We have discussed the concept of the T-Shaped Lawyer on previous episodes, but we jump into a new concept this week called the Delta Model. Alyson Carrel from Northwestern Law School joins returning guest Cat Moon from Vanderbilt Law School’s Program on Law and Innovation to discuss this intriguing idea of helping lawyers understand the pyramid of skills surrounding understanding the law, business & operations, and personal effectiveness.
We suggest taking a look at this primer from Carrel, Moon, and other members of the Delta Model working group (Natalie Runyon, Shellie Reid, and Gabe Teninbaum) from Bill Henderson’s blog, Legal Evolution. This model of three principles, along with the ability to shift the center of importance for each skill set, helps explain, and guide the overall needs of the legal industry. Carrel and Moon give us an insider’s view of the model and explain why this concept will help with the holistic training of law students as well as practicing attorneys.
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Information Inspirations
In the article, Innovation, Disruption, and Impact: Should We All Jump Aboard the Legal Tech Hype Train? by Peter Melicharek and Franziska Lehner, the authors talk about the need to unwind the PR from the actual technology in the legal industry. The primary benefit of technology is to assist in achieving results by eliminating mundane tasks, and assisting in getting to better legal results, faster, and cheaper.
Once again… read the Delta Model primer. It’s so important, it is inspirational.
Can law firms actually create a four-day work week? One smaller firm in Florida says yes. ALM’s Dylan Jackson interviews the managing partner of Orlando based Benenati Law about how he has created a four-day work week, and three-day weekends, and the benefits they’ve discovered of this alternative work model. A recent Microsoft survey found a 40% increase in productivity in some of their four-day work schedules. Perhaps it could do the same at firms??
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Transcript
[00:00:00] Marlene Gebauer: Ready? Ready. Ready. Okay.
[00:00:05] Greg Lambert: Baby shark doo doo doo doo doo.
[00:00:18] Marlene Gebauer: 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.
[00:00:27] Greg Lambert: And I’m Greg Lambert. So, Marlene, in this episode, we bring in two participants in the Delta Model Working Group, which expands upon the T-shaped lawyer skill set, which we have covered a number of times on the show. Alyson Carrel from Northwestern Law School joins returning guest Cat Moon from Vanderbilt Law School’s Program on Law and Innovation to discuss this intriguing idea of helping lawyers understand the pyramid of skills surrounding understanding law, business and operations, and personal effectiveness.
[00:00:59] Marlene Gebauer: I think this is going to offer listeners some new perspective on what the future lawyer will need to look like. You know, there’s a lot of discussion out there in terms of whether lawyers need to be technologists or process experts or even business experts. And while the Delta Model touches on these things, it offers a slightly different and, dare I say, more realistic perspective of what we have to look forward to.
[00:01:25] Greg Lambert: Well, Marlene, we’ve been traveling a bit over the past week or so. And in fact, currently we are on location in Raleigh, North Carolina at the Lexis facility on the North Carolina State University campus.
[00:01:29] Marlene Gebauer: In fact, currently, we are on location in Raleigh, North Carolina, at the Lexus facility on the North Carolina State University campus. Yes, I’m actually writing all of this in my room and I am very, very grateful to be invited back and sharing the learning experience with colleagues and the creative team at Lexis.
[00:01:52] Greg Lambert: So I had the opportunity to go to San Diego last week and attend the ALM Strategic Technology Forum. So this was a bunch of CIOs and CKOs, and we met to discuss a number of issues surrounding law firm technology, knowledge management, and other strategies on how to properly implement tech in a strategic manner at large law firms. It was a great location, and I got to go talk with a number of people who are normally outside of my normal circles. And one of the things that I noticed though is that there’s still a, is a very male dominated area. But there are a number of recent entries and there are women who are getting a little more exposure for the work that they are doing at their firms. So for companies who are pulling these types of events together, it’s very important that they make every effort to diversify these panels and audiences.
[00:02:49] Marlene Gebauer: All right, so first I’ll say snaps to getting out and meeting people who are not in normal circles. I find this is extremely important for communications across different types of professional levels. So I think that’s great. And I think more conferences should do that.
[00:03:05] Greg Lambert: conferences should do that. Yeah, all the cool things are happening outside your social circles.
[00:03:11] Marlene Gebauer: Is that what they’re telling you?
[00:03:13] Greg Lambert: That’s what I’m telling myself.
[00:03:14] Marlene Gebauer: So sad. I’m also very glad to hear that, you know, there’s some, there’s some more women that are out there doing, doing their thing. Because I have to say, there are certainly many women in this space, and many of whom we’ve interviewed or know personally. And if you don’t believe me, ask Twitter. And while I don’t usually go to social media for these types of things, I’m serious about this. People will go ask the Twittersphere, who are the women experts in certain areas? And some excellent, excellent names get surfaced.
[00:03:52] Greg Lambert: All right, well, enough of our traveling tales. Let’s get to this week’s information inspiration. My first information inspiration is an article by a couple of Europeans in the legal industry. And this article has a number of great quotes. The overall gist is that we just can’t get caught up in the buzzwords and the attractiveness of what could be with technology, but should really focus on real impacts, no matter how small, that we could be making to improve legal processes for clients, lawyers, and even the general public. One of the quotes in this is that the legal business should concentrate on clients’ requirements rather than than celebrate itself for what it supposes to be innovation.
[00:04:43] Marlene Gebauer: So wait, no self-importance.
[00:04:44] Greg Lambert: No self-importance. You know, the PR can’t be greater than the technology that you’re actually doing.
[00:04:50] Marlene Gebauer: Exactly.
[00:04:51] Greg Lambert: So they also remind us that there’s a world of technological advancements out there that are not focused on the legal industry, but still have an impact. One of the other quotes is, technology is not automatically legal tech only because it’s now being used by lawyers. It definitely reminds me of something that our friend Ryan McLeod would say on this.
[00:05:14] Marlene Gebauer: So Greg, we’re speaking about the Delta model lawyer this week, and it was so timely that Bill Henderson actually posted an article on legal evolution about this. So first, a bit about Bill Henderson for anyone who doesn’t know about him. Bill is a professor and chair of the legal profession at Indiana University School of Law, the co-founder of the IFL LP, and editor of Legal Evolution, which you all should be reading. Bill posted this article from Legal Evolution about the origin of the Delta model lawyer. Now, I would suggest you read it before listening, first to get the background, how a group of professionals came together and evolved over time, just as the model did. So it’s dynamic depending on your role. the podcast, because Bill has put together an extensive bibliography so you can go deeper in this area. I will say that listeners should really have a working knowledge of this model and start to think about how it can be applied. It’s really not difficult to grasp. In fact, as Einstein said, they made it as simple as possible, but not simpler. And once you hear it, it makes a lot of sense. And it seems doable.
[00:06:41] Greg Lambert: I thought Einstein said they made it so simple, even lawyers can understand it.
[00:06:45] Marlene Gebauer: You know, I think he said that, too.
[00:06:47] Greg Lambert: One side note on Bill Henderson is a lot of people may recognize him because he was on an episode with Malcolm Gladwell on the revisionist history talking about taking when Gladwell took the LSAT.
[00:07:00] Marlene Gebauer: That’s right. Fun fact.
[00:07:02] Greg Lambert: So my second information inspiration asked the question, can a four- day work week actually work in a law firm? And one Florida firm says, yes.
[00:07:13] Marlene Gebauer: Okay, so first of all, was that Florida man that said it? And secondly, I say, yes. And HR, are you listening?
[00:07:24] Greg Lambert: Marlene, you may have seen the Microsoft report that came out about a four-day work week that improved worker productivity by a staggering 40%.
[00:07:33] Marlene Gebauer: I did.
[00:07:34] Greg Lambert: Well, then let’s bring that into law firms.
[00:07:37] Marlene Gebauer: Let’s do that.
[00:07:38] Greg Lambert: I imagine that most of the listeners right now are smirking and shaking their head that they heard that saying there’s no way law firms are just about grinding out those hours. and work till you drop. But maybe not. Dylan Jackson from ALM and a previous guest on the Geek & Review a few weeks ago, he talked with Walter Beninati, who is a managing partner and founder of an Orlando, Florida based firm called Beninati Law. and how he kicked off 2019 by shortening the workweek at his 24 employee firm to four days. Most workers now work a 10 hour day, four days a week and take Fridays off. A few of the employees still work traditional five day work weeks because they prefer it. But Beninati says that he’s seen absolutely no drop off in productivity and that people are more refreshed on Mondays when they come in. So while this model might not work for all law firm situations, there is some value in looking at breaking up the standard nine to five, five day work schedule and looking at better ways to use your employees time and effort that makes sense for everyone. You know, I’d love to have a Friday or a Monday off.
[00:08:57] Marlene Gebauer: What day would you take off?
[00:09:00] Greg Lambert: Yeah, I would definitely love that too.
[00:09:02] Marlene Gebauer: And my feeling on this is I think if people are doing meaningful, engaging work in an environment where they’re appreciated, they’re always going to give more than what is expected. And that said, part of creating the work and environment is to understand that there’s in fact more than just work for employees’ happy life. I think people will choose differently based on what they need, and I think we should have different offerings that balance out work needs of the organization. I have yet another podcast for our listeners to try if they enjoy design and UX discussion. Wireframe is a, and I’m quoting, high quality storytelling podcast about design. specifically user experience design. And this is brought to you by Gimlet Creative, who we know and we’ve talked about before, and Adobe. And the host is Coy Vinh. First of all, why is it all of these creative people have these great cool names like Coy? I want to be Coy. And he’s the principal designer at Adobe. You know that when I was doing my master’s, my program was highly focused on user design and human-computer interaction. So what makes design clear or unclear, likable, or frustrating to people? And what’s really cool about this podcast is that the story is all around stuff that people use all the time and how it impacts them. people use all the time and how it impacts them, like how and why design has changed like how and why design has changed over time with dating apps, or what’s important in the design of video games. Some of what’s revealed is really not necessarily what you would expect. Some of what’s revealed is really not necessarily what you would expect. It’s really an engaging learning experience, and I would recommend it. It’s really an engaging learning experience, and I would recommend it.
[00:10:54] Greg Lambert: Sounds like fun. Sounds like fun.
[00:10:55] Marlene Gebauer: Yeah. Yeah. And with that, that wraps up our information inspirations. And that wraps up our information inspirations.
[00:11:04] Greg Lambert: In the old days, we used to just train law students to understand the law and to think like a lawyer. In the old days, we used to just train law students to understand the law and to think like a lawyer. like a lawyer. While this may still be the primary goal of law schools, there are other skill sets which the industry is demanding that freshly minted lawyers have before they start practicing. While this may still be the primary goal of law schools, there are other skill sets which the industry is demanding that freshly minted lawyers have before they start practicing. We reached out to Allison Carroll from Northwestern Law School and our now three-time guest, Kat Moon, from Vanderbilt to discuss a new model of training they and a working group have created called the Delta Model. We reached out to Allison Carroll from Northwestern Law School and our now three-time guest, Kat Moon, from Vanderbilt to discuss a new model of training they and a working group have created called the Delta Model.
[00:11:35] Marlene Gebauer: Great conversation. Great conversation. Let’s go. Let’s go.
[00:11:37] Greg Lambert: We’d like to welcome Allison Carroll and Kat Moon to today’s show. We’d like to welcome Allison Carroll and Kat Moon to today’s show. Allison is the Clinical Associate Professor of Law and Assistant Director for the Center on Negotiation and Mediation at Northwestern Law School. Allison is the Clinical Associate Professor of Law and Assistant Director for the Center on Negotiation and Mediation at Northwestern Law School. And Kat Moon is well-known to our regular listeners. And Kat Moon is well known to our regular listeners. I think this is your third show, Kat?
[00:12:02] Marlene Gebauer: Yes.
[00:12:03] Greg Lambert: And Kat is the Director of Innovation Design for Vanderbilt Law’s Program on Law and Innovation, or POLI. We’re very happy to have you both on the Geek & Review. So welcome.
[00:12:15] Marlene Gebauer: Thanks so much, Greg. So over the past few episodes, we have mentioned the T-Shaped Lawyer, which was coined by Davis Wright Tremaine’s Imani Smathers when she was at Michigan State Law School. Smathers defined the T-Shaped Lawyer as, a T-Shaped Lawyer has deep expertise, the long vertical bar of the T, but also has enough knowledge of and appreciation for other disciplines. So that’s the shallower horizontal bar of the T, such as technology, business, analytics, and data security to better problem-solve and collaborate with professionals with expertise in those areas.
[00:12:51] Greg Lambert: So Allison and Kat, along with a research team of other scholars, built upon this model to define what is known as the Delta Model competency for today’s modern lawyer. All right. That’s enough for us talking. Allison, would you mind walking us through how the Delta Model works?
[00:13:10] Alyson Carrel: Absolutely. Thanks again for having us both on the show and giving us a chance to talk about this new model. As you both mentioned, we built the Delta Model off of the T-Shaped Lawyer that Imani Smathers coined, with the idea being that the T-Shaped Lawyer provided a model for people to understand some of the new skills that law professionals need in order to be successful in the 21st century. And we just added a third side. So the Delta Model is essentially comprised of three competency areas. The law, the legal knowledge and skills traditionally related to the practice of law. That relates to the vertical bar of the T. Then you have the right side of the T, which relates to the delivery of legal services. This is equivalent to the shallow horizontal bar of the T. So those skills related to technology, business, data analytics. And then the third area is personal effectiveness skills, an area that many of us have been promoting as part of the practice of law for years, but it’s becoming increasingly important for us to shine a spotlight on, given the increasing use and reliance on technology in the practice of law. So the three areas come together to form a triangle, which looks like the Greek alphabet letter of the alphabet, the Delta, which can also mean change. So we purposefully used the Delta to try to capture what we’re seeing in the legal profession, the changes that we’re seeing, but also to reflect changes that individuals will experience over time in the legal profession, individually and at their organization.
[00:15:01] Greg Lambert: Very clever.
[00:15:02] Marlene Gebauer: So the T-shaped lawyer has the law knowledge and the tech and process skills, but the third side of this triangle is the interpersonal skills. And why is this so important to include in the Delta model?
[00:15:17] Alyson Carrel: It’s really important to add this third area for a couple of different reasons. So historically, there has been a movement to talk about the relationship lawyers have with their client and client-centered lawyering, that we are, at its heart, a service profession. And so, utilizing skills related to emotional intelligence, the ability to understand, relate to our clients has always been important. But in the 21st century, as lawyers and organizations are starting to use more artificial intelligence and data analytics to inform some of our decisions, the distinguishing value that we as the human lawyers present is our ability to sit with clients and help them understand that data and how that data informs what decision they should make and how to play out that decision. So we need to counsel our clients. We need to understand the context in which these decisions are being made. And that relationship, as a trusted advisor, as a counselor, relies on our ability to understand and relate to and empathize with our client. So we felt that it was important to pull out the personal effectiveness skills from what is traditionally, hopefully, been understood as part of the delivery of legal services. To really shine a spotlight on it, given that this is the area that’s going to be, increasingly, our distinguishing value that we present.
[00:16:54] Marlene Gebauer: You know, we hear that those that are newer to the profession are innately tech savvy or digital natives, yet I’m sure if you spoke with some of the aligned professionals at firms, they would tell you that these attorneys have not had exposure to the tools that they’re going to be using. They do not know how they can be effectively used. They don’t understand the cost of the tools. And what I mean by cost is the entire cost of the time spent using them or developing them along with any actual hard cost. Now, I don’t want to suggest that the focus should be specifically on branded tools because those change over time. But the general uses for groupings of tools, whether that be tools that support analytics or tools that support contract management, along with generally how they work, the core differences between them in terms of the tech used or the content set that is part of it. Is this happening as part of the Delta model training?
[00:18:00] Cat Moon: I would say I can speak to how we are addressing those in Poly. And I think that we have an approach that other schools across the country, I know Allison definitely can speak to this from her experience at Northwestern. from her experience at Northwestern, but as kind of a precursor to that, I would say that our work in the Delta model is nascent, and so we have been in the process with the support of Thomson Reuters of conducting research to kind of understand what some baselines are in existing practice. And I think part of the real power of the Delta model is our belief that the skills and competencies required will continue to evolve, and so really that concept of change and agility, I think, is critical, and that really goes to your question about technology. So, from my perspective and how we approach it in Poly, the value comes from teaching young lawyers how to have a genuine curiosity about technology, and along with that, an understanding of what various technologies exist, so more categories as opposed to branded tools, but categories and how they serve really to empower the delivery of legal services and the ability, really our ability to function and think like lawyers. Our goal in Poly is always to build in experiential opportunities with technology as part of the coursework. We endeavor to integrate it so that the students are doing the work, leveraging technology of a type that would be relevant in a similar practice situation, so that they are gaining an understanding of the scope and capability. So, I think it’s really important to teach young lawyers about the possibilities of different technologies in relevant instances of their use. For me, I think also helping them really develop a genuine curiosity and a desire to learn, coming at it from, I guess, a very positive place as opposed to the fear, and I hesitate to use the word loathing, but sometimes the loathing as well that I think practicing attorneys sometimes express. And I think it’s relevant to point out here as well, and I will reference a visit that Nikki Shaver, who the Director of Innovation at Paul Hastings, who was on, I think, the last podcast conversation I had with you all, she joined in that conversation. So, she just visited my class at Vanderbilt actually this week, and one point she made, and I think we’ve just got to consider this in terms of young lawyers coming in, even if they have these really great mindsets and are open and have this knowledge about technology, often the environment in which they enter does not support their exploration and curiosity about technology. So, the billable hour often can have the opposite effect. So, Paul Hastings actually has a program whereby young associates can get essentially credit for billable hours by being engaged in programs that Nikki puts forward to look into new technology and integrate them into the practice. And so, I think we definitely can provide some training and create some healthy mindsets, and then when our young lawyers get into the practice, some things need to happen there as well for their, you know, I think their continued development so that they remain curious as opposed to becoming sort of fearful.
[00:21:51] Greg Lambert: Well, that’s great. Yeah, I know at the law firm level that professional development is becoming much more ingrained, especially in the first few years. The old dogs at the firm are being taught that things like business development can’t wait five years before we start exposing them, that we’ve got to start immediately. As much as the industry would love to get off of the billable hour, it’s still the nature of the game. And by adjusting some of the things to allow them to have credit for billable time, doing professional development I think does a couple things. One, it pulls the pressure off of the associates on, if I’m doing this, then I’m going to miss out on my bonus at the end of the year. And two, it also shows that the law firm is really putting some of their own money behind. You know, they’re putting the money where their mouth is. The one thing that I want to turn this around and put it back on the law school is because, Allison, your cohort, Daniel Rodriguez there at Northwestern, as much as he would love for things like this to really take off, he meets the reality of the fact that there’s still a mission of the law school. And the mission of the law school is to make sure that they’re training lawyers to be ΓÇô or training law students to be lawyers, training them to have enough information to pass the bar and be out there. And so things like this, how do you get the faculty to buy onto this type of concept, which really does kind of shift the focus of the law school on the normal mission and allows them to create a holistic approach of training law students to face the legal profession? So how do you handle that?
[00:23:49] Alyson Carrel: Well, I think it’s a great question, and there’s very few examples of law schools that have, as an institution and as a faculty, have realized and adopted this more holistic approach. But we have tons of examples of initiatives, large and small, across law schools where students are being put in the seat where they’re having to be curious, where they’re having to engage, where they’re having to learn new technologies, assess those technologies, and that specific platform’s ability to meet the need of a client. So we have examples of a ton of different types of innovation labs at schools where students are partnering with outside firms, legal service organizations, to design a solution that might include technology. This is one of the selling points to some faculty. Technology’s not always the answer, right? People first. We have to understand what that problem is and where technology can be the solution. Then the students have to be prepared to analyze, assess, evaluate, build those tech tools. In addition, though, I would share, so I have played the role at the law school as our assistant dean of law and technology. I’m passionate about this area, but my background’s really in dispute resolution, which is all about the face-to-face.
[00:25:15] Greg Lambert: I was going to say, that’s a valuable skill to have there.
[00:25:18] Alyson Carrel: Yeah, that’s right, that’s right. So in my classes, we’re doing negotiation simulations, mediation simulations, where the students are sitting together and trying to use strategies and processes to resolve disputes. That’s part of the Delta model, so that’s important, but your question was about the technology. So even in those classes, you can incorporate technology in ways that require students to flex that tech fluency muscle, where I introduce to them a new tool, they have to quickly learn it, they have to assess whether or not it would actually enhance the situation or the process that they’re using, and then talk about it afterward. So it’s the learning, it’s the using, and then the evaluating that you can implement even in classes like negotiation and mediation that I teach.
[00:26:11] Marlene Gebauer: So it’s critical thinking, basically, is what you’re teaching them, which can be applied across a variety of areas.
[00:26:21] Greg Lambert: Right. Well, my thoughts were, even separate from the technology, do you get feedback from the law professors that say, look, I’m here to teach the law and how they can understand the law, all this touchy-feely personal skills stuff? Hey, go learn that somewhere else. I’m here to teach you property law or contracts. Don’t make me change my method just because people feel like we need to touch the soul of the student in order to make them a better lawyer.
[00:26:56] Marlene Gebauer: Yeah, I mean, we got to focus strictly on theory because this is the only place they’re going to get that.
[00:27:01] Greg Lambert: Sorry, I was funneling my old torts teacher there, by the way.
[00:27:05] Cat Moon: It sounded a little personal, Greg.
[00:27:11] Greg Lambert: That was pretty specific. I should probably explain.
[00:27:14] Cat Moon: Well, I’ll hop in really quickly to say that as part of our work with the Delta model, we are conducting research. So we’re asking the people who hire our graduates, what are you looking for? And increasingly, they are looking for young lawyers who have these very critical personal effectiveness skills. And often that rates as high, if not more, more highly than the practice skills of thinking like a lawyer and all that goes around along with that. So I think we cannot ignore the fact that we are preparing students for a profession and entering that profession requires exercising these skills, often at a fairly high level. So does that mean that everyone on the law school faculty has to buy into reimagining how they teach in order to impart these skills? I don’t think so. I think that there are in the existing pedagogical heuristic, there are a number of opportunities. So clinics, the courses in poly, the courses that Allison teaches, you find those or similar ones across the spectrum across law schools. I think what we can do that really is important is to more fully embrace and acknowledge the value that these skills bring and where it is appropriate and where it is possible to give students the opportunity to have those skills modeled for them, to give them the opportunity to really affirmatively acknowledge what it looks like to practice these skills and the opportunity to practice them. We certainly can do a better job of expanding that across the law school curriculum, in my observation.
[00:29:08] Greg Lambert: Hear, hear. That kind of dovetails nicely into my next question, which, so I’m going to make a very large generalization about a group of people, so I’m just going to ask for forgiveness right now. But with students that you have in law school now, especially those who will wind up in big law firms or will go out and be clerks and then go on to either big law or Wall Street or K Street jobs, these are people who have had a lot of success in their lives. However, they are also of the generation who are just simply not afraid to call out problems and try to right the wrongs that they see. But the biggest issue is that most experts agree that they won’t necessarily use the traditional chain of command to voice this displeasure. They will go straight to the top of the organization and lodge their complaints.
[00:30:08] Marlene Gebauer: And I want to piggyback on this a bit. So sort of this communication theme, students and newer lawyers communicate mostly through text. This is often seen as impersonal, sometimes not the most effective sort of communication. You know, if you’re going back and forth with text, it’s often more effective to speak directly to resolve the issue. You know, going back to Greg’s point, there are different ways this newer crowd communicates.
[00:30:35] Greg Lambert: Yeah. And then the behavior is really kind of what I’m looking at because of the interpersonal skills side of the Delta model. This type of interpersonal skills are exactly the opposite of what we expect in a big law environment. We expect people to follow the chain of command, to follow the rules, even though we’re not very good at telling them what the rules are.
[00:31:01] Marlene Gebauer: To pick up the phone, to have face-to-face communication.
[00:31:06] Greg Lambert: That is a very long way about asking this question. When these students land at their first job in legal, whose personality adjusts? Do they need to adjust their skills on how they go and approach this? Or are law firms going to have to adjust and understand that there’s just a new interpersonal skill set out there that you can fight it, but eventually it’s going to win?
[00:31:33] Alyson Carrel: Oh, so it’s fascinating, right? Because I think all professions and all businesses are hitting this where the generational clash is saying, this is the way that we do things. And the new generation comes in and says, nope, that’s not the way we’re going to do it. And so I see.
[00:31:50] Greg Lambert: Or they just say, okay, boomer.
[00:31:54] Alyson Carrel: With the roll of the eye. So I think we need a strategy that allows both to change. So we need to look at examples, highlight examples of leadership that is progressive and sees the benefit of doing things differently. So looking at the Dentons, the Baker McKenzie’s, the Paul Heasings, and how they’re changing in success that they have. So it makes me think of Dan Linna’s innovation index and how we’re trying to give a platform to say this is a positive and we’re going to put it out there so that other people can see and be motivated by this. He doesn’t call it a ranking, but this index. And then from the other side, however they do it, whether they go straight to the top. Or they work through the chain of command, or they just, they just do things differently without even complaining. They are the millennial generation is now the largest generation and it is going to force change in our legal education, in our professions, in the law firms. And it’s just, it’s going to be required. Clients are going to become, we’re going to start to see our client base differently. They’re going to be from the millennial generation. They’re going to be demanding these different approaches to communication, to accessibility. And so I think, first of all, I just think this change is going to happen, whether it’s an adaption from the top or from the new lawyers as they graduate, we cannot ignore this force of change from the millennial generation. It’s going to force change.
[00:33:41] Marlene Gebauer: So too bad, boomers. That’s what I’m hearing.
[00:33:48] Alyson Carrel: Well, and Generation X, I mean, we’re all.
[00:33:55] Greg Lambert: Generation X is perfect.
[00:33:56] Alyson Carrel: Yeah, we were wonderful.
[00:34:00] Marlene Gebauer: You know, I’m listening to this and I’m really seeing a serious potential for culture clash here, you know, based upon, you know, what we’re talking about, generational differences. and based on the current model and what is valued there versus what may be valued in the future. And, you know, a common theme on the podcast is, you know, how are academics working with law departments or firms, bar associations, courts, governments, CLE providers, to establish a plan for change management. And I know both of you hit upon a couple of examples earlier, but it seems like it’s just sort of very beginning and it’s not as integrated, I guess, as all of us would probably like. Because there’s a lot of academic groups that are doing some really interesting things, but I always talk to people, either in legal departments or firms, and they’re not, they’re still not aware of what’s going on. And it seems unclear if there’s a real partnership with, the commercial and government side of the house. So is there this collaboration and how is it shaping up? Do you see what I did there? Shaping up. It’s so good.
[00:35:14] Cat Moon: So clever. Oh, this is Kat. I’ll chime in very briefly to say that I think traditionally there really hasn’t been a very strong connection between the practice and what happens in law school. very strong connection between the practice and what happens in law school. And I think those points of connection have existed in very specific places and definitely in clinics, but that’s not really a connection directly to the practice, I think the way that you’re referring to. And then there obviously is a connection once students are about to graduate and say the career services office really has been the primary connection to the practice. So I think there’s an incredible amount of opportunity for more flow of learning and conversation and collaboration to go back and forth. And that is a primary objective of mine at Vanderbilt. So I’ve been working really to build a network to connect into the practice kind of along the spectrum. to help understand, to really help our students understand how they can better be developing, using the Delta model, for example, be developing the skills that are really going to serve them well in practice and having this. really come directly from the mouths of people who are in the practice. So to it, bringing folks like Nikki Shaver in to talk to my students and having her say, here is what matters, here’s what’s important, here are the skills that you need to be focused on. So creating those opportunities for students to hear these things from practicing professionals and not just law professors. So I think that’s critical. There’s a lot more I could say on this topic because I’m rather passionate about it, but I would love to hear what Allison has to say.
[00:36:46] Marlene Gebauer: There’s a lot more I could say on this topic because I’m rather passionate about it, but I would love to hear what Allison has to say. Well, I want to just jump in before Allison gets started and say, I really like what you’re doing in addition to sort of bringing people in to speak to the students. I mean, you’re also bringing professionals in for their own types of conferences to make them aware sort of of what’s happening in your group and what you’re teaching. So I know you did failure camp and you’re doing a variety of other types of conferences just to get awareness up within the more commercial side of the house. So I think that’s great.
[00:37:22] Cat Moon: Thank you. We are definitely trying because I think that information flow needs to go both ways. Absolutely.
[00:37:27] Alyson Carrel: Yeah, shout out to Kat for those amazing conferences. Failure camp, Solly, you bring together such a diverse group of individuals from across the profession that those conversations are real and change can happen from them. We are at Northwestern. We have launched a new legal technology initiative with Dan, with the Dan’s, this one headed by Dan Linna. And starting with monthly meetings with folks from law firms, legal aid organizations, academics, as well as law students and students from our computer science program at the university with the goal of identifying where there’s an overlap in interest and then moving that that overlap of interest into a project. On a smaller scale, we have our innovation lab where we have outside organizations, commercial, government, legal aid, as well as individual clinics from within Northwestern presenting challenges in the delivery of legal services to students in the class. And the students in the class are really interdisciplinary. So I mentioned, like at the monthly meetings, it’s law students as well as computer science students. We also have our LLM students, which tend to be international practicing attorneys, as well as our Masters of Science and Law students that come to Northwestern for a year of study with a STEM background to look at how the law informs their profession. And they work in groups to partner with the outside organization to build a solution to whatever for a problem they have presented. So I think they’re, and we’re not the only innovation lab. This is just one example, but there are ways for us to integrate these different groups with the law schools and demonstrate to the students what’s possible, but then actually having them be part of the solution, which I think gets them just so jazzed, so excited. It’s really cool at the end of the semester to see what they’re able to create.
[00:39:42] Cat Moon: I just wanted to jump in and say yes to what Allison just said, giving students the chance to work on these real world problems with folks in the practice. And so my legal problem solving course does the same thing that’s my fall course happening right now. Teams of students are actually working with legal aid service providers in the administrative office of the court to solve these very real access to legal services problems that these organizations are facing and their solutions are going to be put out in the world and implemented. So it’s incredibly exciting and so much more meaningful for the students to work on real problems. So that interaction is key. So I’ve been teaching this course for three years and when I started, I went out into the world and asked people, please bring us your challenges and let my students help. They want to help you solve these problems. And most folks looked at me as if I had a third arm, a third eye coming out of the middle of my head. We don’t really understand. In part, I think because there hasn’t been this connection between law school and the practice. It’s just it’s still new to folks. I now have people coming to me and saying, I hear you have students who want to help us solve problems. And I’m like, yes. All right. That’s all I wanted to add. Thanks.
[00:41:03] Greg Lambert: I just had a vision of the Third Eye Raven from Game of Thrones and how people are still not understanding what that is. Well, you guys have talked about some of the tools that you use there at the law school on getting students up to speed, understanding this, using real world issues and creating tangible things that they see at the end of the semester. What suggestions would you have for how law firms or once the student is out practicing, that they continue this education? What are some tips that you can give us to maintain this and continue this lifelong learning?
[00:41:49] Cat Moon: To circle it back around to the Delta model, I think that, again, our work on the model is still nascent. We’re still conducting research and kind of building out what this means. We really hope it’s going to be a tool that anyone, a law student, can use to plan his or her progression through law school to really make intentional choices. And often really intentional guidance isn’t necessarily part of the planning process for law students. And so to create that and then really to be a valuable tool for practicing legal professionals to use as they consider their own journey, where they want to go, what their goals are. And what different roles they may have the opportunity to fill will require. And that’s really the beauty of the agility of the model, understanding that different roles will require different skill sets and give folks opportunity to work on building different skills. So Vanderbilt does have a professional development platform for practicing legal professionals, the Poly Institute. And so we offer our innovation curriculum to folks out in the practice so that they can come and experience these methods and tools in a very hands-on way with the goal that they can take these back into their organizations. and use them and also use them for their own professional continuing development. It’s my hope as we get further into our work in the Delta model that we are going to create some very tangible, meaningful, practical tools for people across the spectrum of their development that they can use to really be intentional and to help guide them in where they choose to put their efforts in professional development and hopefully to guide people who create content for professional development. There’s a lot out there and it can sometimes be hard to figure out where to go for what. So that’s really one of my strong passions right now is to start working on creating these tools. And we have some pilots that we are planning in some different places, legal departments, law firms, and with our students. to start experimenting with some of these tools and hopefully fine tune those and get them out into the world so that people can use them. I believe a person who plans their professional development and executes it intentionally is more likely to thrive and have a much more satisfying practice. And we need more of that in the law as well.
[00:44:25] Alyson Carrel: One of the things that as part of these pilots that we’re trying to develop is a tool that embodies a growth mindset. So we can use the Delta model to reflect on the skills that we currently bring to the table, as well as the skills that we need to develop, as opposed to saying what our shortcomings are or predefine what type of job we should be in based on our current skill set. We’re hoping that the Delta model and the corresponding assessment tool can help an individual plan out their professional development, as Kat was describing, to be intentional about curricular choices while in law school or additional training certificates when they’re out in practice, that there’s always opportunities for growth. There’s always a way to change and explore, and that we are not defined or limited to a single path. The Delta model really can reflect multiple different paths within the legal profession. And I think Kat and I try to be very intentional about the use of the word legal profession instead of, or legal professional as opposed to lawyer, so that we can reflect the variety of jobs that exist and that are growing besides the traditional role of lawyer. And the Delta model can reflect those other paths as well.
[00:45:55] Marlene Gebauer: And I think that that’s excellent because again, it sort of leads to the whole idea of teams and appreciation for those with those other types of skills that are basically supporting the practice and sort of having that experience in law school. Well, I’m really interested in what you both have said about this, because I think it dovetails nicely into my question here. You know, a challenge, and I will say attorneys, because it’s usually attorneys that are doing this, this type of role, is that they may not often know how to effectively sell some of these new ideas. So selling the idea of, you know, hey, our attorneys are Delta model attorneys, and this is why it’s important to clients. And, you know, I feel that there’s a significant opportunity there for, you know, communication that’s been lost. So how do we improve upon that?
[00:46:53] Alyson Carrel: Well, so I think it’s important to figure out who we are selling this model to. And when we first started this project, one of our goals was to better understand and visualize and capture the skills that clients are seeking in the 21st century. What do clients expect from lawyers? And so if we’ve got it right with these three areas, then it should be a very easy sell. The initial idea behind the three areas was they’re hiring a legal professional, so they better know the law. Since the Great Recession, they’re asking for us to do things faster, cheaper, better, and where process improvement, project management, data analytics, technology is going to help that. Lawyers had better have an awareness, the right side. And if we are focused on a client centered model, then the personal effectiveness becomes paramount. Hopefully, it’s a pretty easy sell. The hard sell is changing hiring practices to be based on the Delta model competencies and not law school rankings and grades and law review. And then to change legal education so that we are, this goes back to like the earlier questions, but we’re valuing a more holistic understanding of the skill set necessary to succeed. I think we’re seeing examples of that happening. And law firms do want to embrace this and organizations that do want to embrace this, but we’re hoping that this actually becomes an easy sell for clients.
[00:48:43] Greg Lambert: Well, a lot of law firms really stress their culture. And I think that if they look at it as a way of finding the potential candidates that best fit the culture of the firm, I think that that’s one way of selling it. And so I do want to, I want to finish up with a question. I want to get back to the Delta model itself, the concept. And so we talked about the Delta model as a triangle with the three sides, but it’s more of a three dimensional shape, sort of like a pyramid. The coolest thing about this is that it’s not a static shape, that the top of the pyramid shifts based on the current situation facing the Delta shape lawyer skills. So can you give us some examples of where it’s necessary for the individual lawyer to push that center point to one or two sides and where you’re maybe less focused on the law and you’re more focused on the technology and interpersonal or any of the other two combinations?
[00:49:55] Alyson Carrel: Sure. So, yeah, so the Delta model, if you imagine, placing a midpoint in the center of the triangle and then being able to drag that midpoint around, you can change the surface area that is associated with each of the three sides of the triangle to reflect the differing degrees and depth of skill that someone needs to have depending on their position. reflect the differing degrees and depth of skill that someone needs to have depending on their position. So examples. One might be as a traditional first year associate, This was a quote from some of our recent research through Thomson Reuters. Some law firms, they want to hire the stellar brief writer. They’re not going to have a lot of client interaction and they’re not going to be doing a lot of innovation with their knowledge management team or the knowledge management team is so robust that the individual first year associate doesn’t have to have the breadth of skill there. So we just take the midpoint of the Delta and drag it so that the surface area related to the business and operations side or the personal effectiveness becomes smaller. And the surface area related to the law becomes that much bigger. Versus somebody who might be going into legal operations, might be a legal solutions architect, where their first priority isn’t necessarily providing legal advice, but they absolutely need to understand the law in order to come up with a legal solution, innovative legal solution. But they need to have a lot more skills in this data analytics technology process improvement side. And so we just move the center of the triangle to reflect a larger area related to the side of business and operations. I’ll just say that the shifting midpoint of the Delta allows it to reflect these different positions because the corresponding surface area can become smaller or larger. So it can visualize the different skills that people are going to need. And it’s not finite, right. So we’re talking about a first year associate today and a legal solutions architect, a position that’s still relatively new. There’s going to be new positions that are started in 10 years that develop from some other new innovation. The Delta model can shift to reflect that. So we think this model is not only static based on an individual’s position, but it’s not static in this moment of time.
[00:52:29] Cat Moon: is not only static based on an individual’s position, but it’s not static in this moment of
[00:52:35] Alyson Carrel: Cat has also been looking at it from a point of view, not just of the individual, but of teams. I don’t know, Cat, if you want to just talk a little bit about the dynamic aspect related to teams.
[00:52:48] Cat Moon: Yes. So I think one of the greatest values of creating a visual model is that it really is making much more concrete and known and understood what different legal roles require. And so, entering the legal profession has often been a black box for our students. And so I’m not really sure what it means to go into the practice of law and pursue a specific path in terms of exactly what competencies are required. If you go to law school, a traditional law school experience, you think, oh, I just need to think like a lawyer because that’s primarily what we train folks to do. So we’re hoping in part that the visual aspect and the nuance and the detail that the model reveals gives people a much better understanding of what it means to pursue a specific path. You know, some folks who pursue a path that I would call very, like a technical legal operator, so a brief writer, if this person actually needs a lot of interpersonal interaction, they may find that that work is actually very lonely. And so part of it is understanding your own self and being able to figure out, is that path really going to be a good path for me? And bringing that around to the concept of the teams, you know, my observation is that the nature of legal work is moving more and more into a very intentionally collaborative space. And it needs to, frankly. There’s a whole body of research that supports why we should be working much more collaboratively in multidisciplinary teams. And so understanding where you fit, where your role fits, and also having self-awareness of your own strengths, and what you contribute when it comes to a team dynamic is really critical in creating an effective team and a team where the team members thrive. And so you can map a group of people on the Delta, really, to see what individuals are bringing in order to design a team that’s going to be highly functional. And again, this just goes back to my initial point that one of the primary superpowers of the Delta model is that we make it really easy to reveal and understand what those different competencies are on the individual and the team level, and gives everyone a point of reference that takes it out of the black box and makes it very concrete and visual. So hopefully that value will prove to have practical application. And we’re working again on some pilots and some case studies so that we can show that.
[00:55:33] Greg Lambert: I like the superpower of the Delta model. So now when students graduate and they’ve gone through this, we’ll just add a cape onto their gown with a big triangle on the back.
[00:55:45] Marlene Gebauer: No capes, no capes, no capes.
[00:55:50] Cat Moon: How about, yeah, how about a crown?
[00:55:52] Greg Lambert: There we go. Crown is better, crown is better. Well, Alice and Carol of Northwestern Law School and Kat Moon from Vanderbilt Law, I want to thank you both for taking the time to talk with us today. This has been just fantastic having you on to talk about this.
[00:56:07] Marlene Gebauer: Yeah, I’ve really enjoyed this, really looking forward to hearing new developments in this area. Thank you both so much for having us.
[00:56:14] Cat Moon: Yeah, thank you. It’s always a blast to talk with you guys. Thanks so much.
[00:56:23] Greg Lambert: It was great talking with both Allison and Kat. I actually told Kat that if she comes onto the show a total of five times, that we need to get her a Geek & Review lounge jacket, just like they do on Saturday Night Live.
[00:56:38] Marlene Gebauer: Greg, I hate to break it to you, but we don’t have lounge jackets.
[00:56:43] Greg Lambert: I’m thinking about stealing something here at the hotel.
[00:56:46] Marlene Gebauer: Do you think she might settle for a cupcake?
[00:56:48] Greg Lambert: Maybe, or a crown.
[00:56:49] Marlene Gebauer: Yeah, crown, crown, tiara.
[00:56:51] Greg Lambert: Yeah, everyone likes a tiara.
[00:56:53] Marlene Gebauer: Sure, I do. But now that you’ve said it, you know, maybe we do need to have some merch. All right.
[00:57:00] Greg Lambert: Something else to think about.
[00:57:02] Marlene Gebauer: So let me just recap about a couple of things I like about the Delta model. It’s a, and I’m quoting from Bill Henderson’s article, common touchstone for law schools, legal employers, and clients, which means teamwork, discussion, and representation of the various interests. It is flexible and can be applied to traditional and non-traditional roles in legal. So I looked at Bill’s article and you can see how the sides stretch and retract depending on the role. Now I’m curious to know what mine looks like. And my final point is a question for recruitment. Are you listening and are you recruiting based on this principle? Because you probably should.
[00:57:51] Greg Lambert: Yeah, I still think recruiting is one of the missing pieces that we have not brought in on the podcast.
[00:57:59] Marlene Gebauer: I agree.
[00:57:59] Greg Lambert: So if you’re in recruiting, be careful, we’re coming after you. It was great because you could tell the enthusiasm that they had and how they thought that this, or how they think that this is something that’s really going to change the way, on their level, they’re looking at the law school level, but you can get a feel for it on how the industry is changing and how something like this gives people the wording, gives them the words that they need to use in order to create these programs.
[00:58:32] Marlene Gebauer: Helps them frame the questions that they need to ask. And I mean, like I said, I mean, it makes sense. When you read it, it’s like, yeah, of course.
[00:58:42] Greg Lambert: All right. Well, make sure that you read Bill Henderson’s article. We’ll put a link to that on the show notes. And then once you read that, come back and re-listen to the podcast one more time.
[00:58:53] Marlene Gebauer: Exactly.
[00:58:53] Greg Lambert: Once again, thanks to Alison Carroll and Kat Moon for joining us today. I definitely learned a lot.
[00:58:59] Marlene Gebauer: Yeah, me too. And before we go, we want to remind listeners to take the time to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Rate and review us as well. If you have comments about today’s show or suggestions for a future show, you can reach us on Twitter at at GabeBauerM or at Glambert, or you can call the Geek & Review hotline at 713-487-7270 or email us at geekandreviewpodcast at gmail.com. And as always, the music you hear is from Jerry David Disica. Thank you, Jerry.
[00:59:39] Greg Lambert: Yeah, thanks, Jerry.
[00:59:40] Marlene Gebauer: All right, Marlene.
[00:59:41] Speaker F: I will talk to you later.