3 Geeks and a Law Blog

For Alternative Fee Arrangements (AFAs) 2009 was a year of awareness. Although there are some clients and firms more involved in utilizing AFAs, the vast majority of lawyers are just getting their toes wet on this issue. All of the talk and debate has been over whether firms should use AFAs. At 3 Geeks we believe a general consensus is being reached on the fact that AFAs are here to stay and will only increase in use and application. Which brings us to 2010. Now that we’ve all agreed that AFAs have value, we need to understand where and how they fit into the business of law. Specifically we need to figure out: 1) Which types of AFAs are best applied to varies types of matters and cases, and 2) How do we re-structure and re-staff to make these engagements efficient (for the client) and profitable (for the law firm). For instance, at the beginning of a litigation there are numerous unknown variables. Fixed fees don’t make sense for a client or a firm in this situation. All of these unknowns create high risk. For clients there is a risk of paying too much. For firms, the risk is not charging enough. So clients and law firms will need to sit down and find or create AFAs that fit a given situation. It will be these conversations that bring understanding to the table. 2010 will be the year the legal industry does the heavy lifting on AFAs. We can move past the debate and get to work on developing pricing models that make sense for both sides. This will be the year we begin to understand AFAs and make them useful tools for clients and law firms.

I played with Foursquare over the long Christmas weekend and will continue to do so through out this week. I am determined to unlock its B-2-B potential. For the uninitiated, Foursquare was started by five New Yorkers who wanted to keep tabs on their bar-hopping friends. It combines friend-finding and gaming capabilities. Launched in February on Friday 13th at SXSW, Foursquare is a way to track friends and rack up points for moving from venue to venue. By checking in through Foursquare, the site tracks your movement throughout the day. Foursquare can report this info not only to Foursquare friends but also to Twitter and Facebook. For each new venue you add to Foursquare you get points. Each time you check in at a venue you get points. When you make consecutive visits you get points, with the possibility of becoming "mayor". I happen to be the proud mayor of 2 locales--I am on my way to an Houston monopoly. When you post on consecutive days you get points. Plus you unlock badges for accruing points--a "newbie" badge, an "adventurer" badge. You get the point (HA! I made a pun :) ). Now I can see why a retailer or consumer business would want to make sure that they were listed on Foursquare. Popularity translates into sales. Unlocked badges could lead to coupons. It makes sense for venues to make sure that their businesses are listed and its employees are engaged. But for B2B, I don't think businesses want other businesses to know who has been visiting them. Especially in light of corporate intelligence and espionage. Law firms would be even more adverse to displaying this sort of information. Now what could be interesting is to have an internal version of this technology available within the firm, showing where staff and attorneys are at any given time. But then it all begins to get a bit "big brother"-ish. But, then, this app is that way anyways. I am beginning to think that these "kids" have no sense of what privacy means. Of course, these are the kids that grew up with "Girls Gone Wild" and "Facebook". What was I thinking?

After reading Don Crowther's blog, It's Nearly 2010, Why is the Mobile Web So Frustrating?, I just had to chime in with my own thoughts. In fact, I was just railing about this very matter at lunch with Toby, a/k/a @gnawledge. This week-end, I wanted to buy a pecan pie for my sister's dinner party. Knowing that Goode Co.'s pecan pie is the best one on the planet, I wanted to find the most convenient restaurant to my trans-Houston commute to Clear Lake. So, doing what I do, I pull out my blackberry and do a Google's voice search for "Goode Company". Note: if you don't know what I mean by voice search, go immediately to Google Mobile. Now. Your searching life will be changed for ever. Anyway, I find the Goode Company web site on my blackberry and open the site. Now I am trying to navigate on their web site to find a phone number--any phone number. I know enough to hit my blackberry's menu button to dial the number. Except what drives me bananas is that if the web site, in an attempt to be memorable, uses letters instead of numbers, I am screwed. Not only will my blackberry not read the telephone number, I can't manually dial it because the number pad does not show the corresponding letters and I have to remember that A=2, 7 has 4 letters and o does not equal 0. Once I have placed my call, the restaurant manager gives me the phone number to the store that I want. Now I have to memorize the number so I can punch in the number once I hang up phone. I dial the number to the restaurant I really want and he gives me directions. Which I have to memorize. Its a good thing I know my way around Houston because if I needed to punch in the address into Google Maps, I would be dead by now from a car wreck. Yes, I was texting and driving. Sue me. Its not illegal in Texas. Yet. ---- Note: 19 states have banned texting while driving: Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois (eff. 1/10), Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, New Hampshire (eff. 1/10), New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon (eff. 1/10), Rhode Island, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia