On this episode of The Geek In Review, we talk with the new Executive Director of the American Association of Law Libraries, Vani Ungapen. Vani discusses her initiation into AALL and having to learn all of the different acronyms that Law Librarians like to use.

Greg was inducted into the College of Law Practice Management as a Fellow. While at the CoLPM meeting, former Harvard Law School President, Martha Minnow discussed her mission as the Vice-Chair of the Legal Services Corporation, and the need to help those who cannot afford legal services to not fall through the cracks.

To dovetail with Martha Minnow’s topic, check out the work that is going on with The Bail Project, which created a rotating bail fund to help those who are sitting in jail, primarily because they cannot post bail. Greg ponders if there is something that legal associations could do to support these types of projects in support of access to justice issues.

Marlene went to the latest Ark Group KM meeting (apparently there was a Fortnight dance involved?) While she was there, she asked Vivian Liu-Somers, Ron Friedmann, Phil Rosenthal, Phil Bryce, and Meredith Williams-Range about how does Knowledge Management impact innovation.

Perhaps the most exciting change this week is that we have new music from Jerry David DeCicca. Jerry is a well-known Americana musician and former lead singer of The Black Swans. There is a law library link in this music in that AALL member, Eve Searls, sings back up, and plays keyboard and Wurlitzer on Jerry’s latest album, Burning Daylight. We are very excited that Jerry is letting us use his fabulous music on the Podcast. Check out his Spotify, and iTunes channels.

If you have comments or suggestions, please tweet us at @gebauerm or @glambert.

 

I’ve gotten a bit of grief from friends and colleagues for starting a series of blog posts on lessons I learned from my time as a musician and composer that I now use every day in my capacity as a legal technologist, then building to the announcement that I’m starting my own consulting company, and then immediately dropping off the face of the earth again.  I will come back to that series shortly, I promise, but as you can imagine I’ve been all consumed with the new company for the last few months.

As I write this, I am sitting on a train from New York to Boston to attend the College of Law Practice Management Futures Conference, where I and Geek #1 will be inducted as fellows.  Toby and Casey are already fellows, so we’re quickly approaching Phase 2 of 3 Geeks World Domination, (ed. – First rule of 3GWD: We don’t talk about 3GWD, Ryan!) but my 4-hour train journey gives me a bit of time to reflect, regroup, and rewrite.

The interesting thing about starting a company in the midst of a series of posts about lessons from a past life, is that it makes me think a lot about how I’ll use the lessons I’m learning today in my future endeavors. Here are a few lessons I’ve learned in recent weeks that I’m planning to keep in mind as I go forward.

1) Approach new opportunities as if you know nothing.

This has been really easy in the last few months, because while I know a quite a bit about what Sente Advisors does for our clients, I started the company knowing very little about actually running a company. Knowing nothing, and knowing you know nothing, allows you to sponge up experience and gain an understanding very quickly.  In some cases, knowledge – or the self-perception that you are knowledgeable – can blind you to new learning opportunities.

2) Starting a business and working for yourself, is like having 2 jobs and no income.

I had been a freelancer for years when I worked as a musician.  I often held multiple jobs and temp jobs, and I scraped together income to pay for my music habit. So I figured working for myself would be kind of like that.  I joked for the first month or so that I was finally unemployed again.  But the reality is owning your own business is like having 2 separate jobs.  One is the job you want to do; the work that your company was created to do, and the other is actually running your company.  Oh, and for the first few months, you won’t have any income.  Good luck!

3) Don’t be afraid to ask for help.

It’s easy to get into the mindset of ‘it’s us against the world’ when you’re starting a new business.  But you’ve got friends, former co-workers, fellow startups, and even former employers that will likely offer guidance, support, and if you’re lucky, even office space. People that have started their own companies know how difficult it can be and, in my experience so far, they are eager to help others succeed too.

4) Surround yourself with smart people that have compatible and complimentary skills.

This is probably the most important lesson of all.  Don’t do it alone.  When I was first thinking of starting a company, I thought I’d just ‘go out on my own’.  Thankfully, I had a few people that liked my idea and said, “would you be interested in working together?” I can finally announce my partners in Sente Advisors.

Shashi Kara, formerly VP – Solutions Consulting at Neota Logic, is the Chief Technologist at Sente.  I’m pretty good with technology.  Shashi’s better.  And tenacious, and frankly a bit OCD.  He’s currently meeting with vendors daily building out our sandbox of legal innovation tools.  (Also, he came up with the name Sente when I was hopelessly stuck. Anyone want to hire Super Magic Legal Techno-Wizards?)

Dan Pryor, formerly Sr. Consultant and Account Manager at HighQ, is the Chief Revenue Officer at Sente.  In addition to being a smart and talented technologist in his own right, Dan is commercially minded in ways that Shashi and I never will be. Without Dan’s skill in managing the pipeline, negotiating contracts, and speaking in a British accent, Sente would just be another techno-nerd consultancy struggling to make ends meet.

The primary extra-technical skill that I bring to the table is my interest and ability to get up in front of large groups of people to talk about technology and try not to make a fool out of myself.  While that is quite a useful skill to have in general, it turns out to be a lot less helpful than you’d think in the early stages of starting a business.  I have the utmost respect and admiration for solo consultants, solo lawyers, or anybody trying to do anything by themselves, but having a talented team of people with a diversity of skills and capabilities who can shore up each other’s weakness and further strengthen the company’s core offerings is a much better way to do things.

At least, in my admittedly limited experience thus far.

On this episode we will talk with Jeff Marple, Director of Innovation, Corporate Legal at Liberty Mutual Insurance company. Plus, we have our monthly update on government action in legal information from AALL’s Director of Government Relations, Emily Feltren. So, it’s an action packed episode, so grab a drink of your choice and settle in for a good one.

 

15:13 – Jeff Marple, Director of Innovation, within Corporate Legal at Liberty Mutual discusses what it is like to be the innovations guru within a large corporate legal environment. The key is incremental change, lots of communications, having the customer in the room, and publicly executing poor performing processes or projects in the town square.

 

07:22 – Emily Feltren, Director of Government Relations at American Association of Law Libraries (AALL), gives us her monthly update on happenings in the legal information field in regards to government actions. AALL submitted an amici curiae brief in the recent PACER class action, National Veterans Legal Services Program et al v. United States of America, which is currently on appeal. AALL made the points that PACER Fees Harm Patron Access And Legal Research Instruction and that PACER Fees Impede Law Libraries’ Responsibility To Preserve Legal Materials.

There are a number of bills at the federal level focusing on opening up access to PACER. Is free access to PACER on the horizon? Seem that there are a number of politicians looking to do just that.  Continue Reading Podcast Episode 14 – Jeff Marple and the Art of Incremental Change; Plus “Free PACER”?