Andre Davison was literally a sixteen year old student when he began his career in law firm libraries. Now the Research Technology Manager at Blank Rome’s Houston office, Andre has taken a leadership role both within his firm with technology and diversity programs, and has been rewarded for his efforts with multiple awards. Andre was awarded his firm’s Nathaniel R. Jones Diversity Award for his diversity efforts, and he was the American Association of Law Libraries’ Innovation Tournament winner for his Seamless Access to Secondary Sources (SASS) which enabled lawyers and others at his firm to dive into the portions of research materials directly, and without having to worry about usernames, passwords, or client numbers. Previous TGIR interviewee, David Whelan, has a great summary of his experiences as a judge for the AALL Innovation Tournament.
Andre’s work expands past his award winning efforts at his firm, and he has taken on leadership roles on the local level with the Houston Area Law Libraries (HALL) as the current President. The local chapters are a wealth of professional development, and local community efforts which he says brings a family-like environment to him and his peers.
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How does your family describe what you do?
Speaking of family, we share stories of how our families describe to others what we do for work. As might be expected, it doesn’t always match the reality of the situation. Greg thinks that it might have been easier on his family if he worked at Walmart. We’d love to get more stories to put on the show of what it is that your family members think you do. Leave us a voicemail at 713-487-7270 or email us at geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com and share your story!
Information Inspirations
How Should Law Schools Adjust for Gen Z?
Wake Forest Law School LR&W Director, Laura Graham wrote an excellent law review article which was featured as a Thursday Think Piece on SLAW. Gen Z’s are very different from their Millennial law school predecessors. Learning and social styles are different and like it or not, law schools (and eventually law firms) are going to have to determine how to make adjustments for these new entrants into the legal profession. Greg would love to get a book club going on this topic, so reach out to him if you want to share ideas!
Tech Trends and the Meeker Report
The annual Meeker Report is out, and our past TGIR Interviewee, Stephen Embry has a review of how that relates to the legal industry. Marlene highlights three areas of how people educate themselves online with videos and podcasts. If you learn via podcasts (and we hope you do!), then the Kennedy-Mighell podcast covers this topic as well.
American Law Firms in Transition
This book from Randall Kiser just might be the next End of Lawyers? for the legal industry. Kiser discusses how law firms are still spinning the data of how healthy they are and ignore problems in their business model. WIth the recent collapse of LeClaireRyan, maybe firms might find Kiser’s insights to be more relevant.
Rise of the Alternative Business Structures (ABS) in the Legal Industry
Our friend, Jordan Furlong has a series of Tweets covering the adoption of ABS in states like Utah, and in some Canadian provinces. Furlong says that we should be prepared for a “seismic change ripping through legal service regulations.” Marlene gives us some additional reading to get you up to speed:
https://abovethelaw.com/2018/06/an-unlikely-source-stirs-debate-over-avvo-legal-services/
http://www.slaw.ca/2019/02/08/the-coming-end-of-lawyer-control-over-legal-regulation/
https://www.srln.org/node/1320/role
http://notjustforlawyers.com/nova-scotias-stealth-revolution/
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Transcript
[00:00:00] Marlene Gebauer: And finally, Greg, podcat use, podcat, poddog, podcat, podcat, that scared me. Welcome to The Geek in Review, the podcast designed to cover the legal information profession with a slant toward technology and management. I’m Marlene Gebauer.
[00:00:28] Greg Lambert: And I’m Greg Lambert. So coming up later on the show, we have the amazing Andre Davison joining us in the Houston studio, Marlene, otherwise known as my office. So Andre is a law librarian and legal technologist from Blank Rome, and he’s also this year’s Audience Award winner for the American Association of Law Libraries Innovation Tournament.
[00:00:53] Marlene Gebauer: Yeah, the amazing Andre. I like it.
[00:00:55] Greg Lambert: Me too.
[00:00:56] Marlene Gebauer: Seriously, though, Andre has had a heck of a year, so I’m really glad that he’s able to join us on the show today and tell everybody else about what he’s been doing.
[00:01:07] Greg Lambert: Marlene, I hope everyone is settled in and ready for all things that come post Labor Day time of year.
[00:01:13] Marlene Gebauer: I’m not.
[00:01:16] Greg Lambert: You know, the law students are coming back from the summer. First-year associates are getting ready to show up in their new offices of their firms. So, you know, good times, Marlene, good times.
[00:01:26] Marlene Gebauer: Yeah, budget starts.
[00:01:27] Greg Lambert: Oh, you had to go and ruin it.
[00:01:31] Marlene Gebauer: Cue the dark music.
[00:01:34] Greg Lambert: So I went for a visit to see my mom over the holiday weekend. And Marlene, I’ve told you the story before, but let me ask you, do your parents understand what it is that you do for a living?
[00:01:48] Marlene Gebauer: I’m going to let you tell your story and then I’m going to give you an anecdote and then you can decide.
[00:01:54] Greg Lambert: All right. So I know my mom kind of knows what I do, but not really. So I’m going to share a story with everyone about my family’s understanding about what a law librarian does. And hopefully this will spur some stories from our audience, which they can share with us and give us a call and leave a voicemail on the Geek & Review hotline. And that number is 713-487-7270.
[00:02:22] Marlene Gebauer: I mean, seriously, folks, like everybody has this story. We know you do.
[00:02:27] Greg Lambert: Everybody has a story.
[00:02:28] Marlene Gebauer: Please call in and share yours with us.
[00:02:31] Greg Lambert: So I moved down to Houston in 2002 to help rebuild the law library book collection of the University of Houston’s College of Law, which that was pretty much destroyed in the flood of Tropical Storm Allison the previous year. After I got down here, I got this call from Walmart headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, and they asked if I’d be interested in applying for a job there that they had in their real estate department. So, you know, I’d just taken this job, so I had to politely tell them that I had just moved and had a new lease on an apartment and that I really couldn’t even apply for the job. So I hung up the phone and I looked over and my wife, Janice, is just sitting there shaking her head and it’s like, oh no. And I was like, what’s the matter? And so she says, you know, it’s a shame you couldn’t get that job because then when people ask your mom what it is you did for a living, she could just simply answer, oh, he works down at Walmart.
[00:03:24] Marlene Gebauer: ask your mom what it is you did for a living, she could just simply answer, oh, he works down
[00:03:31] Greg Lambert: So that would have made life a whole lot easier.
[00:03:36] Marlene Gebauer: Well, this weekend I did get asked at dinner if a project that I mentioned was my library or my law work.
[00:03:43] Greg Lambert: Oh, you get two jobs.
[00:03:45] Marlene Gebauer: Yeah, I got multiple jobs. But seriously, rather than trying to describe what I do or where I report, what I’ve been doing is I give a brief, simple example of work performed. So we made a database that helps you figure out the best arbitrator for your case. Or we save the firm X amount of dollars by demonstrating to our attorneys that they could switch or cancel online services without substantial impact. Or we educate attorneys how tools can be used to bring in more work and then share an example. I found it to be pretty effective. While they may not understand my title or what knowledge management or adoption or analytics mean in this context, they do have a concrete image of what I actually do. And often it leads to more questions which deepen their understanding. It’s probably a good approach in terms of dealing with anyone who’s unfamiliar with your work. But the description of what I do that I like best is from my son, who after hearing me helping someone on the phone, told me later that my job is to make people happy because I help them get what they need. That’s simple, but it’s also correct. Ultimately, my job is to make work life better for people.
[00:05:03] Greg Lambert: All right, would you go tell my mom what it is that I do then?
[00:05:07] Marlene Gebauer: Yeah.
[00:05:10] Greg Lambert: So do you have a story to share with us on what your family thinks you do for a living? If so, leave us a voice memo at 713-487-7270 and we’ll put it on the show. Or you can even email us a story at geekinreviewpodcast at gmail.com.
[00:05:29] Marlene Gebauer: And Greg, now for this week’s information inspirations.
[00:05:38] Greg Lambert: Well, Marlene, you know that I’m fascinated by the new generation of kids that were born between 1995 and 2010 called Gen Z. We’ve talked about them before. And as we know, those kids are now entering law schools. And they have a different outlook on life than many of the millennials who are mostly now out of law school and in practicing law. So I saw an article from Laura Graham, who is the Director of Legal Analysis, Writing and Research and Professor of Legal Writing at Wake Forest University School of Law. And she has this wonderful law review that goes completely in depth on what law schools should do to adjust to the new entry of students. And our friends at SLAW, the Canadian legal blog, has a very nice summary of the article, but I really encourage everyone to read the full law review article. And one of the things that I found very fascinating is that Gen Zs are slow to grow up. And that’s not meant as an insult, but as a fact that they just are not as quick to take on adult responsibilities early in their life as their previous generations did.
[00:06:52] Marlene Gebauer: Can I join them? I am all about that. Can I do that? Is it too late for me?
[00:06:57] Greg Lambert: I’m still very childish in a lot of my stuff. So I know that I’ve seen this in my own life, such as my kids waiting to get their driver’s license is one example. And this is the generation that is the result of the No Child Left Behind Act and standardized testing. They are also the generation of the smartphone, and that smartphone has had the biggest impact on their day-to-day lives. And I did have to chuckle, though, to myself when Professor Graham mentioned the habits around smartphones, and I had to admit I had a few of these same bad habits.
[00:07:36] Marlene Gebauer: All right. So you got to share, like, what are some examples?
[00:07:39] Greg Lambert: Well, one of them is what’s one of the first things you do in the morning? And one of the first things I do is I grab my smartphone. I check my social media. I check the news. It might be 30 minutes between the time I wake up and the time I actually get out of bed because I’m sitting there checking the smartphone.
[00:07:56] Marlene Gebauer: Okay. There’s my first fail right there.
[00:08:01] Greg Lambert: So just a number of things, but a lot of it did surround the availability of instant communication, instant messaging, searching ability, just everything.
[00:08:09] Marlene Gebauer: Instantaneousness across the board.
[00:08:15] Greg Lambert: Exactly. So the biggest difference, though, between the Gen Zs and me, even though I have some of these same habits, is that I’ve got a lifetime of experience pre- smartphone to draw from. I just have to say, this is a very informative read, and I’ve mentioned to some other people, I’d love to get a book club going to discuss this.
[00:08:39] Marlene Gebauer: Sign me up, man. Sign me up on that one. Greg, the Meeker Report on Internet Trends is out again, and our friend and interviewee, Stephen Embry, posted a summary of what parts are most important to lawyers on his blog, TechCrossroads.com. The Meeker Report is available on our website at TechCrossroads.com. The Meeker Report has been released by Mary Meeker, hence the name, since 1995, and it’s a content-rich report, and it highlights the most important statistics and tech trends on the internet. Stephen does a great job of distilling some of the findings that can impact the legal industry and legal ops in particular. So here are a few. Stories are being told more often with images and video. You read IKEA instructions to build a chair? Well, millennials and Gen Zs watch videos, and I can attest to this in my house. I find that often it takes too long to watch a video rather than read an outline, but my kids always go to the video to learn. The good news is that old dogs can learn new tricks, so both me and my dad both use videos for instructions more. They are excellent for home repair work, I will attest to that, because you can actually see what people are doing. Professional development and marketing should pay attention to this trend, and practitioners need to get comfy being on camera and using tech to tell their stories in court. Another highlight is more that half the world’s population is online, and 26% of adults worldwide are always online. So communication and service delivery have to be online and instantaneous. And since individuals are not online 24-7, likely automated at least in part. And Greg, finally, podcast usage has also increased dramatically. So people like to educate themselves via podcasts. And if you want to know why, you should check out our AALL presentation on how to begin your own podcast. And for those of you who want to educate yourselves about this report via podcast, check out the Kennedy-Miley report on this topic.
[00:10:45] Greg Lambert: Marlene, my last information inspiration is a book. So I’m going to give everyone a reading assignment. And there’s a book out called The American Law Firms in Transition, Trends, Threats, and Strategies by Randall Kaiser. Depending upon how the economy goes over the next couple of years, this could be the next end of lawyers publication.
[00:11:09] Marlene Gebauer: Oh, great.
[00:11:10] Greg Lambert: Yeah. So Kaiser of Decision Set in Palo Alto takes a realistic assessment of big law firms a decade after the Great Recession. And his outlook is kind of grim. No. I know. I know. He points out that while large law firms have profit margins to be envied, almost any of these firms are just a few months from going under given the right pressure and defections. So one good example is the recent implosion of LeClaire Ryan. In a way, he points out the obvious to anyone who understands the business model of large law firms. The book follows a number of details from James Collins’ material like Good to Great, How the Mighty Fall, and Great by Design, which I think a lot of us have read over the years. And Kaiser’s book is outlined to discuss trends, the mismatches, missteps, the culture, the character, practices, systems, and the leaders of large law firms in today’s market. His conclusion states that most law firms are in denial of what they truly are and how tenuous their financial and organizational health really is, that we tend to discount the troubling data and play up to positive data. And then the data that is neither troubling or positive, we spin that in a way that makes the firm look robust and forward thinking. And while it’s not all doom and gloom, Kaiser does make one think about how stable our big law firms really are and what the leaders of those firms need to address to make sure that they don’t find themselves just a few months away from failure.
[00:12:51] Marlene Gebauer: I think we need to cue up the dark music. Jordan Furlong did us all a huge favor last week by sending out a series of tweets highlighting all the states and some countries that are responsible for a seismic change ripping through legal service regulations.
[00:13:09] Greg Lambert: Okay.
[00:13:11] Marlene Gebauer: These are his words, but I agree with him. California and Utah are the latest, but also New York, Illinois, Arizona, and the U.S.
[00:13:15] Greg Lambert: and Utah are the latest, but also New York, Illinois, Arizona in the US, British Columbia
[00:13:20] Marlene Gebauer: and Nova Scotia, one of my favorite places in Canada, and also in the UK. These reform movements all vary in terms of type and extent of reform. And we have done you a huge favor by providing links to explanations of each. But most focus on acronym alert, Greg, ABS, which is alternative business structures, which means and I’m using this word intentionally, non-attorney ownership models or redefining the practice of law. So creation of roles for the non-attorneys that have been traditionally performed by attorneys.
[00:13:57] Greg Lambert: Gotcha.
[00:14:00] Marlene Gebauer: This sort of change certainly gives firms a business advantage, but there are still many attorneys who are not comfortable yielding that sort of control. While I saw some of the legal ops side expressing hopeful skepticism about these tweets, I’m surprised I haven’t heard more of an uproar about this from the practitioner side of the house. As Jordan summarized, this could be a legitimate tipping point in legal service regulation, and that the thing about tipping points is that everyone loses their balance a little. Check out Jordan’s Twitter feed on this and prepare for a wild ride, Greg.
[00:14:33] Greg Lambert: All right, strapped in. All right, Marlene, well that wraps up this week’s Information Inspiration. Marlene, we bring Andre Davidson into the Houston studio this week to talk to us. Andre is the research technology manager at the law firm of Blank Rome in Houston, and he’s going to talk to us about diversity, technology, and winning. Andre Davidson is the research technology manager at the law firm of Blank Rome in Houston. Andre, welcome to the Geek & Review.
[00:15:18] Andre Davison: Thank you, Greg and Marlene. Thank you for having me today.
[00:15:21] Greg Lambert: Marlene, Andre and I were talking a couple of weeks ago. Actually, it was over margaritas. And he mentioned that he was an extremely young, almost a child when he started off working in law firms. Just like us. Yeah, just like us. I was 12 when I started. So Andre, would you mind sharing that story and telling us a little bit about your background?
[00:15:44] Andre Davison: Sure thing, Greg. Yeah, I actually was a child. I was not legal when I started working at a law firm. Yes, I went to the High School for Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice, now known as the High School for Law and Justice. The summer before my senior year, I had the opportunity to intern with the law firm of Liddell, Sapp, Zibley, Hill, and Laboon, which is now known as Lock, Lord, and Bissell.
[00:16:15] Greg Lambert: Wow, that’s a lot of names.
[00:16:16] Andre Davison: Yes, a lot of names.
[00:16:18] Marlene Gebauer: I really do like how that we’ve consolidated the names. It makes it a lot easier.
[00:16:22] Andre Davison: Yes, tongue twisters. So, but I started with them. I was 16 years old, actually, the day I started, and I think I turned 17 like a couple of days later. But I started working in the law library as a law library clerk, excuse me. And I worked there all my senior year. And then I graduated high school and was going to college and they decided to keep me on at the law firm. And so.
[00:16:53] Greg Lambert: I wish my children could have landed a job like that.
[00:16:57] Marlene Gebauer: They should listen to this podcast, see? An inspiration.
[00:17:00] Andre Davison: I ended up actually staying at Liddell for 10 years. I worked there through college, just trying to figure out if I was going to go to law school or not. And from my talks with summer and first-year associations.
[00:17:12] Greg Lambert: They told you to run.
[00:17:14] Andre Davison: Don’t do it, man.
[00:17:14] Greg Lambert: Don’t do it.
[00:17:15] Andre Davison: I decided that wasn’t the path for me, but it really piqued my interest in law librarianship, a career I wasn’t really aware of until I started working in a law firm. So after that, I worked for a couple of a couple of big law firms that had regional offices in Houston. And then I went on to actually work for the Governance Risk and Compliance Group for Thomson Reuters. I think us law librarians would know it was kind of a combination of the old GSI group and a product called Edgar Filings. And I did technical support with them and then kind of moved into a client-facing role and came back to manage the technical support team. After that, I went on to work as a consultant at a big oil and gas company here in Houston as a consultant doing knowledge management. And during this whole time, I was in library school working on my MLS, looking for an opportunity to return to the law firm world. And that’s when I got the job at BlinkRoam.
[00:18:23] Greg Lambert: And what do you do at BlinkRoam?
[00:18:25] Andre Davison: So at BlinkRoam, I’m the research technology manager, which is an interesting title. I actually chose it to highlight my technology background. But what I do is I manage, initially I started as electronic services librarian, managing all of the firm, the library data resources, research monitor, EOS, as well as our intranet. But my role has kind of evolved where I now I’m responsible for managing the law library now.
[00:19:00] Marlene Gebauer: So Andre, we’re going to touch upon your role as a research technologist at BlinkRoam in a minute. But I wanted to first take a few minutes and discuss some of your other work at the firm. You lead BlinkRoam’s Houston Staff Diversity Committee. And last year, your firm recognized your work by awarding you the Honorable Nathaniel R. Jones Diversity Award. So congratulations on that.
[00:19:25] Andre Davison: Thank you very much.
[00:19:26] Marlene Gebauer: What does your committee do for the firm? And what value does this type of diverse programming bring to the firm?
[00:19:33] Andre Davison: Sure thing. First of all, it was a huge honor to receive the Nathaniel R. Jones Diversity Award. Judge Jones actually presented me with the award.
[00:19:42] Marlene Gebauer: Oh, that’s nice. That’s wonderful.
[00:19:44] Andre Davison: He’s 91 years old, really sharp. He’s just had an outstanding career as an attorney, a jurist, and a civil rights leader. And he was actually the first chief diversity and inclusion officer at BlinkRoam. So it was a huge honor to receive the award. But what the Houston Diversity Staff Committee was responsible for was planning our diversity programs in the Houston office throughout the year. That particular year that I won the award, we did a series of programs around our theme, which was Houston Strong, championing diversity to overcome adversity. What that really described was we were just coming out of the process of Hurricane Harvey. It was just really inspiring how the city came together, and Houston being such a diverse city, and to watch everyone help each other out. And it was just great. So we decided to do our program around that. So we had diversity programs throughout the year to kind of point it to that theme. And the cool thing about it is that we had service initiatives as well to go along with the programming. So we did a lot of work in the community as well. Nice.
[00:20:55] Greg Lambert: We give a lot of lip service to diversity at law firms, but it looks like you’ve actually dug in and done some real stuff at your firm. So what suggestions do you have for others who may be staff or maybe lawyers just starting out in a firm who would like to promote a diversity program at their own firm?
[00:21:16] Andre Davison: Really what started me on my path was when I attended AALL in 2017. And the keynote speaker was Bryan Stevenson. He had some really powerful charge to us in the audience to get proximate, stay hopeful, change the narrative, and be willing to do some uncomfortable things. And I think those words are just really powerful and inspirational that inspired me along my path. So I began to talk to management about what we were doing. And the really cool thing that came out of that is that the firm sort of adopted the Houston staff’s series of programs where it wasn’t a formal diversity program, but they began to formalize those events based on what our staff diversity committee did.
[00:22:07] Greg Lambert: So you got proximate.
[00:22:09] Andre Davison: Yes, yes. Very proximate.
[00:22:12] Greg Lambert: And uncomfortable?
[00:22:13] Andre Davison: Yes, very uncomfortable because I’m really ΓÇô I would say I’m sort of low-key, sort of shy.
[00:22:21] Greg Lambert: I can verify that.
[00:22:22] Andre Davison: Yes. So it really encouraged me to kind of move outside of my comfortableness and outside of the box to try to do different things to kind of get the message across.
[00:22:36] Greg Lambert: That’s great that the firm outside of Houston also picked up the message as well.
[00:22:41] Andre Davison: Yes.
[00:22:42] Greg Lambert: Excellent. Well, Andre, your office must be pretty full of awards because in addition to the Jones Diversity Award, you were also this year’s AALL Innovation Tournament Audience Award winner for your work with your firm’s integrated library system, or as we like to call it, the catalog. to the Jones Diversity Award, you were also this year’s AALL Innovation Tournament Audience Award winner for your work with your firm’s integrated library system, or as we like to So what motivated you to enter the competition? And tell us about the work that you did with the firm’s ILS.
[00:23:07] Andre Davison: Sure thing. I think the OJ said it best, as far as my motivation. Money, money, money, money. I’m kidding. Really, the prize money was nice, but really what inspired me was looking at other law librarians. The first Innovation Tournament was in Austin, which was actually my first AALL conference. And just the great ideas, seeing the law librarians that came forth with this, their ideas, and to participate in the tournament, it really inspired me and encouraged me that something as small that you kind of start with and can watch it grow and build it can become something that’s really powerful and create change within your law firm. So that was a really great inspiration. I mean, the long list of names of people who did the tournament before me kind of inspired me.
[00:24:13] Greg Lambert: So tell us a little bit about the project. What was your project that you were working on at your firm?
[00:24:17] Andre Davison: Great. So my project was seamless access to secondary sources. What that entailed was created the seamless access, I call it seamless, and I’m doing air quotes, which would bypass password authentication and Lexis events in Westlaw, navigating the platform to find a particular treatise. as well as client matter validation to take you directly to a treatise.
[00:24:43] Greg Lambert: Table of contents in a non-billable environment. Okay, so instead of having a sticky note on their computers, giving their password for everything, you were able just to kind of point and click. What was the reaction from the attorneys and others at your firm on this?
[00:25:03] Andre Davison: Oh, it was really positive because I think that’s, if you know any attorneys, time is money. Amen to that. One of the important things is them being able to get to their billable hours as fast as possible. So providing that access without them having to remember their password or remember where to find, navigate through these particular platforms to find a particular resource. And then, as you’ve seen in trends, a lot of law firms are not billing back clients for legal research. So that was awesome.
[00:25:44] Greg Lambert: The quicker in and out, the better. Yes. Good, well, and it’s something that I’ve said on the show a few times. And unfortunately, there’s a lot of people here that have heard me say this, is most law firms we don’t lack for the resources, but what we lack is the ability for people to use the right resource at the right time. And it sounds like you’ve got this set up so they know if they’re dealing with a particular issue, that they can get to that resource. So is that through your firm’s portal? How do you have that set up?
[00:26:12] Andre Davison: Right, right. So the technology we use is SAML authentication, and SAML is just an acronym.
[00:26:20] Greg Lambert: Yeah, you’re going to have to tell us what that is.
[00:26:23] Andre Davison: Yeah, SAML is an acronym, Security Assertion Markup Language. And it’s a standard that allows identity providers to pass authorization credentials to service providers. And it enables the SSO, SAML SSO, single sign-on, which is a term that means users can log in once with the same credentials and can be used to log on to other applications as well.
[00:26:47] Greg Lambert: All right. Well, you’re helping us put the geek in the geek room. Now, I do have to ask, so tell me once again, seamless access?
[00:26:57] Andre Davison: To secondary sources.
[00:26:58] Greg Lambert: Secondary sources.
[00:26:59] Andre Davison: Yes.
[00:27:00] Greg Lambert: Do you call it SAS?
[00:27:01] Andre Davison: Yes, I’ve played around with the acronym many times.
[00:27:04] Greg Lambert: You’ve worked really hard to make that say SAS. Does it play OJ’s music when you start getting into it?
[00:27:11] Andre Davison: Yeah, the attorneys are saving money when they actually use it. But what we did is we used that technology, started out just trying to find a way. Because in my previous role as electronic services librarians, you can count the number of times somebody called about their Lexus or their Westlaw password, or I forgot my password. As electronic services librarians, you can count the number of times somebody called. About their Lexus or their Westlaw password. Can you reset my password? I can’t reset this password. So many iterations of that same issue.
[00:27:42] Marlene Gebauer: I have never heard that in my entire career. Crazy. What?
[00:27:46] Greg Lambert: I have never said the phrase, click, forgot my password.
[00:27:53] Andre Davison: That kind of led me down the road to SAML. And then as I began to work with SAML and started to test with Access, then I found out that you can integrate it with your e-libraries. And so I thought that would be pretty cool, because we had built e- libraries. And I think my motto then is, if you build it, they will come. From the baseball movie, Field of Dreams. What I found that was a lot of our attorneys weren’t using the e- library for various reasons. It was IP authenticated. So one, if they weren’t in the network, that shot down. Just had a lot of issues on that end. So we began to explore the SAML. And then last year at AALL, we actually discovered a company called Cassidy Cataloging. Cassidy is a company that they will catalog your electronic records for you and bring them into your catalog. So we began to get through that process. And with the catalog records, you had the ability to customize your links for these particular treatises. And when we started to test the SAML and customize these links, we realized, hey, we’re able to just go directly into the table of contents in one click. And so that’s how I went down that road with that particular project. And then I started to, as I began to, we were actually working on a new intranet and starting to experiment with APIs.
[00:29:24] Greg Lambert: to experiment with APIs. So you had a good relationship with your IT team while you were doing this?
[00:29:29] Andre Davison: Definitely. At Blank Roam, we actually are in technology. So that kind of helped out a lot that I was able.
[00:29:36] Greg Lambert: So you don’t have to cross that bridge from one department to the other. You were already on that side.
[00:29:40] Marlene Gebauer: Yeah. Some of the things that I find really interesting about the project is, for starters, is small solutions can make a big difference. I mean, you listened to what your clients needed, and they had this issue with access, they had this issue with passwords, and you solved that problem for them in a very simple way. A couple other things that I thought were interesting is that you use the online catalog as a knowledge base. And I think so often that is overlooked in firms as the real power behind the catalog and sort of what can be done in terms of integration with different sources and classification in terms of who’s using what and which practice groups will be interested in certain things. You recognize that right off the bat, and we’re able to highlight something that I think in firms maybe is sort of hidden often.
[00:30:41] Andre Davison: Yes. And I’m glad you said that, Marlene, because the phase we’re in now is the next iteration of the project to use our online catalog. We’re actually working with our vendor EOS, which they are in the process of developing an API where we can actually take those records and we use a tool called Handshake to have the API pull it into our intranet, where users will be able to actually search our intranet for 3DCs, and they’ll be able to access the title. And also, as you mentioned, bringing that information to practice group pages.
[00:31:20] Marlene Gebauer: So you move the search to where they live, and so it’s even more streamlined for them.
[00:31:26] Greg Lambert: I always like to say that making something is easy, but making something easy isn’t. It sounds to me like you’ve made something easy.
[00:31:36] Andre Davison: And just wanted to add big thanks to AALL for putting on this innovation tournament, giving us law librarians the opportunity to showcase our innovation skills, and I. I think I heard it on your podcast. I’m a huge fan of the podcast, by the way. Someone say innovation is incremental. It’s best done incrementally. And that was very reassuring to know that, as you mentioned, a small idea can make a change in your environment. I think AALL really does a great job of encouraging and providing that platform for law librarians to showcase their ideas and skills. Just a plug for that they do the innovation boot camp, so that’s something I’m really excited to do as well. Another motivation that I really didn’t talk about this, I kind of started to get the seeds of this idea was planning. I actually attended the AALL Management Institute, and I met a lot of great law librarians at the Institute, a lot of great ideas and shared information, and that kind of started me along this process as well.
[00:32:48] Marlene Gebauer: I was going to ask you, Andre, what did you learn from your experience in the competition, in the challenge? I mean, just the actual process. I mean, were there some takeaways that you could share with us?
[00:33:03] Andre Davison: There were. It was stressful, but at the same time, rewarding. for innovation. It’s a baseball analogy, and innovation is a lot like baseball, where the idea is the ball, and you are the bat that drives that particular ball. Your goal is to hit a home run, but I think the great slugger Babe Ruth said, the closest way to get to a home run, you have to strike out sometimes, and you have to be willing to get up to the plate and swing the bat. I actually brought a bat to my presentation, but you really have to be able to try things out and try new things in this process. Sometimes it’s not going to work, but you try to learn from the experience. This project has been a three-year process that’s evolved over time, but it’s rewarding to see the results finally coming to fruition and being able to help our law firm and help our attorneys and ultimately help our clients.
[00:34:16] Marlene Gebauer: Yeah, you definitely have to be comfortable with a certain degree of risk if you’re going
[00:34:20] Andre Davison: to try new things. Right. Also, to David Whelan, who was a past Geek in the Review guest, he wrote a great article about the innovation. He was a judge for the innovation tournament, and he wrote a great article about it on Lex Blog called, Thoughts of an Innovation Judge. It’s kind of his perspective from a judge, and he gives some really good points if you’re looking to innovate at your…
[00:34:46] Greg Lambert: I’ll have to make sure we put a link to that one.
[00:34:48] Andre Davison: Yeah, for sure.
[00:34:50] Marlene Gebauer: So Andre, while this award comes from a National Law Library Association, you also do a lot Talk to us a little bit about what you’ve done with the Houston Area Law Libraries, or HAL, is it HAL? HAL. And what that’s meant to you in your career?
[00:35:09] Andre Davison: Currently, I serve as the proud president of HAL for the 2019-2020 year. Congratulations. Thank you, thank you. HAL is a wonderful organization that I’ve actually, because I started so young, have been part of 20 plus years. But for me, what HAL means to me and what it’s meant to me in my career, it’s just been a great resource for me, especially being in the Houston law librarian community and attending AALL. You realize I attended the chapter leadership training this year at AALL, and you have some… This year, they divided the groups into large associations, medium, and then small. And you realize there are some huge organizations within AALL, but HAL would be considered a medium-sized organization. We have about 100 members, but just a great group, great librarian community. I mean, a lot of the librarians in it have seen me grow up literally from a child to a man with a wife. And a senior in college and a seven-year-old. So it’s been a great resource for me. That’s like family right there. Yeah, definitely. It is my law librarian family and the professional development opportunities, the camaraderie of the group. We do a lot of great things. We have a volunteer event every year that we do. So we’ve done a lot of great things volunteering in the community. We’re doing some really cool things. We just started a book club with the Dallas area law librarians, and that is actually DOW, not DAW. And it introduced me to more possibilities and introduced me to AALL. I think if you’re starting as a law librarian, it’s great to join AALL, but you also want to become a part of your local law library association. And I think it speaks to me kind of doing uncomfortable things because initially when I came back to… I was gone from law libraries about five years. And when I came back, I got right back in the hall. I started out as the chair for the scholarships and grant committee, and then they kept asking me to do more. No good deed goes unpunished. Right, exactly. So last year I served as vice president, which was really interesting because as vice president, you do a lot of the legwork for the organization. And this year, serving as president of AALL, and I have a great board team, great vice president, Michael, and a great board, and just a great group of members who just kind of encourage you and inspire you to be the best you can be. So that’s what I’ve received from AALL and kind of transitioned to me as I do things on more of a national level, AALL. And this guy here, Greg, he’s kind of known Greg for a while since we were both so young when we started. We were both babies. I was even younger. But to see him as president of AALL and remember meeting him at Hall, so it was just really inspiring and it’s an inspiring group. inspiring, and it’s an inspiring group, which I truly love and cherish.
[00:38:59] Greg Lambert: Well, Andre, I’m sure you’re inspiring others, the new babies that are coming in.
[00:39:05] Marlene Gebauer: That’s right, that’s right.
[00:39:07] Greg Lambert: Well, Andre, thanks for taking the time to stop by and talk with us today. It’s been a pleasure.
[00:39:12] Andre Davison: Thank you, Greg and Marlene.
[00:39:14] Marlene Gebauer: Thank you for sharing your story with us. Much appreciated.
[00:39:17] Andre Davison: No, thank you. It’s pretty great. And congratulations on the 50th episode. I’m happy to be 51. So I’m looking forward to more great podcasts in the future.
[00:39:28] Greg Lambert: Yeah, 51 is a good number.
[00:39:30] Andre Davison: Yes.
[00:39:31] Marlene Gebauer: Greg, I really enjoyed speaking with Andre today and listening to his story, because I think it really reflects a lot of the opportunity that’s available to law librarians if they take the initiative. I mean, here he’s, you know, heavily involved in a substantial diversity initiative that’s winning awards. He, you know, recognized and listened to his clientele so that he’s come up with an award-winning solution where he actually got money to continue to develop it. And so there’s a lot of, you know, creativity that he’s shown here. And I hope that it’s an inspiration for our listeners.
[00:40:05] Greg Lambert: Yeah. And Andre’s been around here in Houston for a long time. Like, you know, we were joking that he started as a teenager, and he literally did. He’s been able to grow. He’s looked for opportunities. He’s put himself, as he mentioned, in uncomfortable positions in order to perform. And he’s done very well. And I think he gave us all a lot to think about. All right. So thanks, Andre, for talking with us today.
[00:40:50] Marlene Gebauer: And as always, the music you hear is from Jerry David DeSicca. Thank you, Jerry.
[00:41:18] Greg Lambert: All right. Thanks, Marlene. We’ll talk with you later.
[00:41:20] Marlene Gebauer: All right. Bye, Greg.