipation is a big part of an enjoyable dining experience, so we ask people to wait even if there are no other diners.

L: Once you are seated, you are visited by our Service Associate, who asks you a few questions about the kind of meal you are interested in having.

D: The kinds of meals you’ve eaten before? Who you’ve eaten them with? Etc.

L: Exactly. Then she or he will take that information and do some research on the kinds of meals that other people in your situation have eaten in the past. The associate, will consult with a more experienced Senior Service Partner or two and together they will draw up a customized menu for your perfect meal.

D: Then the entire service team will seek advice from an expert chef on the best method for preparing your meal, presentation suggestions, etc.

3G: You mentioned your chefs, but I understand that you don’t actually have a kitchen in your restaurant.

D: That is correct. We’ve determined that the actual preparation of the food can be accomplished more efficiently and economically off site.

L: We have subcontracted food preparation to an industrial food services company that primarily caters to major airlines. We’ve found that they can prepare the food at a tenth of the cost that we could do it ourselves. We pay them ten times what the airlines pay and they give our meals priority. It really is a win-win.

3G: But isn’t the preparation of food the actual service that you, as a restaurant, should be providing your customers?

L: (laughing) No. We work in conjunction with our customers to design and implement the perfect meal for their enjoyment.

3G: Which someone else makes?

L: Yes.

3G: Uh…OK. One final question: The average bill per diner for lunch at The Legal Duck is over thirty-five hundred dollars. First, how is that possible? And as a follow up, how do you justify those prices?

D: Yes, I admit our restaurant is expensive. But we provide unparalleled customer service and we stand by our work. We have only had to sue a handful of our diners for non-payment.

L: And thirty-five hundred is not so much when you realize how much work is being put into each meal. To produce the typical four-hour meal requires at least six hours of a Service Associates time at, let’s say, a hundred and fifty dollars an hour. Then each Partner is charging around three hundred an hour, Expert Chef’s don’t come cheap, maybe five hundred…

D: Yep, depending on the time of day. Then there’s the minor incidental expenses for the ingredients, the preparation, and of course, the delivery of the food. Before you know it, it’s real money.

L: But it’s worth it.

D: Yeah, we couldn’t be happier.

Are You Doing It For The Firm? Or For The Club?

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Lambert) — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 13:40:00 +0000

A consultant recently asked "Are you making this decision for the firm, or are you making this decision for the club?" The question has stuck with me and it is one that I've asked others when it comes time to make decisions that are going to cause some people to have to change their habits. It is a pretty straight forward question, but there is a lot of meaning behind it. Do you do something that benefits everyone, and causes pain to a few, or do you do something that has little to no benefit for everyone, but keeps a few select people happy?

Whenever hear something like this, I immediately think of the scene in the movie Office Space where there is a banner hanging over the staff that asks "Is This Good for the COMPANY?" The Draconian concept of stiffling innovation and individuality and relying upon following every rule and playing your part as a single cog in a great big machine. With "The Firm or The Club" question, however, I don't think it falls into this "Is this good for the Company?" category. Instead, I think it allows for creativity and innovation and discourages the collective and blindly following the rules. In fact, I would say that this question gets raised whenever new ideas and innovation are shot down rather than when new ideas are accepted. Most times when new ideas are dismissed, it tends to fall under the idea that "we can't do that because Partner X, who has been with the firm for 150 years, wouldn't like it."

So the next time you have a discussion about changing the way you are doing business, and the idea is challenged or dismissed, ask those making the decision if they are deciding upon what benefits the firm, or what benefits the club?

The Revolution Is Going On Under Our Noses

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Lambert) — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 18:00:00 +0000

I watched an excellent presentation by Anil Dash to the Berkman Center at Harvard where he talks about the craziness of Terms of Service that we take as "law" and how there is already a massive civil disobedience being conducted by the youth when it comes to YouTube and copyright violations. He talks about searching for the words "no infringement intended" on YouTube and how he sees it as poetry. He says that youth are basically saying:

I'm not trying to step on your toes, and I know there is some reason I shouldn't do this, but the world needs to see this video and I'm going to put it up.

We all know it is going on. We all know that it is blatant copyright infringement. However, we tend to write it off as just a fad, or just something that comes with the technology advancement, and not actually thinking of it as a solid form of social disobedience where a large number (millions??) of people are taking action to show that they think that sharing the information trumps the rules/laws and they are just going to start breaking that law because they either feel it shouldn't apply to them, or that their need to share is greater than their need to follow the rules.

After a long email thread with a number of my friends about the Lexis move to convert some of their publications to ePubs and eliminate the paper versions completely, I started to wonder if there is a similar revolution brewing in the library world. Librarians tend to be solid rule followers. They tend to follow contracts and terms of service to the letter and snap at those that try to skirt the rules. However, as the formats change and we are forced to accept those changes without some sensible alternatives, and as the contracts become more restrictive, or the terms of service become more limited, will there be those that begin to put their own version of "no infringement intended" on these services (for, they really can't be called "products" any longer), and make them accessible to the people they need to share them with?? Will there come a group that says:

Look, I'm not trying to step on your toes, and I am paying a fair price for your product, but your actions are making it very difficult for me to get the content to the right people, and I'm going to fix that in spite of your rules.

Take a look at Anil Dash's presentation (around the 56:44 mark it will start at the "Civil Disobedience" section.) This section only takes a few minutes to watch. I suggest that when you have an hour, to take a look at it in its entirety. There are a number of relevant issues that he addresses of how the Information Age is shifting, and many of us are not even realizing it.

Happy Library Week!! My thanks to Katie Brown for pointing out the Anil Dash presentation.

The Annoying Auto-Reply to Facebook While Driving Feature

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Lambert) — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 15:32:00 +0000

I just saw my first Auto-Reply text message for someone that is driving. At first you may say, "Greg, that's a good idea, because I hate seeing people text and drive!" And, I would agree with you. However, my first experience of the Auto-Reply Text was actually via a Facebook post. I'm sure it won't be the last time I see it, and I can tell you right now that I'm already annoyed by it.

AT&T's DriveMode AutoReply, or Sprint's Drive First are a great ideas. While you are driving, and someone texts you, it will automatically send out a reply like this:

AT&T DriveMode AutoReply: Thanks for your msg. I'm driving and unable to reply. I will get back to you soon. When it comes to texting & driving, it can wait

Again, great idea, but the problem with texting these days is that it is no longer just a plain text. People have many of their social media resources connected to their text messaging platforms, and the lines get blurred on what's a text versus a post versus a status update. So, the simple idea of auto replying to someone that you are driving, and are being safe, really isn't something that you need to put as a Facebook reply, or Tweet.

I know that it is all easily fixed by going in and changing your Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Blogger, Tumblr, Instagram, etc., etc., accounts to ignore those autoreplies. But, that can be quite a task, and almost as annoying as the autoreply itself, or even as annoying as this Dale Earnhardt Jr. commercial's "But, who sent the text??" portion.

Remember: Don't text and drive!! I'm tired of having to honk at you when the light turns green!!

The Little Used Third Option: "No"

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Lambert) — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 14:53:00 +0000

Last week I went to Chicago to sit in on the AALL Executive Board's Spring meeting. I also crashed a couple of TechShow parties while I was there, just for fun. During the Thursday morning stragegy meeting, the presenter, Paul Meyer, consultant with Tecker International, made a comment that resonated with me. Paul talked about the trap that members of a non-profit executive board fall into, especially one where there is a lot of member input and volunteerism involved. The trap is that whenever a suggestion or proposal is made by the members, the answer the Board has to the proprosal is never a "Yes/No" answer. Instead, the answer is:

"Yes/Maybe/WhatCanWeDoToFixThisSoWeWon'tHaveToSayNo"

Of course, I'm paraphrasing Paul's actual statement. He went on to talk about why it is the resposibility of the Board to sometimes say No, and explain why we had to turn down the proposal (money, time and resources were the main contributors.)

It made me think back to last year's PLL Luncheon when a consultant spoke about librarians never saying "No" to anything, but instead saying "Yes, we can do that is we have X number of Dollars, and Y number of People, so what can we do to get those dollars and people?"

I understand both consultants' meaning here and know that the difference between saying "No" and saying "Yes, with conditions" is really determined by the audience to whom you are talking. The thought that's been lingering around my mind over the weekend has been focused on whether many librarians are overusing the "WhatCanWeDoToFixThisSoWeWon'tHaveToSayNo" option and not using either the "No" or "Yes, with conditions" options at all? We do not like saying no, and we are not all that fond of saying yes, with conditions either. However, it would suit us well to brush off our "No's" every once in a while because in order to be a leader, it is necessary from time to time to understand that leadership sometimes means saying no.

ReInvent Law Silicon Valley Videos Now Available

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Lambert) — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 14:21:00 +0000

A couple weeks ago, Michael Robak guest blogged about his experience on Why ReInvent Law Was Not Just a 'Preaching to the Choir' Conference. There was, and still is, a lot of discussion on this Silicon Valley conference, both with the presentation model, and the content. Now you can see for yourself what all the buzz is about. The ReInvent Law Channel now has many of the six and twelve minute videos available for you to watch for free. Here are a couple of my favorites on the concepts of visualizing law (Joe Kelly), and who owns the law (Ed Walters.)

Motivation, Determintion, Communication, and Increasing Happenstance

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Lambert) — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 16:47:00 +0000

Image [cc] Highways Agency

The story goes something like this:

Sitting in a Partner's office a few months ago, a research librarian was listening to the speech the partner was preparing to give the client. Suddenly, the librarian ran into one of those moments where her own experience suddenly became very relevant. As the partner jumped through a specific legal issue, the librarian jumped in and mentioned that this sounded very similar to a recent case she researched for another attorney a few weeks back. It wasn't a published case, but rather a trial issue that ended up settling out of court. Within a few minutes she emailed the trial documents she had saved from the original suit, and the names of the attorneys working on that matter. By the end of the day, the attorney contacted the client with a solid answer to how they would defend the client and the matter settled within the next few days. Perhaps the partner would have found a similar case as she researched the issues, but by being in the right place at the right time, the librarian's experience pushed everyone in the right direction.

Similar stories happen all the time in law firms, and the keys to the success revolve around the processes of getting the library researcher out of the library and in the areas of the firm where the attorneys are working. The librarian wasn't there to conduct training or talk about the latest legal research tools. She was there to listen. She was there to observe. She was there to learn. She was there to share her knowledge and add to the overall conversation. In most situations, she does not have to contribute directly to the meeting, but by being there, soaking in the information being relayed between attorneys, she may be able to contribute in the next meeting, or in an unrelated practice group meeting.

We've talked before about the Embedded Librarian model and the value that this type of structure can bring to the firm. In ways, it increases the ability to contribute to the strategy of the lawyers by having someone in the room with diverse experiences. That moment of happenstance when someone shares their seemingly unrelated experience and knowledge on the topic and can bring in a fresh perspective and approach on how to solve the issues at hand.

The situation is not the easiest to create. There are barriers to entry in many cases, and a history of how things are always done around the office. There must be a motivation on the part of the librarian to overcome that history and a determination of finding ways to break though those barriers. The ability to communicate, in all its various forms (listening, observing, analyzing, interpreting, and talking), in ways that contribute and add to the conversation can only happen if you are actually a part of the conversation in the first place. Happenstance can only happen, if you happen to be there and express your stance on the issue.

CANO: Blawgers Who Shamelessly Drop Names Like Thomson Reuters, LexisNexis, and Bloomberg for Traffic

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Lambert) — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 09:00:00 +0000

CANO Strategists shy away from the camera
Image [cc] justinmaier

Turns out that some legal bloggers are using a system of mentioning company names in order to boost traffic to their blogs. This strategy, known as Company Alert Name Optimization (CANO), takes advantage of companies like Thomson Reuters, LexisNexis, and BloombergLaw, including subsidiaries like BNA, CCH, Practical Law Company, Matthew Bender, and even smaller companies like Hein Online, Fastcase, Casemaker, and Jones McClure Publishing, all in the hopes that those companies have alerts that will funnel traffic set up by products like Google Alerts, WestClips, Lexis Publisher, InfoNgen, ShiftCentral, Eqentia, Manzama, Ozmosys, FellSoft, Vocus, Aurora WDC, or Digimind. The practice is pretty shameful, yet seems to work very well in drawing traffic from those monitoring their company or competitor brand names.

CANO isn't just limited to company names. Some legal bloggers go as far as to name law firms by name. The bigger the better. So, AmLaw 100 firms like Baker & McKinzie, DLA Piper, Greenberg Traurig, Hogan Lovells, Jones Day, Kirkland & Ellis, Latham & Watkins, Sidley Austin, Skadden, White & Case are all prime cases for CANO strategists. A larger list of firms that are commonly mentioned are listed below.

CANO strategists are extremely crafty in constantly finding creative ways of bringing traffic to their blogs. Some will even mention other popular legal blogs in the hopes that they are monitoring their brand. The Blawg100 Winners from the previous year are prime candidates for CANO strategists to use. Blogs like Legal As She Is Spoke, The Velvet Hammer, Divorce Discourse, Wills, Trusts & Estates Prof Blog, Lowering the Bar, IPWatchdog, Inside the Law School Scam, The Delaware Employment Law Blog, Koehler Law, Abnormal Use, Groklaw, SCOTUSBlog, California Corporate & Securities Law, and The Legal Writing Prof Blog are all creatively inserted in to blog posts that may or may not have anything specifically related to the topic of the post.

Beware of CANOs. Their name-dropping strategy may lure you onto their site, but once you're there, you find out that the topics may not cover things like Gay Marriage Supreme Court arguments, or BigLaw Billable Hour Churning at all. It is simply a strategy to artificially increase webstats in order to drive advertising from companies like Google Ads, or Amazon, or Apple, or Bing. They go as far as to republish, or link out their CANO activities on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Tumblr and more.

So a word of warning to you on this April 1st, beware of the CANOs and their ability to mention company names that are not relevant to their blog posts. Some of the common names are list below:

Adams and Reese
Akerman Senterfitt
Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld
Alston & Bird
Archer & Greiner
Arnall Golden Gregory
Arnold & Porter
Baker Donelson Bearman Caldwell & Berkowitz
Ballard Spahr
Bancroft
Barnes & Thornburg
Becker & Poliakoff
Berger Singerman
Best Best & Krieger
Bingham McCutchen
Boies, Schiller & Flexner
Bracewell & Giuliani
Braff, Harris & Sukoneck
Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck
Bryan Cave
Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft
Cahill Gordon & Reindel
Carlock Copeland & Stair
Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton
Cohen Milstein
Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll
Connell Foley
Connolly Bove Lodge & Hutz
Conrad & Scherer
Cooley
Cooper & Kirk
Cozen O'Connor
Davis Polk & Wardwell
Debevoise & Plimpton
Dechert
Dickie McCamey & Chilcote
Dilworth Paxson
DLA Piper
Doffermyre Shields Canfield & Knowles
Dorsey
Dorsey & Whitney
Drinker Biddle & Reath
Duane Morris
Fish & Richardson
Flaster Greenberg
Fox Rothschild
Freehills
Freshfields
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer
Fulbright & Jaworski
Ganfer & Shore
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher
Greenberg Traurig
Hangley Aronchick Segal & Pudlin
Herbert Smith
Hoagland Longo Moran Dunst & Doukas
Hogan Lovells
Holland & Knight
Horton, Shields & Knox
Horvitz & Levy
Jenner & Block
Jones Day
K&L Gates
Kabateck Brown Kellner
Kilpatrick Townsend
Kirkland & Ellis
Klehr Harrison Harvey Branzburg & Ellers
Koskoff, Koskoff & Bieder
Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel
Latham & Watkins
Locke Lord
Manatt, Phelps & Phillips
Mandelbaum, Salsburg, Gold, Lazris & Discenza
Marshall, Dennehey, Warner, Coleman & Goggin
McCarter & English
Mintzer Sarowitz Zeris Ledva & Meyers
Montgomery McCracken Walker & Rhoads
Morgan, Lewis & Bockius
Morrison & Foerster
Nixon Peabody
Norris, McLaughlin & Marcus
Nossaman
O'Melveny & Myers
Obermayer Rebmann Maxwell & Hippel
Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe
Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker
Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison
Perkins Coie
Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pitman
Proskauer Rose
Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan
Rawle & Henderson
Reed Smith
Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd
Robinson & Cole
Ropes & Gray
Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler
Saltzman Chetkof & Rosenberg
Seyfarth Shaw
Shaub, Ahmuty, Citrin & Spratt
Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton
Simpson Thacher & Bartlett
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom
SNR Denton
Sprague & Sprague
Squire, Sanders & Dempsey
Stark & Stark
Sullivan & Cromwell
The Pagan Law Firm
Thompson Hine
Thorp Reed & Armstrong
Weil, Gotshal & Manges
White & Case
Williams & Connolly
Willkie Farr & Gallagher
Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr
Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker
Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
Winston & Strawn
Wood Smith Henning & Berman
Young, Conaway, Stargatt & Taylor

The "How and Why" of it All

noreply@blogger.com (Colleen Cable) — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 12:54:00 +0000

I recently stumbled across a report, How College Students Evaluate and Use Information in the Digital Age, from Project Information Literacy (PIL). The report was published in November of 2010, based on research conducted in the spring of that year. Therefore, some of these students might be entering your firms this year as summer associates or have already joined your ranks in other positions.

The entire report is fascinating, but one particularly disturbing finding was about how these students use librarians, especially as compared to their responses from the prior year. In ranking “Sources used for Course-Related Research”, the students placed librarians second from the bottom (above Blogs) at 30%, down from 47% the prior year. When asked about their personal “Everyday Life Research”, the students ranked librarians at the very bottom at 14%, down from 33%.

I think it is fabulous that Librarians were listed as a “source” right along with Google and Wikipedia, and that as early as 2009, almost half of the students used librarians as a source. What isn’t so great is the 17% drop in just one year.

What is also interesting is that PIL found in a 2009 study that the students do use the library, but just not the librarians or the services provided.

As a whole, the results suggested that students do, in fact, use libraries—but most of the respondents used library resources—not librarian-related services.

I happen to believe that law students, as opposed to undergraduates, do utilize the librarians as sources to assist them and that some of this does carry over into the law firm. However, it still feels like we are starting in a hole and trying to back-fill our way up to level ground.

How can we get there? PIL offers a thought-provoking recommendation in the 2009 report:

Librarians should systematically (not just anecdotally) examine the services they provide…this may require looking at things through a new lens, if need be. Questions should be addressed about how and why services and resources are used—not only how often (e.g., circulation or reference desk statistics)…At the same time, we recommend librarians seriously question whether they are developing a set of “niche services,” which only reach a small percentage of [users].

The recommendation that we examine the "how and why" we do what we do is absolutely key and one that we need to be able to answer in a way that makes sense to management and clearly demonstrates value. So take any statistics you are currently gathering and add in this component. It might make a big difference.

Colleen Cable is a Library Consultant for Profit Recovery Partners bringing the “consultant angle” to Three Geeks.

Could you text that to me?

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa Salazar) — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 12:00:00 +0000

Luxury Daily reports that according to the latest Forrester Research, just under 10 percent of U.S. consumers trust marketers' text messages, while 12 percent trust information on mobile applications.

Well, obviously, they haven't met me.

I love my little Target, Walgreens, and RedBox texts. I get coupons, free movies and reminders. And AT&T sends me usage reports.

And my tailor, hair stylist and others regularly remind me of pick-ups and appointments via text.

I guess they just didn't ask the right people.

Hello BigLaw...

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan McClead) — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 09:00:00 +0000

How are you? So good to see you again. It's been so long? When was the last time we...

Oh, wait. No! Somebody lock that door! Don't let him out! You guys, each grab an arm and sit him down in this chair.

[cc] Image - Spiterman

OK. Calm down... It's alright. No one is going to hurt you, BigLaw. You are surrounded by friends. Everyone in this room is here because we love you. We care about you. And we're worried about your well being. We're afraid you may be a danger to yourself and to others. And we are holding this intervention because we want to help you.

Take a deeeeep breath.... Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiihhhh-hooooooooooooh. OK? OK.

Did you see the article in the NY Times Tuesday?

Hey! Calm down. The guy has a valid complaint. I know, I know, the asinine emails of a few immature associates do not represent the attitudes or opinions of most of your attorneys. That's good. They certainly should not. However, are they really just the attitudes of a few associates at one firm?

Really? Be honest.

Yes, I know. The allegations are that they "churned", not that they "padded" hours. Do you really want to argue that their actions were merely unethical rather than illegal? I know that's kind of your bailiwick, but I don't think John Q. Public is going to really distinguish all that much. That's the same argument that those guys at that BigEnergy company used a couple of years ago when they were caught manipulating California energy prices and bragging about it? That's not going to fly in the court of public opinion.

Let's be honest BigLaw, people don't really like you. I know, when they're in trouble, they always come running, because you are good at your job, but they don't like spending time with you, they don't like talking to you, and they don't trust you. They mostly keep you around just to keep other people like you away. I'm sorry, I know this is hard to hear, but it's true.

That's OK. Go ahead and cry. I know it hurts. And yes, their jokes can be really cruel. No, a hundred lawyers at the bottom of the ocean is not a "good start". Hahaha, well... I'm sorry, it's...it is a little funny. No, you're right, I should not have laughed. I truly... and sincerely... apologize.

What's that? Yes, I saw what you said yesterday. And that was a great start. But let's talk about what you didn't say in that public response.

First, you didn't take any responsibility.

Hey! I know, they don't represent... yes, but... but... but, they were your employees at the time! Therefore, you are at least somewhat responsible for their actions. I'm not saying you should admit to encouraging their behavior, or to ever "churning" a client's bill. All I am saying is that it's shameful to deflect all of the blame on to some stupid young associates who are no longer working with you. The idea that "none of those email's reflect the firm's culture" is laughable. They may not reflect the culture you desire, or the culture you are striving to achieve, but clearly, to those people, working at your firm, writing those emails at that time, they did reflect your firm's culture. You can't force a culture on your employees, but if they feel it's appropriate to make this kind of "joke" then there is something rotten in your culture. You need to look inward and fix what's broken inside.

Secondly, you didn't say "this will never happen!"

No, it doesn't go without saying. Go ahead, say it. Yes now.

See, don't you feel better? Now try this one, "If anyone, from the Chairman of the firm to the newest paralegal, is EVER found to be 'churning' hours, they will be terminated with extreme prejudice immediately!" No, that isn't implied. You said they left, you didn't say why and you didn't explicitly deny it would ever happen. Your clients are all extremely uncomfortable now, look at them. They were already worried that you were over-charging them. Now, you need to do something dramatic to reassure them that you're not crooked. Maybe become more open with your communication? Make your billing more transparent? A little Legal Project Management done in conjunction with the clients might go a long way toward regaining their trust. Which leads me to number three.

In the NY Law Journal article about your non-apology response you were quoted as saying, "you wouldn't sue a client if you 'were not confident in the appropriateness of a bill.'"

Are you f***ing kidding me!? Have you been hanging out with BigMusic and BigMovies again?

No, you should get comfortable... I think we're going to be here for a while...

Do's and Don'ts and Ways to Be Happy

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Lambert) — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 14:56:00 +0000

Image [cc] Wonderlane

I'm usually not big on sharing motivational sayings, but occasionally I run across things that make sense to me and make me feel a bit more motivated in moving forward in my profession. I have run across two of those things in the past 24-hours.

First of all, I read Andy Hines' post on Ten Do's and Don'ts for an Aging Futurist. Andy's a great guy and has works in the field of Professional Futurists. You might remember the post on "Coolhunters" I did last year. Andy lists ten things that Aging Futurists should, and shouldn't focus on as they enter the twilight of their careers. I particularly like #5 (the "Do" part, not the "Don't" part.)

Don’t…

Do….

deflate the energy and enthusiasm for a project or idea by pointing out how “this is nothing new” or “this was already done before,” often by pointing out a critical paper written 20 years ago (that probably was not read then either )

build up ideas rather than tear them down; if there is relevant history, contribute what we can learn from it that aids the present case

Andy ends his list with the idea that "Don't" think of all the above as just related to aging. I'll add to that by saying "Don't" think that this only applies to Futurists. Thanks Andy. I also look forward to hearing more about this when you are the lunch speaker at the AALL Conference in Seattle this July.

The other list was just pointed out to me by Geek #2. Inc. magazine has a list of 17 Ways to Be Happier at Work. He especially played up #7 on the list:

7. Daydream more rather than less.
The idea that daydreaming and working are mutually exclusive belongs back in the 20th century. It's when you let your thoughts wander that you're more likely to have the insights that will make you both unique and more competitive.

I like #16, too. Trash everything in your work area that isn't useful or beautiful. I'll even expand on that one to include the attitude you take at work with a saying that my Aunt Joyce used to say in her infininte Southern Wisdom: "Don't act ugly."

Books are so Analog…

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Lambert) — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 14:55:00 +0000

My kids were going through every TomSka (asdfmovie) video on YouTube last night when the first five seconds of asdfmovie4 caught my attention (as well as my wife, who is also a librarian.)

Although she has to deal with Pre-K through 5th Graders, and I have to deal with lawyers, we just smiled at each other and nodded.

Now, I'm off to do more Internets!! Whoooaaa!!!

Convert Company Facebook Feeds into RSS, Then Into Useable Information

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Lambert) — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 14:16:00 +0000

Image [cc] theanthonyryan

I found a cool resource a couple weeks ago and think it has some definite possibilities for those Client Development and Monitoring projects that many of us have to create and maintain these days. The idea is to use information that companies dissemenate on Facebook, but in the more managable form of an RSS feed.

Now Facebook used to allow you to convert a public page into an RSS feed (it was tricky, but doable) up until last November when it (apparently) changed its policy and nixed it unless the company specifically change the settings to allow for RSS. That is a shame, but not surprising, as how could they make money on all those ads if you were getting information without going straight to the Facebook site??

I use RSS feeds to pass into my InfoNgen account (I assume that the other products out there for aggregation should do this, too), and set up Client or Industry monitoring news and alerts based on those feeds. I really liked having the Facebook feeds because it tended to give more “what’s happening right now” information than the company’s website. So, I found it to be pretty valuable information. Perhaps some of the other aggregators can index Facebook pages directly, but InfoNgen doesn’t because Facebook apparently prohibits aggregators from doing so. However, why should I let a little thing like Facebook rules keep me from figuring out how to do it?? In other words, "Okay Facebook, challenge accepted!"

Here’s what I found that can do the trick, and my process that keeps it manageable.

Have the user set up a generic Facebook account.
Find the Facebook page that you want to monitor and “Like” that page (it can be individual or company)
Go to http://fbrss.com and connect that Facebook account with this service
The FBRSS page will take all of your “LIKE” pages and create an RSS feed for each of them.
Copy the RSS links and request that they be added into your aggregator (or into your own RSS Feed Reader*)

I think this will work (at least until Facebook screws with something and causes the FBRSS service to fail.) Let me know if you get this to work in other aggregators, or if you have other tricks of dissemnating RSS Feeds that you don't mind sharing with the rest of us.

*By the way... I'm still ticked that Google is killing off Google Reader. They have really thrown a monkey wrench in many of my add-on features (like Shaunna Mireau discusses on SLAW) that I've developed over the years using Google Reader as the resources!! I give you a "-1" on that Google! Boo!!