3 Geeks and a Law Blog

Since we're on the topic of Social Networks in a Law Firm...

A good friend recently asked me about my "thoughts on what social means in the context of project management?"  I replied with the following: Social (small s) collaboration is the lifeblood of any project undertaken by human beings.   We have evolved to collaborate with our peers to achieve goals greater than any one of us could possibly achieve on our own.  We naturally band together in groups to distribute work load, to take advantage of individuals strengths and to limit the burden of individual weaknesses.  This is true whether we’re banding together to take down a mastodon with spears, building a barn, or managing a business project.  Whereas, historically, most human teams have formed for a specific purpose at a specific time and place, the modern business project team is often dispersed geographically and chronologically.  We work in different offices, we have different schedules, and we are usually working on multiple projects simultaneously.  There are 3 key elements of group work which are easily lost in the modern environment. These are the elements that Social Collaboration tools attempt to address.  ·         Member Bonding
·         Multi-Party Communication
·         Real-time analysis and reaction                          It’s cheesy, but if we look at these three elements in terms of a prehistoric tribe hunting big game, you can see where our modern environment breaks down.  The group of hunters leave the village together early in the morning with a single goal of bringing home protein for the entire village. They walk for miles together looking for signs of large game.  Along the way, they talk about the task at hand, but they also talk about their families, their concerns, their ideas.  When they find their prey, they kneel in the dirt and draw up their plan of attack, team members ask questions and others share stories of earlier experiences to find solutions.  When they’re ready to enact their plan, they spread out, staying within line of sight and communicating via hand signals and gestures.  If the animal responds unexpectedly, they react immediately and call out to the others to enact an alternate plan, or to improvise based on the new situation.  At the end of the day they return with their kill or they don’t, but either way they have shared experience and knowledge. When they leave the village the next morning, they will be a stronger team than they were the day before.   Managing a legal project team should not be any more difficult than hunting a mammoth.  Unfortunately, we aren’t in the same location at the same time and we have varying degrees of interest and commitment to the task at hand.  We have very little opportunity to get to know the other team members on an extra-project basis.  We spend an inordinate amount of time trying to determine what’s being done by whom, and whether our contribution is comparable to other team members.  If the original circumstances change, we may not even be aware of the change, let alone in a position to react in a timely manner. And when the project is complete, successfully or not, we disperse to our individual careers and go about our business, until the next time we’re pulled into a new team with no experience, comprised of people we hardly know. Social (big s) collaboration tools are a regressive technology, in that they allow us to use our instinctive social toolbox to tackle modern projects in a modern environment, and they allow an exploded project team to work as if they are in the same room at the same time, regardless of their individual locations or schedules.  Social tools will not ensure successful projects, but if used well, they should at the very least ensure efficient failures which build stronger teams to tackle future projects. After several hours with no response, I followed up with my friend.
Me: Did I miss the point of your question? Friend: Yes, but that would be a great blog post.  Moral of the story:  Be careful asking me open ended questions.

Image [cc] yuan2003 Let's face it. Social Networks work fine when you're sharing information with your friends, or even with peers within your industry subset. Social Networks at your place of work, however, usually don't work very well at all. There are probably a thousand reasons why this is, but I think one of the biggest reasons is that people don't really want to expose what they are doing at work to their colleagues. I know that on its face, that sounds ridiculous, but it seems to be true. Most likely, they don't want to feel like they have to update their work status because it might come back to bite them later in an employee review. The whole act of covering your backside creates an environment where communications conduits such as work site social networks are viewed as counter-productive, when, quite frankly, these types of communications tools would actually increase productivity. So how do you build an environment that takes advantage of the daily activities of workers in a social network-like structure? HP Labs has one idea… build an automation process that updates their employees' status automatically and create a social network that simply builds itself.

Mashable reported on HP Labs' "Collective Project" this morning, and it made me wonder how, or if, this type of automated social network could work within a law firm. Here's the basic structure of the Collective Project, all of the processes appear to be automatically created and adapted over time base upon the project's internal algorithm and taxonomy structure:

• Personal Profiles are created 
• Preferences and Expertise is automated
• Documents are profiled
• Employees are connected to those files
• Employees with similar interests can be identified
• Document permissions can be customized to prevent unauthorized access

The idea behind this is to identify connections based upon "inferred expertise" according to HP Labs Israel director, Ruth Bergman. Bergman has used the Collective Project to identify co-workers with similar experiences and interests, and seek them out at conferences they are both attending.  There are a lot of firms looking and implementing Enterprise Search tools right now. Could the idea of an "inferred expertise" system like the Collective Project be duplicated in these enterprise search systems? Could a defacto social network be created within a firm? How would attorneys and staff view such a system… Helpful or Big Brother?  There may be a handful of firms out there that have thriving internal social networks, but there aren't very many. Is the idea of having some type of automated social network something that would benefit the law firm environment? Now that I think about it, you'd probably have to call it something more generic like "inferred expertise database" to quell the paranoia that surrounds the "social network" term. There seems to be potential in creating something similar to the Collective Project within an enterprise search resource, but would the culture of the firm accept it? I'd like to say yes, but my gut's saying no.

Competitive Intelligence in law firms happens.  I know it does because for almost ten years, I have been doing it. And still, it seems CI in law firms is a mystery, an enigma to those in the legal community as much as in the CI community.  I am writing this post as I fly home from the Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP)’s annual meeting. The meeting was superb, one of the best conferences I have attended recently.  The energy levels were high, people were engaged, conversations spilled out of conference rooms and networking events were packed.  And yet, when people asked me what type of organization I worked for, I got questions like “law firms have CI?” or “how do law firms do CI?” No ever questions my colleagues in the pharmaceutical, consumer goods, defense or food services industries, so why me?  Or rather, why still me?
On one panel discussion I sat in on, which looked at the first 100 days of a CI program, Mark Greene, Chief Business Development Officer at Waller, suggested that advertising in law firms is relatively new – its only been around for 35 years, as compared to the other industries.  So, arguably, the need to be “competitive” and the need for intelligence to do may also be new or newish.  It seems a plausible rationale, but given that next month, the ARK Group will be hosting a one-day conference on CI in Law Firms (check it out if you will be in the NY area, it is usually a great conference). And at its annual meeting in July, the Special Libraries Association (SLA),’s Competitive Intelligence Division will be running a session specifically about the Evolving Role of Competitive Intelligence in Law Firms, I think the industry-in-its-infancy argument is tired. 
When I walked to exhibit hall and talked to vendors, very few service providers outside of data providers such as S&P Capital IQ had law firm clients. Shift Central, and InfoNgen were two of the few intelligence product vendors in the room with existing law firm clients.  Aurora WDC was one of the only primary research and consulting firms who were willing to engage in a needs analysis for the industry and recognize the needs of the CI industry in legal. 
There seems to be a significant disconnect between what service providers and professional associations are making available, and what the industry needs.  Why?  What makes legal different?  When it comes down to it – I can identify three areas that make law firms significantly different enough that vendors are at a loss for an approach and CI people such as myself may have a bumpier ride in influencing the decisions at firms. 
1.     Despite several huge national and International firms in existence, the industry is still relatively small and insular.  So companies such as Bloomberg Law and AmLaw which do cater to the industry, won’t have a presence at bigger trade shows such as SCIP. That being said, I believe most CI service providers are wiling to work with CI practitioners to tailor solutions.  This puts the onus on the CI practitioner however to figure out what he/she needs and then work with a selected vendor to make it happen.  Not always a preferable approach.
2.     The management structure of law firms is, despite many firm’s attempts otherwise, is still primarily a partnership structure with multiple bottom lines and conflicting priorities.  Even where CI sits within the organization can be a challenge.  The operations and budget of Marketing, Library, Business Development, and/or Knowledge Management within firms will vary widely, making the “home” of CI susceptible to even more scrutiny.  The only way for the law firm CI practitioner to deal with this challenge in my mind, is to work slowly, gain small wins and manage expectations.
3.     Finally, the third difference and difficulty I see for law firm CI practitioners is the notion that CI in law firms supports both the practice and the business of law.  This is a very fundamental difference between what we do and what practitioners in other industries do.  And, this is a challenge that those outside of the industry may not understand.  It is a subtle difference but one that makes all the difference.  Law firm CI is different in that we need to focus on not just the business but also what is happening from a legislative and regulatory point of view.  This presents a unique challenge, which when coupled with the other two points above, makes legal CI seem like a daunting task for the practitioner and an industry not obviously ready for outsourced or assisted CI.
So what do we do in the face of these differences?  We carry on.  Now more than ever, I am inspired to put legal CI on the proverbial map.  I feel confident that what the legal industry is doing in CI fighting above its weight in terms of its sophistication and tactical approach. Despite the challenges and the not-so-obvious-existence, CI in law firms is alive and well, if possibly under-served.  Time will tell, but I am willing to bet it won’t take long before the CI community in law firms is setting bar the for everyone else.

Just got a press release from Jill Goodkind at Bloomberg announcing that Jones Day has brought them into the fold for their legal research needs. This is the second mega firm that is using Bloomberg (DLA Piper being the other.)

We're trying to gather more details, (such as "did Jones Day drop Westlaw or Lexis to bring in Bloomberg?") but I thought this was big enough to push out to let everyone know the news.

Those that I've talked to find it interesting that there is no quote from Jones Day representatives in this press release. In looking at some of the job descriptions from previous Jones Day positions, they do ask that applicants be proficient in both Lexis and Westlaw research, so they do appear to have both services at the time of bringing in Bloomberg. It would be unusual for a firm (even one as big as Jones Day) to keep three legal research tools on the budget, so we'll have to see if they end up dropping one of the current resources. It will be interesting to find out more information about what prompted them to bring in Bloomberg and if more mega firms are to follow.

JONES DAY SELECTS BLOOMBERG LAW FOR LEGAL RESEARCH Seamless Combination of Legal Research and Business Information, Unlimited Access and Transparent Pricing Provide Value to Modern Legal Practice
New York — Bloomberg Law, the legal research system from the world leader in data, information and news services, today announced a firm-wide agreement with Jones Day, the global law firm, to provide high quality legal research, news and market information.  Jones Day is ranked among the world's most respected law firms and perennially rated among the best in client service. The firm represents approximately half of the Fortune Global 500. 
Jones Day's firm-wide adoption of Bloomberg Law will provide the firm's approximately 1,800 U.S.-based lawyers with unlimited desktop and mobile access to any of the information in the Bloomberg Law system - from Bloomberg BNA’s legal coverage to Bloomberg’s proprietary news to dockets to primary legal research - as often as they want and whenever they want.   Bloomberg Law integrates legal research with the Bloomberg industry and financial information relied upon by corporations and investment institutions throughout the world to provide lawyers with a competitive edge in understanding their clients' businesses.  Jones Day, which has more U.S. lawyers than any other firm, joins the growing roster of law firms that are using Bloomberg Law to meet their firm-wide legal research requirements.
"We are delighted that Jones Day, one of the largest and most respected law firms in the world, has chosen Bloomberg Law to meet its legal research needs," said Larry Thompson, CEO of Bloomberg Law.  "Bloomberg Law has modernized the legal research industry with a truly integrated platform that, combined with our transparent and predictable pricing, provides law firms with the resources to conduct comprehensive research while managing costs."
About Bloomberg Law Bloomberg Law is the real-time legal research system that integrates innovative search technology, comprehensive legal content, company and market 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.  

Since 3 Geeks is the forum for trying new things, I am going to try a live blog posting, as Toby speaks at the Business Intelligence for Law Firms Conference in New York.  It is rare that a Geek and a Geek Groupie are in the same place at the same time, so I figure why not try something new.  Bearing that in mind, I apologize in advance for any spelling errors, typos or grammatical mistakes. 

And here we go.  Note to the reader - the great nuggets of the presentation, the key-take aways if you will, are all bolded in quotations. 

The presentation kick starts with an analysis of Toby's title "I'm the AFA guy", and props to Greg for putting Toby's presentation together with Prezi as an alternative to PowerPoint.  With the geek stuff out of the way, Toby turns to the real meat of the presentation.  Can you use business intelligence and analytics to demonstrate profit.  Or more simply put, are we making money yet? 

The first assertion is that we have to come up with a way to be more effective, law firms are  "built for the past".  To move into the future rather than focusing on existing models of profitability, firms need to start looking at new models for revenue and find a definition of profitability that rewards work and equity. 

Profit comes with three levers, realization, leverage and utilization, leverage, btw is in hours, not headcount. By isolating the partner compensation, you can use that number as a factor to manipulate and analyze margins and increase profitability. 

Beware when you create a model and share it with your partners, they will "litigate the data" and scrutinize the numbers. Know that no matter what you do, this will always be the case and you need to be consistent in your data sets.  Keep it simple so that the data is "actionable and influences behaviour".  You can use technology to help you keep the data consistent.  Play with the models, change the discounts, the rates, the realization, the leverage and you will see that "leverage is always the answer".

Everyone in the room is engaged, asking questions and thinking about the issues surrounding profitability. It may be because Toby is wicked smart, and Greg makes great presentations. But the reality is more likely (or also likely) that analytics, profitability models, alternate pricing and how to test your firm's profit fitness is becoming an increasingly important way for firms to be competitive.  Demand from clients for alternative fees and reduced yearly legal spend is only going to escalate.  Which leads to two questions. One tactical and one strategic.  Tactically, for firms that are already leaner and arguably more focused then in previous years, the question is how to extract and use the data they create on a regular basis to tell them something about the way they are doing business and the where they can improve margins, manage time and be strategic with their analytical thinking.  Strategically, the more difficult question is, how do you and your "firm define profitability"?

And how do you start that discussion in your own firm?  Change the conversation "from revenue to profit", do it, start today and see what happens. 

Sad that "Houston Dads Go
Back to College" is missing Of course the big IPO news this week is Facebook's public launch and the latest round of estimates places its value at the IPO somewhere in the $100 Billion range. Unbelievable! No, seriously, that's completely unbelievable, bordering on insane. At nearly 100 million users, that's a value of $100 per user. None of those users actually pays for a subscription to Facebook, but they are all bombarded with ads (at least those not creative enough to add an "ad blocker" to their web browser), and play silly games that they may, or may not pay to play. I'm sure some have paid over $100 to play these games, and some have clicked on those ads for gout treatments, but, no one that I know of has shelled out a dime or clicked on a single ad.

Now, my evidence is purely anecdotal, but I've been trained that if something sounds too good to be true, that's usually because it is. Whether it is believing that your house will increase 10% a year in value, every year, year in, year out… or, that having a law degree will guarantee you an awesome job once you graduate… or, e-discovery will be a law firm cash cow forever… if something doesn't pass the smell test, it's probably because something is rotting inside it.

I've put the actual ad that popped up on the side of my Facebook page this morning. Usually I get some hipster-looking "Houston Dads Go Back to College" ad, but that was missing this morning. Is there anything listed here that someone would actually click on?? (Granted 61K apparently like that Gout Study!) General Motors has already pulled out of Facebook ads, can the site rely upon "class B" advertisers to keep revenue growing forever?

Don't get me wrong. I am a Facebook fan. I jump on there and update my status almost everyday… sometimes multiple times a day. I know there is significant value in this product, and that having 100 million users makes it a multi-billion dollar product. However, $100 Billion? sniff-sniff… no, I don't think so. However, there seem to be bankers out there and investment brokers that will pump that amount of cash into the company in return for stock with the idea that it will continue to grow at some double-digit amount forever. sniff-sniff… that just doesn't smell right.

According to Facebook IPO math, we should go public with this blog and Toby, Lisa and I could split the $250K ($100 x 2500 RSS feed subscribers.) It wouldn't be enough to retire, but we could bank-roll the 3 Geeks Bar & Grill that I've always wanted to open. This would lead to Toby and I having our infamous 3-beer solutions every night, night in, night out, forever… eventually, we would take over the world. sniff-sniff… actually, that smells pretty good.

Image [cc] neonbubble When reading a Harvard Business Review (HBR) article by James Allworth called "Empathy: The Most Valuable Thing They Teach at HBS," there was a line at the end that really stood out to me:
…this story seems to repeat itself over and over for disrupted companies: they go out of business wanting to sell to customers what they want to sell to customers, rather than what customers want to buy. Allworth was discussing the false perception that Blockbuster convinced itself of when dealing with the disruptive technology that Netflix brought in during the early 2000's. Blockbuster failed to look at the market from the customer's point of view, and instead bounced ideas off the insular community of its internal perspective and thought that its two options were:

1. create its own disruptive service (with all the risks that come with it); or,
2. continue business as normal

As Allworth puts it, they failed to see the world as it was becoming, but rather as a snapshot of how it existed at that moment. In reality, option number two was not an option at all, it was a path that led them to failure and eventual bankruptcy. 
We focus mainly on the administrative side of law firms on this blog, with me primarily looking at libraries, records and knowledge management. Reading this HBR article made me think about whether we are providing the services that we want to provide, or if we are providing the services that our customers actually want to receive? It brought me back to the post I wrote last month on thinking like a startup. Are we surrounding ourselves with others that think like us, especially those in our professional association ranks, or are we bringing in smart people that challenge our traditional thinking and make us look at what we do from a different perspective? Are we empathetic toward our core customers as well as thinking of ways to change what we do in order to bring in the next generation of customers?

Allworth's article lead me to this great 8 minute video of Clay Christensen (embedded below) where he describes what disruptive innovation means. I especially like the discussion around the 3-minute mark where Christensen discusses the dilemma that GM and Ford faced when Japanese car makers challenged their market share and how now the Japanese are facing a similar challenge from the Korean car market. Change seems to be the only constant in today's business world and continuing to give more of the same (whether it is services or products) will only lead to someone else pushing you out of the market because they have brought in the disruptive innovation and replaced you.

I like Allworth's topic of being surrounded by smart people that challenge your way of thinking; of putting yourself in someone else's shoes and viewing what you do, and see it from other perspectives. We may find that what we consider to be valuable services to us, are no longer valued by those that we think we serve. Eventually, we may find that the most valuable services we should provide do not exist at the moment, and those we should be providing that service to are not even our current customers. Sounds like disruptive innovation starts by disrupting our own beliefs first.



Clay Christensen, Harvard Business School professor and the world's most influential management guru according to the Thinkers50, lays out his landmark theory.

Image [cc] lorzzzzzzz When I get up in the morning, I usually look over the day's news feed via Google News, and my wife will occasionally chime in with the question "So, is the world going to Hell in a hand basket again this morning?" Which I usually reply, "yep…" then I laugh (because otherwise I'd have to cry.)

Whether it is Scott Thompson lying on his resume, Dewey LeBoeuf fudging its AmLaw 100 revenues and profits, or some college student downloading a paper off the Internet and putting her name on it, it all points to an attitude of lack of ethics/morals, or simply an idea that the past won't catch up to us, or that if it does, we'll be given a pass on our previous actions because we can show that we're successful and that those lapses in judgement are offset by the end results we've achieved. The sad thing is… that attitude probably wins out more than it loses. Kind of like my earlier post on The Values-Based Narcissist – without the values-based part.

It is stunning to see how successful people seem to live in a bubble of thinking that the ends justifies the means in what they do. When they are caught lying, cheating or fudging, they tend to react as if they can't believe you are calling them on their actions, then they deflect as if it were someone else's fault ("hey, it was the headhunter" or "hey, everyone fudges the numbers, we were just playing the game.") Then comes the apology, which usually comes in the form very close to "hey, I'm sorry that I got caught."

All of this ranting is really just to set up a conversation that a college professor friend of mine had with one of her students. The student copied a paper off the Internet, added her name to the top and turned it in as her own. What most of us (but not the student) would call plagiarism. I turned the conversation into a video (and she confirmed that this is very close to the original conversation.)



I know that not everyone lies, cheats and fudges their way in life… but, I do seem to find enough examples of it to fill my Google News feed each morning. I'm going to go take a walk and start laughing now… otherwise I'll just sit here and cry (and my co-workers hate it when I do that.)

Image [cc] estudioquimbya Last weeks's post from Toby on "The First Time I Saw a Computer Practice Law" jogged my mind of my recent trip to Georgetown Law School and talking to Roger Skalbeck about assigning his class called "Technology, Innovation and Law Practice." The major assignment for the class was to create an application that could be used in the practice of law. At the end of the course, there was a competition called "The Iron Tech Lawyer" where the students displayed their creations to a panel of judges and explained how the technology worked to assist (or replace) the lawyer in making practical decisions in the practice of law.

I've embedded the video of the Nightly Business Report's coverage of the competition, and as you watch it, you might notice a couple of the same things that I did:

1. The technology is available now to replace some of the functions that we have thought only lawyers could do properly.
2. Watch the excitement on the faces of the students. They are not thinking of technology of killing off the practice of law, but rather enhancing it and making it available to the masses.
3. The law professor did notice that the technology may lead to a reduction in overall work for lawyers, but that the trade off is that lawyers can make up for this by servicing the legal needs of those that might not have been able to get access before.

Whenever someone talks about tech replacing lawyers, the initial reaction of the establishment, especially bar associations, is to circle the wagons and fight against it. Watching how a few law students could come up with practical applications for the practice of law for a classroom project should put everyone on notice that this is the wave of the future, and fight it though you might, it will eventually become a reality. Better to start facing it now and begin understanding ways of using it to supplement the practice of law, or one day the wave of new technology will simply drown those that think they can fight to keep it from changing the way they practice law.

I was recently discussing with someone what exactly makes a blog a blog.

Is it the interactivity, the commenting, the archiving? Perhaps the cloud tags, the permalinks or the reverse-chronological order?

In my mind, all of these elements are not only optional but also secondary to the most critical aspect of a blog: RSS.

Most of you know what RSS means: real simple syndication. This is code that is embedded into a web page and not apparent on the page but is picked up by search engines and RSS readers when a page has been updated with new content.

I think that folks mistakenly believe that blogging is a style of writing, a design template or a body of work.

I see a blog is a technological invention that ensures that search engines have the most current and most popular information. In fact, it is well known that search engines give preferential treatment to blog content over regular web pages.

Ergo, all remaining elements of a blog are just window dressing.

Ergo? Did I just really say that?

Following up on the post about The Dewey Situation, I had seen some dialog about how service partners are becoming second class citizens. First off – I define service partner as a partner with sufficient legal skills, but not one with a sufficient book of business. These are typically very good lawyers and their role is focused on overseeing major client work, but not as the one who brings the client and work in the door.

There is much information in the market that suggests that firms may have too many partners, at least for the level of work they currently service. Many times service partners are seen as a potential target for reducing the ranks of the partnerships of firms. Tied to this practical issue is concern about collegiality within partnerships, and this tier of partners therefore may become viewed as second class.

But is this viewpoint useful or credible?

Useful? I would say no. Service partners can have tremendous value to a firm. However, it is not the same value as a rainmaker and therefore comp for service partners should not be treated in the same fashion. The BIG problem is that law firm compensation systems are not designed to recognize and reward these distinctive behaviors. Instead, built for the past, they reward all partners with the same general formula.

Greg, or as I like to call him, #1, made an excellent observation over coffee (yes – we sometimes eschew beer for coffee). Other owner/operator businesses pay their owner/executives a salary. This allows the business to compensate the owner as a worker at a market competitive salary. Meanwhile, the owner also enjoys the rewards of profit for being a shareholder. He asked me to explain why law firms don’t do that. I told him I may appear to be smart, but ….

The point taken from Greg’s comment is that firms should reward workers, be they owners or not, for being valuable workers. In this light a service partner is not a second class citizen. That would be like saying the VP of a company is second class since they are not a Senior VP. A VP may one day become a Senior VP. Or they may continue to serve as a VP. All the while being a valuable resource to the company.

The partnerships of large firms in many respects are becoming myths. You want a few key decision-makers to run the business, while being held accountable to the owners. You can’t have 200 or 300 owners having a say in how the firm operates day-to-day. So even though called partnerships, big firms are really businesses in need of focused, professional management. The thought of shareholders running a business is … not a good one.

Service partners in this environment are better deployed managing legal work, removing the expectation that they are also in a sales role. So no – service partners are not second class. They can bring a clearly defined level of value to a firm. But in the same consideration, their comp should be aligned to their value proposition. Labeling service partners as second class is unproductive and avoids the real issue of addressing compensation systems.

All this has lead to me creating a new catch-phrase: All roads lead to the partner compensation system. 

Of all the things that are broken at law firms, this is likely the most serious one with the greatest need of attention.

One of the listservs I joined early in my law library career was Teknoids (way back in 1997 or 1998.) Although it is made up primarily of techies in law school libraries and IT departments, I still love the conversations that go on. The conversation on what was titled "Everybody's Favorite Topic…" was on what law schools will do since Westlaw is no longer going to support free printing for students, but will leave the printers for the law schools as a gift, just in case they want to pick up the tab for students printing out cases. Paul Birch from the University of Richmond School of Law (at the request of my fellow AALL member, Joyce Janto) started the conversation by asking if others would share their up-to-date printing policies. Judging by the title of the email, however, it seemed that Paul knew the conversation would take on a life of its own… and it did. I especially like the idea that John Mayer throws out (half-joking/half-serious) about moving off print completely and just giving students a Kindle to send their print to via PDF and email.

You can read through the whole conversation here, but I thought I'd post a few highlights that were interesting to me:

• Cyndi Johnson: Since I'm sure Lexis will follow suit and pull their printers too, I'm going to start discussions with the relevant parties (SBA, the Dean, etc) about our options. Our students pay a technology fee which gives them 600-pages of printing per semester with all clinic, research assistant, journals, and moot court jobs waived. Anything above that is paid at $.05/page. We are pretty firm about not crediting Westlaw/Lexis jobs that were printed on their printers unless the printers are down. I've talked to the faculty teaching legal research and they stress not printing every page when doing research but it happens.
• John Mayer: 600 free pages valued at $.05 per page = $30. Times three years of law school = $90. Ergo, buy everyone a Kindle (http://cca.li/bd) when they arrive and send all print jobs to PDF and email it to their Kindle.
• David Dickens:
  
• Gary Moore: We give the students 2400 pages for an entire academic year and a number of their texts are already available on e-reader. I still have some students telling me it's not enough pages. It's not dead. It fact it may be undead. The print zombie and right out of a George Romero movie, it's going to take some time before you can kill them all.
• John Mayer: 2400 x $.05 x 3 years = $360 - you could buy them a Kindle Fire (or almost an Ipad!) Make them sign a contract that if you give them the ereader, they won't print or charge the ereader people who print 10 cents a page.  Use the invisible hand of economics!
• Tom Bruce: That's a Dada-ist art thing, right? Ceci n'est pas un pipe?
• Ken Hirsh: Wouldn't it be more apropos for someone to bludgeon you with an Epson FX-80? Although the trail of discarded perforated paper edge would give the CSI team quite a head start.
• Jonathan Ezor: *cue Roger Daltrey scream*
• Gary Moore: [trying (and succeeding) to bring the conversation back from pop-culture references] If no longer allow free pages and you charge for printing, then they will ask what is the tech fee for then, which, of course,  it is for other things like labs and exam software (both heavily used by students).  Some will respond “I already use my own laptop to print and don’t use the lab”. …
  If you go completely print free, then there are other issues, like what material is allowed in an exam (that also means the exam software companies need to catch up) and lot of other administrative issues.  It also means that all materials will be e-reader accessible.  It also means do we require students to own a laptop/tablet (we don’t have a requirement now, though 95% of our students take exams on computer). …
  We, meaning IT directors, can spearhead the charge to go print free and use e-readers, or not allow “free printing” any more, but it requires a major commitment from everyone at a school (faculty, admin and students) and a full support structure, if you go the way of a required standard tablet.   Also, everyone must be willing to deal with the repercussions and be committed to not revert back.
• Ken Hirsh: I’m not advocating going print-free.  I am saying Westlaw’s (or more accurately, TR’s) action is not a valid reason to increase either the amount of free printing or tech fees.  Students don’t want to pay more in tuition or fees.  Don’t make them.  Let them use market behavior to decide what to print.
• Gary Moore: But John is right that the use of Kindle Fires/IPads are on the rise and a lot of the texts are available for those.  We have to seriously rethink how students access their material and actually support that use, because that is the way to go.
  However, there are a lot of things that go along with that commitment.
• Phil Bohl: 
  MONEY?
  Our students do not pay a technology fee. … Our biggest obstacle in pushing out our printers and adopting the digital copiers has been on the cost recovery side.
  Since we own and manage the printers and the print management system we can set any price and apply any subsidy, no real dollars are involved until students use up their initial print credit.  Then they pay for every page by purchasing a block of print credit; minimum of $10.
  With the copiers [maintained by Cannon], it's all real money and to provide a print credit to each student would require transferring funds from our account to the university's central IT budget.  …  So about three years ago we started raising our prices and lowering the print credit amount each year to make it possible for us to eventually phase out the subsidy for student printing.
  REDUCE DEMAND?
  [W]e redoubled our efforts to make students aware of the millions of pages they were consuming.  Following a modest campaign,  print volume dropped significantly …
  With such a huge reduction in student printing, this may be less painful that we first thought. At the same time, over the past five years we have seen our library copier volume go down to nearly nothing.  I'd wager that initially part of that volume was shifted to the printers but not all of it.  With more materials born digital or digitally accessible, copiers are nearly anachronistic for most of what goes on in our library.  We have also added a KIC station which has further reduced copier volume — and adds to our list of popular services.
  All that said, I think we can (in time) gingerly transition both the lexis and westlaw print volume onto our digital copiers with students paying the freight.  I'll really miss the paper.
• Ben Chapman: We tried and failed to phase out our $35 per year print subsidy last year. I'm hoping that we can have better luck doing that this year. Obviously, the change in Westlaw's print policies doesn't help at all. Here's one of the things that I've been thinking about: what if we provided them with better tools to read, write, and organize the buckets of material that they get, along with tools that help faculty distribute electronic materials with less pain. I'm wondering if we can use that to justify a reduction or elimination of the print subsidy. So, maybe the discussion is not really about student printing – maybe it's more about what are we doing to smooth the transition to a paperless law school:

1. We need ways to make epub, PDF, and other etexts easier to distribute to students. Emory has a great ereserves system that helps with that currently; unfortunately, I hear that it's old and no longer developed and they may retire it. That will mean that more ematerials will wind on up Blackboard, which never seems to be the students' first choice.
2. We have purchased a subscription to FileOpen http://www.fileopen.com/, which helps manage PDF DRM. While we are not generally fans of DRM, it's helpful in situations where students need access to particular resources for a particular period of time (moot court briefs, for example). As a side-effect of the DRM, we can prevent (stop your snickering, Tom Ryan) most casual printing and copying.
3. We've put in two DLSG KIC scanners (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UO68IT1QIE) to encourage people to make electronic copies of things.
4. I'm considering funding the purchase of tools like Scrivener (http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php) to help students organize digital materials more easily. We do not yet provide Microsoft Office for free to students, although there is talk of that.
5. The University (as part of a new Internet2 initiative) is pursuing the idea of Box.net integration with 50GB per account.
6. The University is investing in Blackboard and the 9.1 update is coming in May.
7. We preach the gospel of Evernote and Dropbox regularly.

The conversation is still going on, and is interesting to follow, not just from the view of law school IT, but also to think about how these students are taught about the different print alternatives that are out there, and what type of experiences they will be coming to the law firms once they graduate.

Image [cc] William & Mary Law Library Niki Black, Jeff Brandt and some others have been having a Twitter dialog on the extent to which computers are currently able to replace lawyer functions. Part of the discussion centers around defining what is meant by replacing lawyers, which falls in to the old debate of what exactly is the practice of law?

Niki offers up a classic criterion as “’advice’ is counsel given to client based on the facts of a case (or legal matter).” At 3 Geeks we have previously discussed some next-generation technologies that I feel fall into this category. However, Niki is looking for simpler, solo/small firm examples. The crux of the discussion is whether there truly is technological solutions to replacing lawyers. I will share my bottom-line thought here: Yes, I think there is. My main point is that the profession has never put much effort into trying to automate lawyer functions.

This discussion brought back to mind the first time I watched a computer practice law. And it was a solo/small firm example.

Back in the 80’s while in graduate school I was a librarian at a branch office of a regional firm. I was in the room when they delivered the IBM XT PC and therefore became the expert on its use (a.k.a. the beginning of my legal tech career).We had purchased the PC as we were a beta site for a document generation system for wills and trusts. A partner at the firm was involved in the start-up efforts of what would become HotDocs. And since this software ran on a PC, we had to get one.

With the program loaded up we began playing with it (which we now call QC). I answered a series of questions about my personal needs related to an estate plan, giving what was essentially ‘the facts of my legal situation.’ Well in to the questioning a yellow screen popped up and ‘gave me advice.’ I do not remember the specific advice, but the gist was that based on the my situation, I should consider changing my answer to the last question about what I thought I would want, since that did not fit with my situation. I recall distinctly sitting back and thinking - Wow. I just witnessed something unique. A computer giving me real legal advice.

So to the Twitter discussion – I repeat my assertion, we haven’t put much effort in to automating lawyers. This tells me there is likely numerous ways in which we can automate. To Niki’s point of view, there is still not much out there. This last point is well-taken. The ability for technology to perform lawyer tasks has been around now for 30 years. Isn’t about time we started using it?

Image [cc] lightsight Although more than enough has been written about the impending demise of Dewey and the relative causes, I decided to go ahead and add my 2 cents to the dialog. 


A recent blog post on the subject caught my eye. It made the assertion that, “Whether it’s Davis’s earlier “10-to-1″ spread, the more recently reported “20-to-1,” or something in between, the income gap within equity partnerships has exploded throughout big law. That’s destabilizing.” The author goes on to say, “The gap results from and reinforces a failing a business model.”


I disagree with the assertion that a big partner comp spread is bad and argue the exact opposite. A gap is healthy, but only when properly spread. From the stories I have heard about Dewey, it did go overboard in lateral comp deals, essentially paying new partners more than they were worth. Or at a minimum, lateral partner comp was not tied to performance and value in a meaningful way, some times for 4 or 5 years.


This is not a spread problem, it’s a comp-to-value problem. 


Having some partners paid “as little as $300,000 a year, [while] other partners were pulling down $6 million or $7 million …” makes sense when partners are paid at their value level. Much like the AFA dialog going on, this is really a price-to-value problem. In a rational market, high value resolves to high price.


In my experience, a bigger problem for firms is having too narrow of a compensation spread. In these circumstances, you have partners paid at $1m who are more likely worth $500k. This scenario presents real problems for firms. Here the current $3m partner may actually be worth $5m. A firm has much more risk in losing the high-comp lawyer and her book of business, than they do losing 8 service partners being paid above their value.


Law firms need to reward their partners based in large part on their contributions to the bottom line. Partners who generate high levels of profit need to be paid at high levels of comp. Otherwise the Managing Partner’s nightmare of a partner exodus begins. And the first ones to leave are the ones you most want to keep. The last ones are the 8 noted above. 


IMHO – the Dewey lesson centers on over compensating laterals, divorcing comp from value. And it appears they did this on a significant scale, over investing in laterals as a growth strategy.


Is aligning comp-to-value a lesson the market will learn from this experience? Or will all the firms scrambling for Dewey laterals be destine to repeat history?

I saw an interesting visual of where all the Dewey & LeBoeuf partners went on a Thomson Reuters' site earlier today. The graphic illustrates the firms that picked up the laterals, the names of the lateral partners, and their practice areas. The Dewey situation has been like watching a train slowly wreck, day after day, for about four months now. The visualization helps to see where everyone is going, and what practice areas are affected.
[Note: I got a notice from the AmLaw Daily that they are keeping an up-to-date list and visual as well.]
[Note2: Also, Law Shucks has a great Lateral Tracker to monitor more than just the Dewey defections.]

I thought I'd see if we could take the visualization a bit further and pull out a couple of handy tools to do this, and maybe get a little use out of some crowdsourcing at the same time.

1. Google Docs - I've uploaded a freely editable (by anyone) spreadsheet that lists the Dewey departures, along with the practice groups, offices, date announced, and the link to a news article verifying the departure. Feel free to add or edit the Google Doc as you see fit!
2. ManyEyes - We've used this before to graph out information. This is a great free resource from IBM.

Although the implosion is no laughing matter (unless you like all the puns that Above The Law has been using for the past few weeks), it does make for some interesting graphics to show how substantial the losses are.

If you're an academic with twenty-six peer-reviewed articles sitting out there, what's the next thing you want to do? If you are creative, you turn that into a potential twenty-seventh paper by doing an experiment on them. At least that's what Melissa Terras from the London School of Economics and Science (LSE) did. Terras wanted to see how others would react to those open-access academic articles located on the University College of London's (UCL) Discovery platform if she did follow-up blog posts and tweets about them. She wrote about her results in the LSE Impact of Social Science Blog, and it appears that the additional blogging and tweets made a significant difference in the number of downloads of her research.
(note: hat-tip to bespacific blog for finding the article.)

Terras didn't do what most of us think of when it comes to promoting previous work on Blogs or Twitter (a.k.a. "blatant marketing"), instead she filled in the pieces of the research that didn't make it into the original publications by giving the background details of what went into the process. Instead of just tweeting "go read my paper Digital Curiosities: Resource Creation Via Amateur Digitisation," she actually wrote a blog post where she talked about the issues surrounding why she wrote the paper and injected her personality into the blog post (which is usually lacking in those peer-reviewed academic papers.) The results were pretty good and Terras could see that there was value in taking these additional steps. After her first post and tweet about the article, she monitored the downloads to see what happened next.

She blogged about the article, then a couple days later started tweeting about the blog post. As you can see from the graph above, the results show a significant increase in downloads of her article. She then went on to test some other papers with the same process, and left one paper in the series out of the process… it's pretty easy to see which one got left out.

Although she admits this isn't exactly going viral, it does help in getting your work out in front of others. Terras' advice is really two-fold and increasingly important for the academic community:
Ergo, if you want people to read your papers, make them open access, and let the community know (via blogs, twitter, etc) where to get them. Not rocket science. But worth spending time doing. Just dont develop a stats habit. I've actually been thinking about how this relates to the legal community, especially in the large law firm environment that I live in. Try as I might, I can't talk lawyers into stopping with those rigid and legalese "client alerts" that flood in-house counsel's email boxes every time Congress passes a law, or the Supreme Court issues a ruling. However, could the approach that Terras did with her academic papers work with client alerts? Could a lawyer that wrote the client alert turn around and actually write a more personable blog post explaining the background of why he or she wrote the client alert (add in some personality, maybe a little humor??) and then tweet about it? Could the results be similar to what Terras discovered with her papers?

I'd love to run an experiment to see. So, if you're an attorney and you are forced to write one of those lovely client alerts, how about guest posting here about what you wrote, and why you wrote it? Make sure you tell your Marketing Department first so we can get them to monitor the stats for how many downloads you get in the following days after the post and after the tweeting begins. If it works like Terras' experiment, then maybe firms should rethink how they promote client alerts and start this three-phased process of client alerts, follow-up blog post, and Twitter.

A couple of months ago, I found myself in New York with no obligations for the night and I thought I'd go catch a band at a local club. Sounded like a simple thing to do… I assumed that I could just simply walk down the street and wander blindly into the first club I passed that had a "thump, thump, thump" sound reverberating off the walls. I walked, and I walked. I then turned to social media to help. "PLEASE tell me what bands are playing around here." Although I did get some suggestions on where to look online or in local newspapers, I ended up going back to the hotel without any ringing in my ears from the loud music I was desiring. I swore then that this would never happen again! I would be better prepared next time, even if that meant scouring the Internets for each club's website and carefully drafting an Excel spreadsheet of clubs, bands and music types. Luckily for me, I found something that does a much better job than I could ever hope to do. Enter the magic that is the BandsInTown app!!

I've fallen so in love with the app, that when I go to legal or library events and someone asks me what apps I suggest they get, BandsInTown is the first thing I mention. If they love live music, and want to know who is coming to town, or who is playing in the town they are visiting, then this is the app for them. If they don't like live music, then I just walk away…

So what does BandsInTown do exactly? Let me walk through some of the things that I like:

1. Scans your current music collection - once you install it on your iPhone, it takes a look at your current music list and compiles a list of all the bands you have. It then will follow these bands and let you know if any of them are coming to town in the next few months.
   
2. Connects to Facebook - alright, this part I didn't really like because I am not a big fan of being forced to connect one product to another (especially Facebook… and I'm talking to my cousins who keep inviting me to accept apps from them on Facebook!!). However, I limited BandsInTown's access to Facebook, and opted out of any of those automatic update features. I did allow it to post if I RSVP to an event.
   
3. RSVP - If you see a show that you are going to attend, you can "RSVP" that show in BandsInTown and  that information can remain private in your app, or you can allow it to update your Facebook account to let others know you are going to the show.
   
4. Track Specific Bands - If you like a certain band, but don't have them in your iPhone playlist, you can enter the band's name and BandsInTown will start tracking them for you.
   
5. Alerts when Bands Sign Up for Gigs - BandsInTown will alert you when one of the bands you are following has added a show in your town. You'll be one of the first people to know when the band has added a date in your town.
   
6. See All Concerts coming to town - BandsInTown defaults to the bands you have in your music collection, but one of the best features is that it will also just show you everything that is coming to town over the next few weeks/months. This is one of those fun serendipitous ways of finding new music that you would have never found before.
   
7. Spotify, Pandora and last.fm - BandsInTown will lead you to specific band's Spotify station, or you can link your Pandora or last.fm accounts as well. That way, when you see a band that looks like it might be of interest to you, you can go check them out right on the spot.
8. Purchase Tickets Right From Your Phone -  If you need to buy tickets for their show, most of the venues will have a link to purchase them online and BandsInTown will direct you to the site.
9. Roam Around, BandsInTown Will Roam With You - This gets me back to my New York experience. I took BandsInTown with me to Chicago a few weeks ago and had it find me the local shows. It does so either through entering the name of the band, or through GPS. We ended up going to see Peter and the Test Tube Babies… although, one drawback of BandsInTown is that there may be more than one good band playing and then you have to decide which you want to see more. So, I had to give up seeing The Pretty Reckless in favor of Peter… but, it's a price I'm willing to pay over the option of not being able to find any shows at all.

Perhaps the feature I like best is that the app is free! That probably won't surprise anyone that knows me.
If you're a fan of live music (and you should be!!) then you'll love the BandsInTown app. Go check it out, and perhaps I'll see you at the Bowling for Soup concert tonight!! Or, maybe I'll go to the Social Distortion concert… or maybe New Year's Day… I have so many choices!!

Ernie Salazar, 1940-1984 One of my best memories of my dad was from the summer he told us he wasn't going to fix the TV.

It had broken at the end of the school year when I was 13. The horror--it was 1975 and, in those days, all we had to look forward to was a summer full of re-runs from the 3 major TV stations.

Instead, he said, we were going to play outside, play games or match wits with him. Ack! A major nerd, he wore a pocket protector, horn-rimmed glasses and had a master's in math. Heck, he did programming before programming was even invented.

He ended up teaching us gin, gin rummy, poker and endless brain teasers. God, he could aggravate me!

Well, following in my geeky father's footsteps, I own no less than 3 laptops, 1 computer, 1 tablet and 2 mobile phones. But in true girly fashion, all are on the fritz, save for 1 mobile phone.

So in honor of my father and the upcoming summer season, I have forsworn fixing any of these electronic devices until the fall. Instead, I shall read books. So far, I have read 5 in 7 days. See--I really am a nerd!

No Hulu. No Netflix. No cable. No surfing. A summer of respite.

I wonder how long I can last?

This one's for you Daddy ...

The more I read of Andy Hines' post on "Some thoughts on narcissistic leaders," the more I smiled at what he was writing, and started thinking of connections between leadership, values, personality and generations. Andy is a Lecturer and Executive-in-Residence at the University of Houston's Graduate Program in Futures Studies, and is the author of ConsumerShift, which focuses on values as a key driver of modern leadership. He was asked by a student in his program to look at an alternative to his book by Michael Maccoby call Narcissist Leaders: Who Succeeds and Who Fails. You could almost feel him cringe when he writes out the definition of narcissist, and how closely it fell in line with what his program was teaching.
First, a narcissist is “the kind of person who (1) doesn’t listen to anyone else when he believes in doing something and (2) has a precise vision of how things should be.” (p.9) Yikes, that’s not exactly the message we want to send to our students.  Andy quickly starts pointing out the differences between his program and the definition of a narcissist, but also steps back to openly wonder if does take "someone with a narcissistic personality to stand firm with their vision in the face of detractors holding on to the status quo." He acknowledges that approach may be very successful when push comes to shove, but he expands upon that thought and asks "whether this is the only way to do so – can one stand firm and be a non-narcissist?"

Narcissistic leaders can be very effective in implementing change in the face of resistance to change. Much like Stalin taking a ruler and drawing a straight line across a map and telling his railway engineers that this is the route of the Northern Trans-Siberian Railway, narcissists can be very good at getting everyone to fall in line and reject the status quo, but such rigid approaches can be disastrous in the long run. So what alternatives does Andy have for us in a modern and postmodern organization? Simple, place leadership values over personality.
I would put greater emphasis on the values of the leader as a key driver of their goals and style, with personality a secondary influence… I think it is valuable to look at issues from different “centers,” whether values, personality, generations – though I still come out with the view that values makes the most sense at the center. Andy points out that the narcissist still has some shelf life, even (or maybe especially) with Gen Y's. My take away from Andy's post is that it seems that today's (and perhaps even tomorrow's) leadership strategy focuses on challenging the status quo without immediately rejecting it, and on having a determined vision of how things should be without being solidly locked in to that vision when alternatives arise. And, if that still doesn't work, then pull out your inner-narcissist.

If only I had an "empty shelves" photo to submit. But alas, in this regard my law firm  library is way ahead of the curve, as we shed hundreds of books several years ago, and I did not take pictures of those empty shelves.

 I agree with the suggestion in the Shed West Era Photo Wins AALL's Day in the Life Contest (and a call for more empty stacks photos) Law Librarian Blog post that the trend to "eliminate out-of-plan licensing without adding lightly used out-of-plan resources to in-plan only licenses to escalate" is likely to occur.

My library continues to make plans to downsize our rather small print collection with the hope of bringing those titles into our Lexis or Westlaw in-plan contract and saving money or at least not costing us more only to find that the cost to do so seems to significantly exceed what we've been paying for print! Thus no cost savings there!

Maybe I should do as our IT Director suggested and just cancel the print without adding it to an in-plan contract and see if they even miss it!! Aside from the currency factor why does online cost more than print? After all, the publisher does not have costly print production issues.

Is anyone else dealing with these same issues? What solutions have worked? What has not? Can we actually get away with canceling the print and add them to our in-plan contracts? How long until the other big vendors shed the in-plan versus out-of-plan pricing models as Bloomberg Law has done? And do so at a reasonable per attorney, per month cost?

Cheryl Niemeier, Guest Blogger

[NOTE: if you do have a picture of empty shelves, please email a copy to Greg]